Dog Eat Dog

When I was growing up, my friends and I used to play outside for hours. We were a tribe of invincible orphans who tamed the frontier, hunted criminals, and in a revisionist twist, successfully defended the Alamo. Life was full of opportunity and adventure, and there was little indication this would change as I became an adult. This made for a lovely childhood, but a rude awakening when I realized the universe was not actually a safe place conspiring for my good. I expected life to be a fairy tale, but I did not realize then how dark and grim fairy tales are. 

Jordan Peterson summarized it this way: “We’re going to start from the proposition that unvarnished life is very dismal and dreadful. So if you’re not prepared for it, it will just grind you up and that will be very painful… The baseline isn’t that you’re going to be secure and happy. The baseline is there isn’t much of you, you’re very fragile, and things will grind you into nothing.” Welcome to life on earth.

It’s not just that life is biologically violent. If anything, biology is the least hostile part of our world. It’s society that’ll kill you. Even a cursory glance makes it abundantly clear that our society was not designed with the people’s best interest at heart. Our world is not a bright utopia of opportunity and generosity – it is a violent, hostile, and heartless place. It doesn’t particularly care whether we live or die and if we weren’t born a Kennedy, it won’t go out of its way to ensure we have a good time.

If you doubt this, try saving money and see how much is taken, taxed, and inflated – how many people and institutions lie in wait to take advantage of you. Try getting a job in a slow economy or putting good out into the world. The purest saints are martyred and the greatest artists are destroyed.

Civilization is hostile because we are the ones who created it. Society is greedy, fearful, and self-interested because humans are full of greed, fear, and self-interest. When there are scarce resources, we become like buckets, collecting and hoarding all we can. This only increases the drought, but we do it anyway. We want to win, even if it means others have to lose. Every evil we see and complain about in the world can be found in our own hearts.

Nelson Mandela said, “Poverty…is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.” I would argue because poverty is man-made, it can not be removed by the actions of human beings. We created this world in which few win and many lose, and if given the chance, we will do it again. This is true of capitalism, communism, monarchies, democracies, and dictatorships. As Walt Kelly said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

There is no hope that the world will be kind or benevolent. There is no hope of us creating a world that is, in which orphans are invincible and the Alamo is saved. 

There is hope, but it is only in this: Christ said, “In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome the world.”* This doesn’t sound very hopeful. If anything, it only reinforces the idea that life will be full of hardship and trouble. Yet for everything the world stacks against us, it does not control our destiny. 

God promises to provide for us and give us what we need. We don’t have to bite and claw our way in order to survive the hostility of the world. We are free to pursue a deeper purpose than our own preservation and advancement. Instead of buckets competing for resources, we can become pipes who generously disperse to others what we have been given. When someone takes advantage of us and steals our jacket, we give him our coat, too.**

Not only does God provide for us, He promises we will fulfill our purpose. I often think the world is thwarting my efforts to do something valuable or useful with my life. Survival is expensive, a truly useful job is hard to find, and breaking into the art world is darn near impossible.

But God has prepared good works beforehand that we should walk in.*** He knows why He put us here and He will do what He wants in and through us. Christ has moved Earth and Heaven and He will do it again, not just to provide for us, but to ensure we fulfill our purpose. Whatever we were put on Earth to do, we will do, not because we can overcome the world, but because He already has.

J.

*John 16:33

**Matthew 5:40

***Ephesians 2:10

June 22, 2021