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Just Thinking

Let us say, for instance, that you belong to two organizations that are of real interest to you:  you pay attention to them.  Let the first one be called, "Keepers of the Forest".  It is a group that meets regularly, elects committees to look into forest preservation, planting new trees, thinking about water issues, trails, and so forth.  The second group you belong to might be called, "The Good Life".  Good Life people have book clubs, dinner parties, have fund raisers for people in need, and always have a float in the Founders Day Parade at Midsummer.  It is fun to get together.

Let us say, for instance, that the Good Life Gang wants to make what had been a kind of accidental, but long, tradition of having weekend outings up at Lake Pleasant in the Big Woods a regular and summer-long vacation spot; maybe let people lease lots along the lake shore and build cabins and boat docks.  Not everyone can afford to fly to Disney World or Thailand.

"Oh, no!", the Board of the Keepers of the Forest reply.  "That would endanger our watershed, and ruin the natural balance so important for the forest, and for our own understanding of the natural world!"

"What is the point of having a forest if we cannot enjoy it?", the Good Life Gang asks.  "Are trees just for ash borers and logging companies?  Our kids need something to distract them from gangs and dope and taverns."

Finally, of course, it boils down to the question of who can tell whom what to do.  The Good Life Gang points out that they pay the salaries of the Keepers' Board, through their taxes, and the Keepers of the Forest put toll gates on all the roads up into the trees.  Declare fire hazards.  Water shortages.  Pollution problems.  Trash.

The Good Life people make it very plain that the Keepers of the Forest do not own the forest:  they are just elected and appointed to take care of it, as directed by the people.  Questions of the quality of life, and what the forest is ultimately for, are questions of what constitutes a good life:  "The Keepers of the Forest should stick to what they know best:  managing trees, as told!"

"And as for the suggestion from the Board of Keepers that they know what is best, not only for the trees, but the forest, maybe they ought to count their votes!"

It is rather that way.

It is the case that summer cabins tend to creep down to the lakeshore, and the sand beaches become private property.  The septic tanks are designed to discharge things downhill.  Longtime Board members do begin to think they know what is best for the lake and the forest and the water supply, and sometimes they do.  Sometimes they just get stubborn and snotty and imperial.

*   *   *

In many, many traditional societies, it is something like religion that articulates what life should be like, what men should be like, and how wives should respect their husbands.  Something like religion provides stories and picnics and ceremonies for celebrating new babies, and puberty, and getting married, and dying.  "Life," people who think about the good life say, "is about serenity, or pleasure, or being brave, or serving each other kindly, or getting rich and happy."

When human groups are successful, as they often are--human beings are remarkably clever--their population grows, and they run out of rabbits and deer to hunt and eat, and need more land to plant onions and potatoes and rye and corn.  They need more drinking water and trails and boats and bridges and communication networks, in order to make things work.  They appoint committees, and Keepers of the Forest.  "Write a constitution!", they say.  "Make some suggestions, and guidelines, and laws, else things will get completely out of hand!"  So they do.

But the Good Life people don't go away.  Some do, of course, but there are a lot of Good Life Gangs, because people hardly ever always agree exactly what the good life should be.  Most of them try to get the Keepers of the Forest to do things their way, because they think they know best.  And the Keepers of the Forest push back, when they can.  "You cannot give the lake away!", they say.  "You cannot allow just anybody who can afford a backhoe to strip coal from the hillside, and or dig a hole in the valley looking for oil and gas and copper!"

It is rather that way.  The people with the holy books recite what the ancient sayings are that have made them happy, and the people with the constitutions recite what the Second Amendment says.  The people with the hymns and holy books don't agree on much except that they are certainly right, and the people with the constitutions and regulations and tax codes argue with each other about what the Founding Fathers of the Keepers of the Forest intended.

*   *   *

Occasionally the Messiahs show up.  Some of them are religious, and some of them are political.

*   *   *

Personally, I am a believer, and I believe I will have another . . . (but you have heard that line).





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