Chris Milne Writes: Poetry, Philosophy and Essays

Written: Nov 2021

We modern people, those alive and relatively young in the 21st century find ourselves in a strange place. We at the same time, find ourselves in a peaceful and utterly privileged world. We have immense comfort, immense access, immense freedom, immense pleasurable experiences, and immense escapes from pain. Yet, at the same time we are the bearers of a culture that leads towards the eventual degradation and collapse of the natural world. This occurring due to environmental climate change via human consumption, consumerism and reliance on non-renewable energy, etc.  We experience the dilemma of human potential. We are recognizing the duality of our potential, our collective conscious awaking of human potential either creating evil or good, helping or hurting the world, adding or taking. We can both create a comfortable and beautiful world, and at the same time destroy, extract and be blinded by ideology, by greed and power, by corruption and by many factors. We are faced with the fact that we are all capable of both great good and great harm. The collective societal recognition of our shadow. This is not to say that there has not been people, or ages before who have recognized human’s great potential for evil. For there are evident cases of individuals and groups recognizing this dualistic fact. But, there does seem to be something novel in the 21^st century case. And, this to me, seems evident due to the new moral discussions, or the new political questions.

The novel moral debates are evident in our discussions of privilege, of decolonization, of anti-racism, and the reaction via Trumpism and extreme right-wing groups. It is our modern cultural growth, the updating of our cultural framework. Like in times before, when we recognized our societal treatment towards women in the west was wrong, and that it ought to change. These moral dilemmas spur these sorts of changes through the conscious awakening towards these novel moral facts. This modern moral dilemma is evident also in our aim of trying to understand how to reconcile one’s privilege in the world, especially when it was granted and benefited from extractive and exploitive policies like slavery. We are as a society being faced with the question of who we want to become in the face of such tragedy, of such latent potential creating such peace and harmony, but doing so by negative, harmful means. How can we advance without such means? How can we overcome the past injustices? How can we do better? These modern questions underly this deep modern moral dilemma. 

Now, how do we reconcile it? How can we accept our power when it leads to such harm? In some sense, it seems as though we are experiencing collective guilt, collective shame, collective regret, and collective anxiety towards our human power and potential. We feel it towards our human ability to create peace, but create it justly, create it equally and freely and not oppressively or exploitatively. In other words, do good in society in a good way. We are questioning if this is possible. This is due, in part at least, to our historical conscious of the 20th century. Witnessing what was a dark and deadly century. With World War 1-2 and it’s horrors (Hiroshima, Holocaust, Nanking, Japanese internment, etc.,,) with Mao, and the other deadly communist revolutions, with the Great Depression, Jim Crow laws and racism, subordination and subjugation of women, AIDS, etc. But, at the same time we experience significant progress and positive change: the civil rights movements, the feminist and suffrage movements, the freedom and peaceful movements of the hippies, and anti Vietnam war movements, great medical advancements, women entering the workforce, improvements in infant mortality, increased equality, etc. 

We modern humans see the duality of our power and wonder if there is a way to be, that aligns with the middle path. One where we can have a wonderful and comfortable society, and also have a sustainable relationship with the environment, and a healthy relationship with people, a respect of liberty and equality for all. I ponder such similar questions myself: can man be great? Can we achieve such feats? Can we use our intelligence, passion, morality, sense of justice, and our universal love for our brethren of life – our familial relation with all beings who struggle for existence, like ourselves – and create a just world, a just culture, a just mode of being? 

This question is the moral dilemma of the 21st century person. And I think the answer will be found in what it will take, to become 21^st century people. To do better then we did in the past, and become the people we want our future generations to be like.