There has been some online chatter about what name is preferred for the group of us who do not intend "to go gently into that (bad) night" which looks likely to fall with the incoming regime of Trump 2.0 and his insane, greedy, self-interested, treacherous, and vile handlers. For myself, I am fine with calling it a Resistance; it is exactly what is called for, both practically in legal or governmental arenas, and personally in our own souls and in our communities. But some point out that the first Resistance was not especially successful---a point I would make some exceptions to, but understand overall. Others say it is too grandiose, in comparison with the resistance groups of WWII. One rather hopes that we shall not need to endure or combat what they did, but we are no more special than those people, so who can say what courage and endurance and resourcefulness might not be required of us. The lovers of the "Star Wars" franchise have suggested 'the Rebellion', but not being a "Star Wars" fan myself, I am unenthusiastic about that one, and would note that the 'Rebels' role has been tried on in America before, in the service of a heinous lifestyle. It failed, after massive loss of life, and left a toxic legacy which haunts us to this day, resurrected and embraced by too many ignorant, racist people amongst us, prominently in Trump followers. Likewise, we've already had a 'Revolution', as have others, and they generally involve armed combat and lots of torment and death. Perhaps a better name than 'the Resistance', or any of the alternatives I've heard yet, might be 'the Resilience'. With that, we invoke the power of Life itself, moving through cycles of darkness and light. It is holistic, not polarising; it roots our action in an ecosystem of evolving, cyclical existence which can accommodate diversity, reward tenacity, draw on deep reserves, centre the power of nurturing rather than just destruction, and allow for growth.
As I mentioned above, we are not special. Americans, some Americans at least, have thought they were, collectively, for a long time. Exceptionalism is not logically sustainable, though; like every other group, we are subject to events, natural forces, our individual and collective waxings and wanings. And I believe that underneath the story of specialness that Americans have told themselves lies a deep, subconscious, collective guilt about the actions of those European ancestors toward Indigenous Americans and toward enslaved people. By refusing to learn and teach true history we have hamstrung ourselves. We cannot be whole as a nation until we confront the entirety of our history properly. Fetishising patriotism without acknowledging the (literal) skeletons in the closet is a disservice to ourselves, who are fragmented in the process, and divested of functional and inclusive democracy by bigots and zealots. It is a disservice to those descended from Indigenous or enslaved people, whose pain is thus denied and whose vital, diverse cultural heritages are forgotten and erased, and without whose culture and labour no colonial nor industrial era life would have transpired as it did. It is a disservice to all our ancestors, whose redemption lies with our own movement toward wholeness. It is a disservice to all of our children, who deserve to know the truth and be set free by it. It is a disservice to future generations, who must live in a world made dysfunctional, cruel, and unjust by it.
It is long past time that Americans tell themselves the true stories that are braided of shadow and sunlight, good and evil, pride and shame. It is time to let the truth that is greater than any individual or group---that we are part of all that is, no better nor worse than any other part---move us back toward balance and forward to a more just and functional future. Before any "more perfect union" can be built, we have to see and acknowledge the bits that are not perfect, and also imagine together what "more perfect" will look like.
One of the shades of meaning attached to the word resilient is "able to adjust to change", or able to recover after misfortune or pressure. I like the term because it is evocative of nature as a whole. I would suggest that those who suffered most from the shadow side of American history, and continue to be most disadvantaged by its legacies, have the most to teach us about resilience. It is their voices which have so much to offer us as we reintegrate our nation and reimagine its future, and they are the ones most threatened by the incoming threat-promisers: women, queer folk, non-white folk, refugees and immigrants, financially poor folk, non-christian folk, basically anyone who doesn't identify as cis-het-christian-white-male. We will need to be resilient to survive what is coming, even the most ameliorated, restrained version of it. Those of us with experience either personal or generational of enduring difficulty and flowing with change already have skills that can be shared, and deserve the protection of those whose privilege makes them less vulnerable.
In nature, nothing is special---everything is an integral part of the whole. This literal integrity translates into a functional integrity; in a healthy ecosystem, no one part operates at the expense of others, without balance or accountability. In humans, we have seen far too much of lack of integrity, and the result is writ large in history and in our present careening into a warming planet inhabited by unhappy, unhealthy people (and all other living beings similarly affected). It didn't have to be that way, and it doesn't have to continue on that trajectory. But to pass through the coming storm into a better future, we need to confront the failures of the past and present, reclaiming our integrity and leveraging our resilience. There's a meme of "not fragile like a flower, fragile like a bomb", and I would like to invert it in some ways...A flower is only fragile from some viewpoints that don't see it as part of a whole. A flower endures changing seasons and weather, building root systems out of sight, feeding others with pollen and leaf, beautifying its environment, communicating chemically with other plants and beings, and setting seeds that convey its DNA forward. A bomb is by design a fragile thing that will break other fragile things when it breaks. I'd rather be remembered as a flower, resilient and productive. That seems a fitting emblem for our task, whether we call it Resistance or Resilience or some other thing.
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