Crumbling Mortar

Our republic and its traditions of both individual and national freedom stand upon a monolith; one that has supported a unique way of life in a one-of-a-kind place for 237 years. That pillar is appearing to be showing its age of late … or is it?

Is it truly a monolith; a large and impersonal political, corporate, or social structure regarded as intractably indivisible and uniform? Let's look closer at our unique national structure viewed through ever more powerful modern and skeptical eyes. It is a structure, but not of a singular material. Rather, I submit that it is metamorphic, not a composite like sandstone, nor igneous like granite, or even the compressed fossils of history gone by. It is an ever-changing composition formed by pressure and time, its various pieces bound together by a mortar as unique as the American way of life or the land rich in natural wonders and natural resources that we inhabit.

Let's look closer at the pillar that supports our unique way of life; considering it as if it were a subject for dissection; not as if in Biology, but rather in a class of micro-sociology.

Sliced horizontally, we find a predictable stratification based on wealth, regardless of any other cultural, gender, education, or uniquely identifiable criterion. There are a few wealthy and there are many more living in poverty. Sandwiched between live the rest of us, an ever-changing population, striving to rise up or struggling not to fall down; but all trying to survive.

Sliced vertically, left to right (without regard to the political meaning of those directions) is our ethnicity; not race. We are all of the same race, homo sapiens. But by virtue of genetics and environment, we are ethnically diverse, being Caucasian (and in this case, I mean 'white, Anglo-Saxon, and of primarily northern European descent), Hispanic, Black, Asian-Pacific, Indigenous (all indigenous peoples), etc. In today's world, the slices can be very thin and disputable; with the increasing blurring edges of inter-ethnic blending (inter-marriage).

Sliced vertically, front to back (for the sake of direction) is our individuality; religion, sexual identity/preference, gender, cultural identity, age, education, etc. In some instances, the slices go to meaningless extremes, such as hair color, eye color, skin shade, height, and body style.

Taken one axis at a time, differentiation is simple and easier to focus on: easy targets for focus, intimidation, and discrimination. However, when granularity is taken at the 3D level, grouping becomes a Herculean task, amorphous, and subject to the whim of the exacerbating factors.

Among the exacerbating factors, we find:

• The arbitrary acts of any ruling organization: not necessarily a majority. The ruling organization is any cohesive unit, individual, government, church, ethic or cultural group that is in control at any time.
• The degree, tenor, editorial agenda, and manner of information dissemination.
• Changes in immigration patterns.
• Deliberate obfuscation and interference in search of a particular agenda or goal.
• Changes in demographics and population statistics over time.
• Random and unpredictable events, e.g. climate change, geologic events (earthquake, volcano), war, pandemic disease, massive crop failure.

Any one or more of these factors can be an impetus used for singling out an entire slice of the monolith, e.g. Asian-Pacific Islanders or women, or a single point, like Hispanic Evangelicals on the poverty spectrum. Such single focus often gives rise to special treatment, and almost always negatively. Yet in the next moment, that same single point might become a desired asset, rather than a liability, always subject to the arbitrary agenda of a ruling organization and its media organization.

Our special monolith was formed upon the proposition that all of our citizens had equal opportunity. Historically, we know that to have been inaccurate. As a nation and as individuals we have been and continue to be imperfect. Ask any woman, minority, or citizen identifiable as 'different'.

But we continue to improve; or continue to try to improve. We spent a hundred years and half a million lives eliminating slavery as a legal entity, yet more is to be done to ensure equal opportunity. It took 113 years for half our population, women, to gain the right to vote, nationally, yet groups continue to denigrate them, whittling way at their individual freedom and denying women their equality as citizens.

We must continue our efforts to keep our special monolith strong. Discrimination against identifiable slices of that monolith continues on all its axes, ebbing and flowing with changes in the political, social, and economic climates. The mortar of 'equality for all' is what binds each data point to all the others, as mortar binds bricks. If we allow that mortar to crumble, the monolith will fall and our experiment in freedom will fail. Like any masonry, it requires continual repair and pointing to shore it up against the storms from without and threats from within. That was the task of those who have gone before and remains the task of the citizenry today.

On June 11, 1963, President John F. Kennedy spoke from the White House in reference to the opening of the University of Alabama to two black students. "This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened."

Keep our monolith strong!

Karl Bogott – 5/20/2024