Reply #114: our love affair with the boot

[Two Americas]

Boot lovers and boot lickers - one and the same. A trap for all of us. Kiss up and kick down, and be hyper alert as to who is above you and therefore must be kissed, and who is below you and must be kicked. Let this rule your life - so much so that you cannot walk by a peaceful discussion without feeling an overwhelming urge to stop and interrupt people and do some kicking.

Then build a society on that. What is the result? Endless war, destruction of the environment, torture of human beings, millions imprisoned, hunger, poverty, and homelessness. A small price to pay, are we to think, for the sake of keeping the social pecking order in place and to protect our imagined place in that order?

“Hey war and cruelty and poverty happen and always have. What can we do? It is human nature. They can never be eliminated. But greed and selfishness — those are terribly endangered, so we must practice them all the time lest we lose our knack for them, and they must be defended vigorously lest that dangerous and unrealistic ‘love’ crowd take away our sacred right to be bullies!”

And it all starts with the fear that makes us kiss up so that we won't be punished, and the sad little pleasure we get when we kick down against those who are below us.

Remember: kiss up, kick down.

The boots, the boots march on; tromp, tromp, tromp.