DMB Digest: All for thee, none for me!!!
Wait, did I get that right?
This seems like an appropriate time to confess I’m a player in a weekly children’s theater based out of my local church. (It’s more like every other week, but using the word bi-weekly is completely unhelpful…) Anywho, the theater is essentially a Christian reboot of Gilligan’s Island. I play a nerd (Delbert W. D’nerdski) who lives his life by the book, so to speak. Whatever his “information manual” says is what my character does.
But for our purpose at hand, my character isn’t the relevant one. The resident bad guy is a fellow named One-Eyed Jack. He is of course a pirate and the one-time captain of the Nebuchadnezzar (which now lies at the bottom of the ocean). All of this is children’s theater. It’s silly and over the top. It’s slapstick. But it is also based on simple morals found within the Christian/Judeo ethic.
Lately, I’ve been dwelling on One-Eyed Jack’s tagline: “All for me, and none for thee!” (This pronouncement is inevitably followed by cackling laughter and the brandishing of a stage sword.) The thing that struck me lately is how much this declaration overlaps with our nation’s current motto: (no, I’m not referring to E pluribus unum) “America First.”
For the sake of full disclosure, I suppose I should also reveal that for a few years during the early 2000’s I was well-known by the moniker of “David the Deceptive” for my ruthless tactics while playing the game of Risk. For over two years, I hosted a weekly Risk night with college students during which I routinely duped individuals into allowing me to control Asia’s “back pocket” (Australia and Southeast Asia) before eventually sweeping out over all of Asia to quickly rule the world. I just needed one willing sucker to agree not to invade from Alaska for a few rounds. Somehow, I usually found one, even though I played the game mostly with the same twenty guys off and on for over two years.
I admit to this shady aspect of my personality for the sake of context. When playing at geopolitics and global hegemony, ruthless selfishness is preferred (if not required). When “winning the game” is the central ambition, diplomacy is at best mutual exploitation and at worst selfishness in disguise. An apt analogy would be asking a mafia don for a favor. International relations become transactional, and the goal is to become like a casino in the sense that “the house always wins.” The more leverage you gain, the more the transactions favor you. The more of the globe you domineer.
Here is where I am compelled to differentiate between playing Risk and being human. Personally, my central objective in life is not conquest or domination. (Not anymore anyway.) You see, I encountered the teachings of a humble carpenter who challenged me to live reversely, by emphasizing tactics of surrender and selflessness. Yes, it is freaky, I know. And while I’m still tempted to revert to my old ways (“All for me, and none for thee!!!”) when thinking about geopolitics, my American citizenship, and everything that goes along with it, I simply can’t maintain that way of living for very long. I’ve experienced a better way.
And that is the nuttiest thing about all of this. I actually believe (even though it makes no sense) that living by the slogan “America Last” would actually lead to a better America and a better world. As a wise man once said, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
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