By Jim Strickland / Herald Forum
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the convoluted ways we tend to use mental gymnastics to try and reframe something evil as something that is actually good.
In 1986, Robert Fulghum published a book of simple life lessons called “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” He included common sense aphorisms like “Share everything,” “Play fair,” and “Don’t take things that aren’t yours.” I’d like to suggest an addition to his list that could go a long way toward saving humanity: “Don’t shoot missiles at people!” Now that may seem odd as a lesson for kindergartners and a no-brainer for us as adults, but it is an example of how we can be lulled into accepting actions that a kindergartner would readily identify as wrong.
I recently watched my favorite Martin Luther King Jr. documentary and was reminded of King’s statement that “Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter.” Given what is happening in Israel, Gaza, Russia, Ukraine, and Iran, maybe we should just start with the simple admonition that it is wrong to shoot missiles at people; period! And that declaration would be followed up by our refusal to facilitate, condone, accept, or tolerate that action on anyone’s part.
Well, Jim (you may be thinking), these situations are complex, and we are no longer kindergartners. Of course, but sometimes it takes the eyes of a child to call a spade a spade. And that is the whole point of Fulghum’s book. In trying to justify our position, we can find ourselves calling evil good, or at least necessary. Even though missile launching is not a big issue here in Snohomish County (thank goodness!), our world is small, our nation is complicit, and the children are watching us. We cannot be silent about things that matter, even if they are not in our backyard.
So, I say we start with the basics — don’t shoot missiles at people! — and then use our intelligence and our common humanity to go from there.
Jim Strickland lives in Marysville.
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