The word “myopia,” is known to signify a challenging condition in which visual images focus on the front of the eye’s retina, resulting in an unclear vision of more distant phenomena. This conceit is been utilized, in the present writing to analogously, reference individuals who are intrinsically, unable or unwilling, to understand the logical, or probable, future outcome of their present actions, those who “cannot see the forest for trees.” Human history, it seems, has never been found wanting in examples of disastrous outcomes, fundamentally founded upon this human failing. A contemporary, and in fact, potentially, apocalyptic, example, is the inadequate response to the exigent future threat of global warming.
We, unequivocally, ascribe the etiology of this human defect to the individual’s inability, or failure, to exercise his natural capacity for reason. It is reasoning, itself, that is the means by which rational individuals understand information or conceptualize abstract concepts, such, as (our present, contextual) cause and effect as well as truth and falsehood. We have dedicated many of our diverse essays, fundamentally, to the existentially important, mission of humankinds’ development of reason, for which natural purpose, evolution has afforded him a brain, with potential for of the achievement of wisdom.
Moreover, we have been rationally, reconciled to the view that the salient concomitant of reason is the developed capacity for freedom and self-determination. This eternal principle reflects the ultimate aspiration of an evolving humankind and articulates the context for the present writing. Throughout our many essays, we have extolled the activities of reading, travel, engagement in personal and aesthetic pursuits, as well as responsible societal interaction, as the means to such advancement.
Reasonable minds, with ample justification, might celebrate the positive serendipity of being citizens of the American Nation. As such, they are members and protected participants, in a three- century, old experiment in political science; wherein for the first time, in the societal evolution of humankind, a Nation, “by, and for the People,” was created. History shows that, prior to such experiment, rule was autocratic and tyrannical, by Crown, Emperor or the Established Church. Freedoms and rights, meagre as they were, existed only at the sufferance of the autocrat, or his underlings.
Historically, the head of State was authorized, by the purported, “Devine Right of Kings,” an inculcated myth, propagated by a Country’s prominent social classes (Royal inheritance), conquest, viz., the bloody, mode of warlike ascendance to the throne, relevant to Emperors or, finally, the Established Church (Pope).History in Europe and elsewhere, reveals that under autocratic rule, the concept of individual rights and liberties, was non-existent or else, severely, limited and at the sufferance, of such autocratic leaders, or their designees.
In bright contrast, America’s “Bill of Rights,” guaranteed freedom from interference by the government, with the personal liberty and rights of the citizens of the newly created, Democratic Republic. Notably, the head of state and the representatives of the populace were to now, to be chosen by popular election, and to serve only for designated terms.
In the Trump era, large hordes of individual citizens, in cultish fealty to that orangutan-haired chief of State, were, emphatically, in accord with his disparagement of the integrity of democratic elections, his neurotic denigration of “Truth,” attacks on the responsible media, on education, science, and the signature American mantras of universal equality and National empathy. Such undemocratic and irrational policies, of the former President, still adored by his present acolytes, are indisputably, contrary to the interest of any citizen of our Nation, who has benefited from its assurance of democratic rights and liberties. The Trump sycophants evinced their accord with Trump’s “Big Lie,” as part of his autocratic disparagement of democratic elections, his attack on the media, approval of book banning, criminalizing of homosexuality, bias against designated groups of citizens, including the handicapped, his denigration of education and science and visible lack of moral compass. Consistent with our personal belief that reason is the capacity for freedom and self-determination, we, (perhaps, uncivilly) have descriptively, referred to these Americans as the “underbelly” of the Nation.
We have chosen to descriptively “diagnose” this (unfortunately, sizeable) group of “underbelly” citizenry, as suffering from chronic and crippling cases of acute myopia. It would be obvious, to anyone not so afflicted, possessing even a rudimentary, understanding the dynamics of “cause and effect,” that success in the undermining of popular elections, the media and public newspapers, freedom of speech, choice of literature, and, in general, our established rights and liberties as Americans, would, ineluctably, apply to the underbelly citizen, as fully as the present mainstream American. (See earlier essay, “Lemmings”). There are sufficient examples in history and, as well, in the contemporary world, to, healthily, focus on the tragic result in the event of the successful, attainment of their aspirations.
-p.
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