The physical impact of our privilege is, on the surface, positive, however, the deep effects are corrupting and negative. A culture built/predicated on violence — violence against all sorts of Others — will, in the end utterly destroy itself, inside-out. We are both witness and participant — both stances have operational agency and are complicit. It is this complicity which shreds any uplifting personal potential into a net-destructive tendency.
Yup, we are witness.
We participate: through all the microaggressions of our mere presence on the planet. At the same time we are ‘merely’ another expression of Life on the planet. Our species will evolve or … not. This is a theoretical not an actual, manifest by our flawed abilities of abstracted thought.
Yup, hard to speak with those others. We now know 1930s Germany. What we do, are doing now, is what was done then. And may utterly fail in the face of fear and in the complicity with power. A re-read of Arendt is called for. But that process will only trace what has already come, it will not arrest the devolution. While Dialogue has great power, the shuttering-of-fear obliterates the possibility of open exchange.
etc., etc.