It is not About Chosen, It is About Choosing

by Bill Chisholm

There is much conflict in the world stemming from religious, ethnic, class, national, political, and familial distinctions based on some perception of being “chosen”, being above, being better than one’s neighbors.  There are sub-divisions within these groupings which make the whole concept even more absurd.  The latter seems to stem from the idea that “everyone wants a dog to kick”, to build themselves up by putting someone else down.

Divide and conquer has been a long-practiced rule of warfare.  One really has to wonder about a god that would find it necessary to create a whole lot of factionalism among people in order to stay atop the heap; flood, fire or famine has historically worked wonders at keeping people humble.  So, it seems we must look somewhere else for the source of the chaos.  There certainly may be some biblical roots, if one invokes the line “Many are called but few are chosen.”  Perhaps therein lies the precedent for there being a “chosen people”.

As with many things in the bible, there is a good chance because of the language translations that line was one of the victims of mis-interpretation.  It probably should have read, “Many are called but few choose.”  Now that would put the shoe on the other foot, change equation a bit.  It would put the onus on the individual, so that they couldn’t hide behind the facade of family, church, or state.  It would change the way we look at each other, judge each other.  If you were a jerk, you’d be judged a jerk because you were, not judged otherwise because you had somehow lucked out to be of a particular skin color or born on the right side of the tracks.

“Chosen” implies some sort of unearned status, an entitlement to something others don’t aren’t entitled to…  You may or may not have had much say in the situation depending on one’s belief about future and past lives and the Law of Karma.  But ending up in the right caste doesn’t necessarily make you a better person.  Being a better person is really a matter of “choice”, which implies some decision making on your part.  It is true that one can also “choose” to be a rotten person, but it is a choice.  There are circumstances of how and where one lives that may push them towards the rotten and we can make allowances for that.  It is the systemic chaos of untenable separation of people by manipulation that this paper wishes to address.

As was said in an earlier paragraph it doesn’t seem likely that a god would find it necessary to play favorites with his or her creation.  So, then it seems to be more likely the work of some conniving human.  What better way to coalesce power than by selling a people the notion that they are the “chosen ones.” Thus chosen; it is all right to exploit and steal from the non-chosen ones.  If you play your cards right you might even tithe the chosen at a nice little 10% of their earnings to run the propaganda machine.  If you set up on a national level you could get an even higher tithe, which we then would call a tax to run the war machine so the chosen can get all the goodies they want from the un-chosen.

Now if we were choosing instead of being chosen and if we believed in the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them done unto you!) we might opt to treat each other differently.  Those that chose to do unto others as they would like to have done unto them would likely opt for being kind to each other, to share the goodies, live in peace, and be good stewards of the planet.  There will be some masochistic folks that like to have their arses kicked and we may have to oblige them, but we should do so only because that it how they have chosen to behave, not because they are not the “chosen”.

Chosen implies that the work has been done.  You are chosen now act as irresponsibly and obnoxiously as you want.  Choosing on the other had is an ongoing, minute by minute, situation by situation process.  If we lived in a functional world, one with liberty and justice for all and no “chosen ones”, we’d be getting our just rewards in short order.  We’d be a reapin’ what we sowed, and if we didn’t’ like the reapin’, maybe we’d take a closer look at what we had been sowin’ and choose to sow something else; like a whole lot less discontent.

Now you may have gotten this writing because someone chose to send it to you, but it was your choice to read it or delete it.  Thus, you may have been chosen, but that does not imply that you are a “chosen one”, it only implies that you might be a “choosing one.”  It is not about chosen, it is about choosing.