You hear that phrase everywhere now, “It’s All Good,” but like much of pop culture, it undoubtedly started in California. California is the land of It’s All Good.  Ask anybody.  You hear it in the Safeway, frequently from the mouths of baristas, professionals and school kids, and always from gnarly dudes in surf shops. On the surface, it expresses the quintessentially laid-back California attitude that tends to keep aggression at bay, something folks here in Florida could use, but on a deeper level it is, of course, completely unrealistic, and reinforces a dualistic world view, even through the effort to eliminate comparison.

It isn’t all good, (whatever situation we are addressing,) just as it isn’t all bad. What it is is  Post-Modern Relativism, the doctrine that says knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture and society, and are not absolute. I’m okay; you’re okay.  It’s all good. People use the phrase in a variety of ways, but mostly it’s to deconstruct any idea of responsibility.

Case in point: when I was standing in the check-in line at the San Jose airport for my flight back to Florida a few days ago, I overheard the man behind me in conversation with his wife or girlfriend, I surmised from his opening remarks.  He then related a quite interesting tale, as interesting for his choice of words as it was for its subject.  After inquiring about the other’s well-being, he said. “I’ve done a very bad thing.”  Well, that piqued my interest.  What bad thing? Embezzlement, adultery, murder?  He was going on the lam, and was making his farewells? Oh no, you can’t make this stuff up.  “I’ve done a very bad thing,” he repeated.  “I booked a flight from San Diego to San Jose, instead of the other way around.  I’m at the San Jose airport to fly to San Diego, but I booked the flight the other way around.”

This was the very bad thing he had done.  Note he didn’t say, very dumb thing, or even, very funny thing, which is what it was, or even very absent-minded thing.  Curious.  And then he said.  “But I’m sure they can straighten it out here.  It’s all good.”  Ha!  It’s all good.  See, that’s why he chose to say he’d done a very bad thing; that’s covered by the blanket negation of It’s All Good.  Being dumb isn’t.  It’s better to admit to being bad than dumb in California, apparently, because if you admit to being dumb, that’s like wandering off into the desert by yourself with just a hip flask of tequila, while admitting to being bad, then flipping it, is membership in hipster paradise, and who doesn’t want that?

So how does all this nonsense reinforce a dualistic world view?  On the surface it seems to be quite the opposite, as in, “comparisons are odious;” let’s just say it’s all good, and poof! no dualism.  Au contraire! It’s like sweeping cat hair under the rug or, like in our house, beach sand, (with a little cat hair).  Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away and, it may be growing something under there.  Repression is insidious, and counter-productive. Better, I think, to say, It’s happening!  The greater insistence that it’s all good, gives strength to its opposite. Here’s what I have to say on the subject: Whatever is, is right. Whatever is, is. Whatever is. Whatever.

I usually like to include a few photos with these posts, but I didn’t have any to match up with the subject matter, and anyway, it’s all good, so . . .