Columnists

What you don't have to do

You don't have to be brave.

It is not your job to stand up to ignorance or to confront bullies. It is not something that you signed up for, not something you feel comfortable doing, especially in these days when so many of us feel compelled to exercise our right to carry a life extinguisher on our hip. You don't need to be the one to point out the false equivalencies and the straw men, you don't have to point out the obvious untruths or the subtle incitements to ugly behavior implicit in their rhetoric.

You don't have to be the one to say that "black lives matter" doesn't mean what they say it means, that the "too" that implicitly follows ought to be understood by people of good faith. You don't have to be the one to point out that America has a history that is often distorted by people eager to make a point, to flatter themselves and their ancestors. You don't have to point out to white people that they enjoy very real and obvious privileges in America.

You don't have to allow that the world is not a straightforward place, and that it is possible to abhor official brutality and atrocity while empathizing with the men and women required to do difficult and dangerous work. You don't have to refrain from picking a side.

It's not your fault that people live the way some people live in this country, it's not anything you need to worry about because someone told you they probably spurned their chances. It's not up to you to keep track of them, or to worry about what having a permanent underclass means for a country that likes to believe itself the last best hope of the world.

You don't have to be the one to say that there really isn't a war on Christian values in this country and that it's strange that so many who claim to follow Jesus seem unwilling to extend any understanding or charity to people who look to them for help, who only want what America has long promised the world--a fair chance to live free. You don't need to be the one to remind them of how difficult it is supposed to be for the rich man to gain admission to heaven. You don't have to tell them that their reasoning sounds a little convoluted and convenient, or that it's interesting how imperatives become mysterious parables when genuine sacrifice is indicated.

You don't have to be your brother's keeper. You don't have to get involved.

You don't have to call the moral pipsqueak out when he reads aloud a tweet about how the president and the Democratic nominee for president should be lynched, shakes his head in assent and says he understands why people feel that way. You don't have to say that you understand why people feel that way too, because they'd been fed a line about how the government is making war on "real Americans" such as themselves and have been encouraged to see themselves as victims by opportunistic power seekers and officeholders.

You don't have to be troubled by the way good people have abdicated their responsibility to lead in the face of mob ascendancy. You can enjoy the sideshow effects of the circus without feeling complicit in the thuggish will-to-power of an alleged billionaire. You can float above the fray, you can ironically observe the petty struggles of those foolish enough to give a damn about pursuing justice and fairness.

You don't have to wonder where the statesmen have gone. You don't have to look anyone in the eye and ask them how they can put partisan and personal ambition over the best interests of their country.

You don't have to talk about how the political culture in this country has become toxic and both parties have neglected their most vulnerable constituencies as they've serviced the monied classes. You don't have to pay attention when the pointy heads start talking about income inequality and the ways the game is rigged against people who need to work for a living.

You don't have to register the cognitive dissonance obvious in the proposition that more weapons in circulation make us both safer and freer than other nations where no one ever gets shot. You don't have to consider why it seems so easy to find facts to support whatever intuition inflames you. You don't have to stop to consider the consequences of always having the way prepared for you intellectually. If you don't like what they're saying on the cable TV it's easy enough to change the channel or sink into some virtual world where you get to pull the trigger.

You don't have to pay attention to anything that disturbs your image of yourself as a good person, as someone who tries to make the world gentler and more fair. You don't have to question the assumptions that allow you your good sleep.

You don't have to stand up to bigots because, man, that's just their opinion.

You don't have to read this column or anything else. You don't have to engage with anything. You don't have to look up a word you don't understand, or to try to follow the science behind some big idea, because it's got nothing to do with you and some fat man you think you might like to have a beer with once told you it's all cooked-up partisan bullwhonky anyway.

You don't have to explain yourself. You don't have to think for yourself.

You're the best, chief. You're the smartest. The only reason you ain't rich is because they've held you back. They who don't look like you, who aren't from around here, who went to some big school somewhere that made them dumb. The ones who are always nattering on about how things aren't so good in the America you want someone (not you) to make greater. The stupids who think we need to do something.

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Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@arkansasonline.com and read his blog at blooddirtandangels.com.

Editorial on 07/12/2016

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