David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

Tough question: How can we stop humans from killing each other?

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According to the Book of Genesis, humans have been killing each other ever since Cain killed Abel out of jealousy. Over the centuries, we’ve gotten very good at it. Individuals kill each other over love and greed and hate and various other emotions and desires. But the most efficient and effective killers have always been governments — as one group justifies its desire to destroy another group and take what it has.

If we’re going to live in a post-statist world where the sprawling nation-state goes away, we’re looking at a future in which independent jurisdictions will be smaller and less homogeneous. It’s a perfect recipe for a continuation of the bloody conflict that’s haunted humanity from the beginning. Are we setting up a return to the feudal warfare of early nation-states?

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For governance, ‘one size fits all’ is a bad idea — even if the ‘one size’ is your version of freedom

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Different people want different things. We accept that in most areas of life, so why can’t we accept that the same thing is true for how the places we live are managed?

I like steak, pizza and chicken. I don’t care for seafood, Chinese food or most veggies. (Don’t mention that last part to my doctor.) I would be rather unhappy in a world where the majority voted to adopt seafood and Chinese for all the restaurants. I would be happy if none of the restaurants served what I don’t like, but many other people wouldn’t be. Fortunately, it’s not an either/or situation. I have the places I like. They have the places they like. We can change our minds and move back and forth between restaurants.

So if this competitive model is good for restaurants — and cars and computers and pretty much everything the free market provides — why do most people tend to favor “one true way” for governing territory?

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THE McELROY ZOO: Meet Lucy, the dog who used to live on a chain

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About 12 years ago, I suddenly started seeing a beautiful chow mix dog in the yard of a home not too far from where I live. It was an unfenced yard, and she lived on a chain all the time. The couple who lived there didn’t seem to care about her.

I never once saw her off the chain, and I never once saw them give her any attention. When I’d happen to be walking by and the people came home, she would strain on the chain trying to get to them as she wagged her tail hard, but they would ignore her. She obviously wanted attention badly. It broke my heart, but I watched this for months — until after the dog got pregnant and had five puppies on that chain.

The puppies would wander around  — beyond the reach of her chain — and she would seem frantic in trying to get to them to care for them. It was upsetting to me to watch as I’d drive by or walk near the house. The last straw was when the couple who lived there left town for a week and left this mother dog and her puppies out in the yard. After making inquires across the street, I found out that they had asked a neighbor to feed her while they were gone, but that was all the provision they’d made for her or the puppies.

I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I wasn’t going to leave her there. There were already three dogs in my household at the time, so I didn’t need any more. I had no intention of keeping her, but I couldn’t leave her where she was with five puppies she couldn’t take care of.

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