Upon Which Logic Rests

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"Long ago, and far away, I dreamed a dream one day,
and now, that dream is here beside me."

That is to say, long ago, and far away, I was taught a dream world, something before and around and in every plain and lovely thing. In addition to Santa and the Tooth Fairy--one of whom I think I probably did believe in--there were far-off places, shadowy places never really seen, but of certain existence.  We sang songs of what once was, and what forever would be.  In the meantime, we did our chores and went to school. 

In school, we Dick and Jane and Spotted our way toward reading.  We sat in awe of parts of speech, and tried to diagram them, an introduction to mysteries that elude me to this day.  We built tinker-toy models of atoms.  Atoms were like hornets nests with a steelie in the middle.  We solved algebraic equations, proving that X was Y I am not a mathematician. 

Parson--Hans Svinth--spoke aggressively, if not confidently, about God.  We were amazed at what we called the Holy Rollers who met in the Grange Hall, who reputedly fell to the floor when the Holy Spirit drove them out of their minds, something like the pigs in the Bible who were infested with epileptic demons. 

Now, almost every day, I read another article explaining why some people are religious, and others aren't; why some are conservative and others are liberal, some prone to paranoia, and others trusting.  It has nothing to do with other realities.  It has to do with genetic accident, or drift, with having been selected to live in a hunting-gathering culture, and with our life now in a globally interdependent swarm of relationships and new situations. 

It never occurred to us, in the dream world, that being religious might be a function of our need for permanence.  Religions slowed down the torrent of events, and gave us handholds, to keep us from being swept down the stream of whatever was happening.  We tied ourselves to what was immortal, invisible, and only wise.  It never occurred to us that, to the extent we were adventurous, curious, and open to something new, that permanence, eternal truths, comfortable habits were precisely what hindered us.  But they were.

In a savage world, it pays to be a little paranoid.  Anything different, anyone different, meant something strange, and strangers and strange things, even strange tastes, were a potential threat.  We ate what we had always eaten, talked to people like us, kept our distance from strangers, recited eternal truths and sang praise to eternal dreams.  But even in a savage world, the way out of it was to try something new. 

More and more, I look at what is happening politically and socially, and realize that what divides us is not so much social and political philosophy, but something lurking in our genes; something that whispers to us that new things are a threat, or that new things might be much better.  We come at things differently.  For some of us, what we are used to is safe; for others, what we have not tried, but ought to, are promising. 

We are awakening to what we are.  Much of our thinking, and language, and inclination, is not tied to something "out there".  It is what we are, how we evolved, and represents the diversity that sends us on wild goose chases, or digs us deeper into a hole.  In that respect, there is no conversation among equals.  There is what we have now:  a very large family, with common roots, and diverse understanding.

What is logical to each of us depends on something we feel.

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