Octavia Butler, Marcus Aurelius and More Thoughs About Election Day

On this Election Day Eve, I don’t feel compelled to exacerbate handwringing nor even to traffic in hope, though, if you read the previous entry, you’ll find that I’m certainly not un-hopeful.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time on building an argument for how or why I look on the current historical moment that we are all part of as I do. Aurelius put it better than I ever could:

”This is a fine saying of Plato. That he who is discoursing about men should look also at earthly things as if he viewed them from some higher place: should look at them in their assemblies, armies, agricultural labours, marriages, treaties, births, deaths, noise of the courts of justice, desert places, various nations of barbarians, feasts, lamentations, markets, a mixture of all things and an orderly combination of contraries.” (The Meditations, VII; 48)

This isn’t to say that one assumes an aristocratic, above-it-all, attitude; simply to recognize that what is unfolding moment by moment is part of a greater continuum that while fraught with possible outcomes whose result might be disaster for many, there are also possible outcomes where this may not be the case. The key is not clinging to either outcome, not surrendering to despair, but in telescoping out with some degree of historical awareness, come to find some support in seeing that whatever the result, time and changes that occur in time are full of surprises. Some pleasant, some not so much.

We know what’s at stake. Many of us are baffled at how one candidate is being constantly questioned regarding details of her policy and polls (how sick of them I am!) show that undecided voters are wondering if she’ll keep her promises once in office?

We are baffled when we look at her opponent and his supporters; oligarchs, power-hungry and nihilistic sycophants, and a legion of voters frustrated and angry at seemingly everything. With this latter, I don’t completely disagree. There is much in the world at any given moment to be angry with and to feel frustrated by. 

My issue is resorting to hatred, to acting out of a sense of revenge toward your neighbor for no other reason than that a 78 year old rich white man is telling you to, fanning the flames of your frustration. 

Reading Octavia Butler, these words came up, right in my face:

“Embrace diversity


Unite—
or be divided,
robbed,
ruled,
killed


By those who see you as prey.


Embrace diversity


Or be destroyed.”

—From "Earthseed: The Books of the Living," Parable of the Sower.

Here’s the thing; “Embrace diversity or be destroyed” is what many of the alt-right conservatives think is the mandate by their shibboleth, “the Left” aka “The Woke Mob”, “the Liberal Elite” (and so on.) This, to me, is simply a statement. It is out of context, but to repurpose it presently, it means to me that if we are to overcome our polarization, we need to “embrace diversity”, if this country is going to continue with any semblance of a united state, we need to turn our backs collectively on those who would call for division among our fellow Americans, who want to rob us of our rights to health, education, and a social safety net that would protect and support our most vulnerable. We need to see through those who would rule instead of lead or represent us, or indeed, we will be subject to state sanctioned oppression.

I am not blind to the historical faults and hypocrisies that are strewn across the fabric of this nation’s existence, but it doesn’t really take a genius to see that if the nation falls to a cabal that wants to exploit the frustration, anger, and hatred that surges throughout many in the electorate, then the United States’ democratic experiment is done. 

Of course, there will be many who will continue to fight through any number of legalistic paths against the dissolution of the ACA, the Inflation Reduction Act, the imposition of tariffs that will likely double the national debt, the plundering and eventual removal of Social Security and Medicare, the enforcement of draconian anti-gay, trans, and women legislation. I’ve opined that it seems likely that some states may openly rebel against such legislation from the federal government but to their detriment. 

Or none of this will happen because the U.S. may overcome its historical bias against women leaders and actually elect its first woman president.

Octavia Butler in a wonderful lecture called “Devil Woman from Mars: Why I Write Science Fiction” also said this: “Parable of the Sower is the story of a young woman in a very grim near-future who has assembled a new belief system, a new religion, and who believes that this is the answer. It's a future in which the United States has sort of gone in the direction of the Soviet Union. It hasn't been defeated by outside enemies; it's just sort of gotten very weary and collapsed. Funny, nobody ever thought that could happen to the Soviet Union until it did. That's kind of the framework for the story.”

This was in 1998, but Butler lived long enough to see some other writing on the wall. I have little doubt that she saw the long game the oligarchs and their extreme right wing allies were playing. Twenty-six years later, the challenge to democracy is coming from those who believe that their belief system, their religion, is the answer. And many people are weary and frustrated and angry. 

I’m not writing this to throw in the towel or give into that which isn’t really inevitable. I am even of the mind that there is much in the history of this country to show - as Heather Cox Richardson reminds us - that at critical times, the electorate has risent to the moment and voted to preserve democracy.

To be sure, I’m not a hundred percent behind the idea that we have a true participatory democracy. Voices have been systemically and systematically stifled and prevented from participating and from being heard. However, that’s not stopped a kind of progression toward greater inclusivity and diversity. 

Notice that the people who are against inclusivity and diversity are very often white and male. They are very much threatened by the idea that everyone should have a voice. Notice that women’s right to reproductive healthcare is being gerrymandered by a cohort that is mostly male and white. Yes, yes, not exclusively (I hear the nitpickers among you); but honestly, it is a small number that fears its loss of power, its loss of control over everybody else. 

But rest assured, they are a minority. Most Americans favor women having control over their healthcare. Most Americans are in favor of the preservation and expansion of the Affordable Care Act, most Americans support the approach this administration has taken in building the economy form the middle (to surprising success, but you don’t hear much about it), as opposed to the “trickle-down economics” theory long since discredited but locked into the brainstems of many for the past 40 years. Most Americans are in favor of finding solutions to the climate crisis and support renewables and alternatives to fossil fuels. Most Americans are in favor of meaningful gun control legislation. And so on. 

This is where hope can be found. 

Tomorrow, I am not watching election returns. I am not reading pundits and think pieces. Tomorrow is a day of meditation, a full-day retreat, a walk through nature (though it is suppose to rain). 

In terms of geologic and cosmic time, our time on this planet has been brief but tumultuous. It could be so much more and it’s important to remember that none of us knows what the future brings, but we can all add our voices to it, decisively. 

Tomorrow and the days that follow may well be filled with contention and bitter anger, filled with threats and dubious legal posturing; but my being tells me that for a day, take rest, see things as if viewed from some higher place.

Sources

Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations and Other Classics of Stoic Philosophy. Fall River Press. New York.2023.

Butler, Octavia. “Devil Gril from Mars: Why I Wirte Science Fiction” Media in Transition. October 4, 1998; retrieved November 4, 2024. https://web.mit.edu/m-i-t/articles/butler_talk_index.html.

Richardson, Heather Cox. “November 3, 2024”. Letters from an American. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-3-2024