To Inscribe Some Order

 Of new world orders, a few words could be said.  There are new orders - small scale and principled ones, spanning extensive ones with great social benefits at small scales, emergent ones from the multitude of existents, corrupt ones with barely even anarchic principles, accidental ones, incidental ones, short lasting ones, long established ones with new notions, and so on.  Sometimes the question is raised, does this country require a new order, with the implication that a country is a single world to be ordered.  Of course, the ascription of "world" to a country is an order in itself.  Though simplistic in its utterance, the further possibilities are ones we have accustomed ourselves into expectations.  Where this country is not a world that confers benefits onto each of us, somehow the order is seen to have failed somehow.  In fact, the order is not complete, nor should we desire it to be a complete order, for then the worlds within would be irreversibly subsumed under it, and we would have a governance that is rigid and restrictive, directly against our long held notions and beliefs in freedom and democracy.

Then why does the phrase "new world order" resound, sometimes even in our hearts?  This for we long for some completeness and holism to the worlds we reside within.  We should first admit to the fact that each of us live in multiple worlds, and the world of the nation is in fact one of them.  What can be expected from the world of the nation was once seen as necessarily reciprocal.  There was a poster we have all seen that says, with a wonderfully stern caricature of a character, Sam, that says "Uncle Sam wants you."  Regardless of the graphic design quality, admittedly quite compelling, what made it compelling was less the graphical element than the general sentiment that the country and its government serve you for each of us does our part to contribute to society, governance, and each other's good.  While such a sentiment appears mysterious to some, those folks have not the ability to recall such was the foundational reality that generated the politics and the constitutional goods making up the nation.  There is no particular outcome from simply blaming the many forms of entertainment or pointing fingers at the usual suspects, although such provide grounds for reflection, so we must find the strength in us to examine what is actually needed to improve our quality of life in each our own lives but also in our communities, and indeed, each of the worlds we inhabit.

The world is not already made.  It is always in the making, thus begging the question of what is it to make?  It is one thing to have a blank canvas, ie. poverty, and begin to desire after material goods that other people or neighbors have, though it must be said that certain basic necessities are always required and so should be a right in this country.  All kinds of folks do great work in rerouting their communities' logistics to enable others less fortunate to have what they need not only to survive but to prosper as well, for the human potential is truly great when our basic needs have been met.  This is an example of an order that have been inscribed onto the world by these folks.  But if there is no urgent matter pressing, and our world is not out of order, yet there is news from beyond our smaller worlds of what is in fact pressing, to say, our environment or the possibility of conflict, how ought one proceed?  Or if there were urgent matter, such as unrest in a community or pressures coming from beyond one's immediate world encroaching, then what is there to be done?  Uncle Sam has sent no word.

The fact of the matter is that as we get caught up with the busi-ness of the job and family, of caring after the lawn and making meals, of catching favorite shows and walking the dog, one has not yet caught up with the business that should be one's own.  Such business I propose includes the working of affairs near and far, by means personal as well as remote.  Each person has his or her own vision of the good world and the good life, and each person has a sense of ethical being - these are all actual assets one holds in holding.  Today is a good day to advance upon one's greatest assets, the intuition and power of thought, as well as the ways of contact through social circles as well as established groups, clubs, and offices.  These are all true and legitimate means with which one can advance the small orders that through the making in the multiple, eventually finds and emerges in those collective sentiment and vision our predecessors possess.  We need not war to draw us together, for war is an antiquated form of order.  Even if it is created through centuries of trial and error, such is not the best expression of what is in the depths of us that draw us forward.  It is strength to resist and resolve and reconcile, but if there is even a slight chance of possibility, does it not become more probable through repetition and experiment, through collected effort, through it as an endeavor, and so the advancement of what is good in us?  

We must not cower in sight of the unusual and the unacceptable.  We must stand tall.  In the recollection of the hard times that produced the World Expo's, the Motorama's, the monumental architecture, the Woodstock, the computer technologies, the rallies for peace - we look now at those records in film and video and fantasize those times were easy when in fact they were hard.  More knowledge is at hand than ever before, more means for communication, and so more possibility to act.  We must not cower in face of the multiplicity of possibility but rather celebrate the possibilities and own them as our own, and find the strength to bring up what seems unspeakable in hard times, that is, the good and awesome and wonderful still lay there for us to grasp.

We are no small people, we are no weak folk.  Year by year we enjoy the fruits of our predecessors, the fruits of their hard labor.  We will not fall so we will make too orders, materials things, principled goods, and more for our next generations and their next generations.  If it is to mean that we have to rework a few things by taking the time to think, to contemplate, to imagine, to talk, to advertise - then those are the things we must do.  We must not be that village idiot in the folktale who was so lazy that when his mother went away, he could not muster the will to eat the bread laid out by the bedside table for a few days.  The means are at hand, they are in your mind.  We must act ourselves and in acting together enact the strength of the nation.  No change could take from us our strength and will to be, so in being we must express through whatever avenues and channels open the reality we forge slowly and carefully and willfully with the sweat and blood of our most deepest being.  Our minds are our great asset, and so are our hands - there is no end to this story for it shall go on and on, forever and ever.

Let us wake to the reality of each ourselves.  There is great strength of this people.  We will put our mind and hands in service of our next generations, and along the way, we will enact the strength of Nation.