{"id":2193,"date":"2020-06-07T20:49:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-07T20:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=2193"},"modified":"2020-06-07T20:50:51","modified_gmt":"2020-06-07T20:50:51","slug":"the-protests-sprung-from-moral-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=2193","title":{"rendered":"The Protests: Sprung from Moral Uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What could be more dispiriting than a biological enemy, an invisible enemy, an enemy that has turned the morality schema upside down?   Yesterday\u2019s bad guys \u2014 alienation and isolation  \u2014 are today\u2019s heros of good health.  Those heros of isolation are also conditions for autoritarianism, which makes them still count as bad guys.  No wonder we’ve felt so lost and confused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No wonder the police murder of George Floyd has changed the moral landscape.  In its horror and shame, in its immorality, it prompted the massive outpouring of public grief and collective protest.  It has a clear-cut narrative, with victims and perpetrators.  The unequivocal police brutality has no moral ambiguity. It liberated us from our own cells. Our listless selves had been told that this narrow narcissistic world was heroic – perhaps with limited horizons, we didn’t trust it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking on a summer afternoon to the RI State House, I refound my “we.” We were some 10,000. To hear the roar of thousands who respond in unity to the call of a leader – to feel the vibration in our bones, as my daughter said – began to restore a self in relation to others.\u00a0 Collective, actively scooping up a sense of purpose. Rebellious. Called to look into our selves where moral ambiguities will most obviously arise. That has to be part of the pact. We can still do that while dissenting injustice, abuse of cops and our homegrown tyrant crossing new red lines at every turn.\u00a0 \u00a0This is not bad news wrapped in a protein.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coronavirus in still a threat, as we\u2019ll always remark when we look at photos, in the future, of protesters in masks in photos.  As a young friend said, “History looks back at the past.  We’re in the middle of history.  But we don\u2019t know what it looks like — we\u2019re living it.\u201d  He wasn\u2019t comfortable with not knowing.  He shrugged: he knows he doesn\u2019t have a choice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What could be more dispiriting than a biological enemy, an invisible enemy, an enemy that has turned the morality schema upside down?   Yesterday\u2019s bad guys \u2014 alienation and isolation  \u2014 are today\u2019s heros of good health.  Those heros of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[958,979,982,980,981],"class_list":["post-2193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-coronavirus","tag-george-floyd","tag-police-brutality","tag-protests","tag-ri-state-house"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-zn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2193"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2198,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions\/2198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}