Learning

In the fourth grade, Sr Mary Augusta asked her students if any of us had non-Catholic parents.  Looking out at the raised hands she said, “Oh, pray for them.” Thereafter, I looked at those classmates with special concern, imagining their turmoil in knowing one or both of their parents were destined for a different kind of eternity, and not a good one.  During that same year Vatican II determined that christians outside the catholic faith were also eligible for salvation. I don’t recall Sr Augustus updating the rules to her class.  Maybe she did, or maybe she needed time to accept the new doctrine for herself.  Decades later a friend would share his conclusion that it was not necessary to be catholic to have access to heaven, but it sure helped.  Such was the speed of accepting change.

Deep rooted beliefs are not replaced on a whim, the lessons learned early in life not easily abandoned.  We are products of our upbringing.  We aren't hatched from eggs laid by wayward mothers, the kind of beginning reserved for turtles or insects or some of the snakes.  We’re more like wolf pups, born into society and taught the ways of survival. We absorb our surroundings, the cultures and teachings embraced by those before us. 

Attitudes and prejudices have steered history from the start (thank you, Heather Cox Richardson). The 1776 proclamation that all men are created equal was written by and applied to white males. It excluded women, slaves, native and Mexican Americans, by popular assumption and perceived fact. Slaves, as everyone knew, were less than fully human, three fifths at best. The indigenous could be handled with treaties that were as solid as sieves.  Women were pigeonholed, treated as secondary citizens, denied basic rights.

And so our country was founded on beliefs and assumptions that were at times blatantly false and often unfair. Succeeding generations watched and listened and fell into cultural norms and prejudices that, clearly enough today, remain entrenched in our psyches.  Norms reinforced with time are tough to change.  The mindset that drove the industrial revolution, the exploitation of resources and labor, the profit driven, consequences-be-damned mentality that now threatens the earth’s ability to provide ecological services is embedded at a subconscious level, and remains influential to no small degree.  Many of us may now recognize the threat, but solutions requiring behavioral or lifestyle changes will have to wait.  Surely, we say, a technological remedy is near at hand and life will go on as before, only better.  

A FB friend recently posted a quote from Walt Whitman: “Re-examine all that you have been told… dismiss that which insults your soul.”  It’s not an easy mantra to embrace.  Moving along with the herd is where most of us find comfort.  We stick with what we believe is righteously proven, following cues from those before us. Besides, personal reflection and reviewing long held beliefs and standards requires effort, and it’s easier and more sensible to go with the flow and not make waves.

I’m an old white guy so am part of the generation who now occupy many top positions in government and sit on corporate boards carrying lifelong prejudices and outdated notions. Too many of us have never known anything else, and we’ve resisted the self examination that might bring our faults to light. What worked for dad and grandad works just fine for us, thank you.

Not everyone is so afflicted. Many youth today carry a huge promise. I see it in our sons, who claimed their right to independent thought at an early age and have continually opened my eyes to the error in my ways.  I won’t give them all the credit but will always appreciate their influence. And I’ll pass some credit to my wife, who has always been ready to take a stand against the status quo, especially when environmental concerns are involved.  With all this enlightenment comes recognition of the enormity of the task at hand.  We won’t save the world by planting a few trees, composting food waste and recycling water bottles.  The root of our problems run much deeper and require attitudinal and systemic change.  The newer generations, with novel thoughts toward home ownership and family and money, with eyes opened to impending cataclysmic environmental events brought on by their predecessors, are moving the baseline.  The majority recognize what lies before them and are scrambling to save their futures. 

We make mistakes. Our institutions make mistakes. It’s what happens and it’s unavoidable. But repeated mistakes that damage the earth’s ecological well being have put us in a new ballgame, and if solutions require systemic and attitudinal change, all the better.  Not easy, but better.  And mandatory.

There’s an old white man in the White House who seems to get it, and with a pen full of ink is following up on promises, spreading hope.  The majority of American voters put him there, so maybe this self examination thing is catching on.  Mary Augusta had the luxury of time to digest and contemplate the impact of Vatican II.  A few old white men and a world of youth see time running out.