Here is what I posit: Everything implicates all of us. All Americans are implicated by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 even if we were not the hijackers of the planes that rammed the Pentagon, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center or the empty field in Pennsylvania. We are implicated by how well our children do in life…and how badly they do. We are implicated by the current economic, political and social climate of our nation and world.
Being implicated isn’t the same thing as being at fault for something, but it does suggest that we play a role in what happens–often an intimate role in our own unique way. We are all responsible for the world we live in.
Here is what I also posit: one of the first things, if not the first thing, that we should all be doing conversationally and in our minds is to ask, “How does this incident or this situation implicate me?” and “How do I contribute to it?” Only in our attempts to answer these questions can we then proceed with determining who else is implicated by the incidents and situations that seem to us by turns harmful and positive. And only then can we begin to express definitive opinions which lead to a call to action, to the formulation of policy.
The challenge is this: to implicate ourselves in the incidents and situations we find ourselves in while still having a bias for action, to help effect positive change. This blog is designed to describe the Little House that we all dance in, and to carry on the conversation–in the best sense of that word–about how we can live in the house gracefully and humanely.
Copyright, David G. Pace, 2010
