America’s Karma?

John Lennon used an expression, “instant karma”, as a way to view immediate payback for negative actions. For example, you are a slob, and after raking the lawn you just throw the rake down and pick up your coat to leave. You turn, step on the rake, and get a bloody nose. Instant karma for being a thoughtless worker.

Yet, in a more traditional sense of the word, in Hinduism and Buddhism, karma is the sum of a person’s actions in this existence and previous ones, and that sum will evolve into a fate that is reached now or in the future. This is not a concept unique to Asian cultures. Indeed, Heraclitus of Ephesus, c. 535–c.475 BC, a pre-Socratic Ionian philosopher, is famous for his adage, “A man’s character is his fate.” This is the essence of karma.

Perhaps it is not so long a leap to ask whether families, or groups, or institutions have karma. In fact, do nations have karma? Will the sum of its ethical and physical actions extrude from the energy of life on Earth a certain fate? If so, what is America’s karma?

American Progress is an 1872 painting by John Gast, a Prussian-born painter, printer, and lithographer who lived and worked most of his life in Brooklyn, New York.

At this time (1872) the United States was in the grip of a geo-political-ethnic perception of itself as superior , both morally and intellectually, (American exceptionalism)and therefore deserving of a certain fate, which heretofore is still known as “Manifest Destiny”. It was our destiny to rule from “sea to shining sea”. What could be more righteous or natural?

Let’s take a closer look at the painting, “American Progress”. It depicts the westward movement from the Atlantic on its way to the Pacific. The goddess floating above the scene is Lady Progress, who, unsurprisingly, is blonde and voluptuous. Like teenage boys late at night under their sheets, shining a flashlight on purloined Playboy magazines , I wonder if young lads back then got, say, a certain buzz from Lady Progress? Of course, in consideration of the naked-breasted indigenous woman to the far left, blondie is, naturally, comparatively modest…sorry, I digress.

Well, she is adorned in a Roman toga. Okay. Do we see ourselves as a latter day Rome? Most likely, yes. Our armies are all over the known world, we are slipping from republicanism to authoritarianism, our legal structure is built on property rights, and apparently, many of us still believe in slavery, and let’s face it, OUR language is really THE language.

More interesting, though, is the hubris. Notice that we are bringing the light to a dark continent. Nature, in the form of indigenous people and animals (no doubt the same in the minds of the Manifestors) flee in fear and panic. The teeth and claws of the growling bear are quite visible, but otherwise this is a dark and pagan land that needs us.

We are bringing technology to bear on the dark and animalistic landscape. Lady Progress not only holds the telegraph wires but also a school book. We will inculcate others in our way of life (whether they want it or not). We are bringing agriculture, no matter that the Plains people were superior in height and health compared to the poor in our cities or those dying from our plagues.

Certainly of great interest in the painting are the fleeing herds of bison, which, like their indigenous hunters, would soon be brought to the very genetic brink of destruction. Furthermore, if you look into the distance in the painting, you will see silhouettes of dancing natives, looking like mad scarecrows, or perhaps Satan worshippers? Can you imagine leaving the “amber waves of grain” to these dark and sub-human creatures?! Not gonna happen.

That was then, this is now. Let’s see how our karma scorecard is adding up:

1. It turns out that ‘progress” literally means stepping forward, from the Latin “pro”, forward, and “gradi”, step. Moving from point A to point B. So, if you are forced to walk the plank, you’re making excellent progress. Of course, if you are quite content with the self-perception of being a savior, bringing the world light and goodness, and you adorn it in the garb of a lovely blonde, hey, progress sounds pretty good!
2. When Columbus arrived, the Western hemisphere consisted of 500 nations and three hundred languages. It turns out that for many hundreds of these free nations, progress meant genocide.
3. When the U.S. sent geological experts out to the Plains to check out the soil, they discovered that there was approximately 100 feet of topsoil. If you are not an agriculturalist, this astonishing and nearly unbelievable fact may slip past you. Let me put it this way. It took millions of years for the detritus that settled between the Rockies and Appalachia to become 100 feet of topsoil (a farmer’s fantasy dream). We are now down to 12 feet in many areas and counting. So, essentially, the Great Spirit gave us an inheritance that gifted us the agricultural Mega-Bucks winning lottery ticket in agriculture. We blew it all on a fast, crazy house party and a weekend at Mar-A-Largo.
4. A friend of mine from Australia points out that the most efficient food gathering machine ever created by mankind is the boomerang. One moving part. Able to rot organically. Local resources for production. Construction is also local, often in one’s own home. It can be art. It can be used in music as a percussive instrument. Its manufacture employs rather sophisticated principles of aerodynamics. Hell, the thing even comes back to you if you miss. In comparison, the bow and arrow is a seriously complicated machine. Nevertheless, it worked organically and locally as well and kept the indigenous people well-nourished. This level of interactive balance and supreme efficiency is, of course, unheard of here in the petro-chemical world of death first, MAYBE life later, “We’ll see”, as Dear Leader likes to say.
5. So…what? We should use boomerangs and bows and arrows instead of the Shop-Rite? Don’t be a smart aleck! The point is that our “progress” is so far from achieving the original balance, efficiency, and natural climaxing achieved by those “dark” forces, that we are literally, even now, seriously contemplating extinction. (Even the common grey squirrel has figured out how to dispose of its own waste. How we doin’?) I wonder if there is a word for “extinction” in any of the Plains languages? From what I’ve learned, there was no word for “weed” or “pest”. There WAS a word for the Plains themselves, it translates as “home”. When Chief Luther Standing Bear of the Oglala was asked by an official, who gestured all around him on the Plains, “What do you call this?”, he simply replied, “We call it home.” Ya gotta love it.
6. Native people who weren’t exterminated or interned in camps we refer to as “Reservations” (such a nice word! You’re reserved! We saved you!), and even those who were interned, especially children, were hauled off to boarding schools where they were beaten if they spoke in their native tongue, forced to eat food that made them ill, and coerced into worshipping a god from the Middle East.
7. Too darned bad for all those fleeing animals, needless to say. The latest study indicates that 70% (no biggie of course) of the flora and fauna extant on the planet prior to the mid 20th century is now gone. Kaput, adios, baybay. You may longingly or luridly gaze after that blondie with the book, but beware. She’ll take you down like a chainsaw!

So…I’m not going to push my luck here, let’s just do a quick karmic summary. We’ve brought to this continent death, disease, environmental collapse, genocide, ethical, intellectual and physical punishment, heartbreak and, perhaps soon, fascism. To paraphrase former New York Mayor, Ed Koch, “How’re we doin’?!”