JUST SAY "NO."

I have been engaged with society as an adult for nearly 50 years. My younger self was shy and retiring. I had emerged from a home where I was the younger of two sons by over 6 yrs. I was also the youngest member of an extended family of six in our household. My American-born parents were old-school Europeans at heart. "Speak when you are spoken to." was a basic commandment of my childhood. And, in that household, I was not spoken to very often. But I was spoken at daily.

I emerged from my shell after I left graduate school midway through one stifling semester. This was my first experience of saying a loud "No!" in response to being channeled by older adults. A droning British dental lecturer was flashing slide after disgusting slide of rotted teeth at the front of an amphitheater when I rose and threw my textbooks into the air. "This is bullshit!" were my final words to that dental school.

Saying "No." to conformist compliance has always involved courage to some degree. Socrates swallowed hemlock to assert his commitment to his ethical framework. Many contemporaries swallow corporate indoctrination to avoid developing one. Human beings love to bully in gangs. The bullying may even seem like jovial inclusion, but it is bullying nonetheless. I discovered this by simply saying "No." I invite you to try it. 

The challenge of drawing a line between your identity and what the group wants you to be is tricky. Assert  too harshly and one can be ostracized. Assert too mildly and one can be seen as an eventual convert, subjected to endless solicitation. Assert without conviction and one can fall in with an equally toxic gang of anarchists or mindless naysayers. 

We are coming closer and closer to a time when the global mandate will be survival. This will cross national, ethnic, cultural and religious lines. However, there will be factions. Those who wish to assert their role as traditional propagators of the species will stand against those who will advocate for the scientific approach to healing the planet. One group which represents the former are those obsessed with reproduction. These are primarily The Sisterhood of the Ticking Clock. A group which represents the latter are the millions of single Japanese women who openly declare their intention to avoid marriage and pregnancy in favor of work and society among similar women. There will also be groups whose solutions will be homicidal and perhaps suicidal.

Social inertia is now fostered by corporate capitalism. Its bible preaches a world where living standards can rise for everyone, despite the density of population. This heaven is no less far fetched than the heaven of religion. This capitalist heaven is adopted by those who are prone to religion, conformity and compliance. This capitalist heaven especially appeals to those who have already achieved or inherited material comfort in the world as it now exists. 

What will be the source of turning around the human-initiated demise of human ecology? I believe it begins with saying "No." when pressured to deny the obvious. I believe it continues by refusing to submit to blind group think of any kind. This requires research and taking responsibility for developing an understanding of reality as it exists, not as it is packaged by those who are bent on profiting from its distortion at any cost to everyone else.