Worker, Consumer, Revolutionary.
“We've been desensitized by the frequency of the attacks.”
Krys, going on a rarely seen soapbox. (And more power to you. It's sexy and exciting when you do that, you know?) Powerlessness isn't a simple matter of give-and-take or oppressor vs. oppressed. It's endemic to the system we live in. The powerful are so deeply ingrained, the lines of enforcement so ancient as to be instinctual. Rulers no longer rule, because their titles and positions do it for them.
What do we do but follow along? Wait for someone to fix the problems? As we know our places and playact these roles we're stuck in, all that we do is reduce our ability to act outside them. You cannot stop the bombings in India, the oppression in China, the occupation in Iraq or the rape and murder and starving children in your own fucking backyard because you are not the person who does those things.
I belive that we are capable of changing the world through group action, but even in my most upright and conscientious moments I feel myself weighted down by the fetters of my role. Worker. Consumer. Producer. Police officer? Hero? Revolutionary? The change is so hard to make. The factors piled so high against us all. And even if you were to break free of the damning, all-powerful fates of the status quo, you'd be alone. What would you do?
In this way, we all exercise power on one another. We deliver an ataxic energy with expectations and reward repetition of behaviors with aplomb. Some of us have children. Some have fragile dreams. Presupposing parents. Consuming naivetés. There is always a reason to lay back and take the ride that everyone is offering. Our aggregate concern for the right and proper way of things creates a force that damns progress and retards cohesive effort to alter the course of history. I'm certain these bombings, the ironhanded law of the Taliban, and even the inhuman determination and pitiless cruelties of every genocide were buoyed along by each and every mind present.
What we expect is often what we get, and as more and more expect the same outcomes, they begin to be nearly assured.
Krys, going on a rarely seen soapbox. (And more power to you. It's sexy and exciting when you do that, you know?) Powerlessness isn't a simple matter of give-and-take or oppressor vs. oppressed. It's endemic to the system we live in. The powerful are so deeply ingrained, the lines of enforcement so ancient as to be instinctual. Rulers no longer rule, because their titles and positions do it for them.
What do we do but follow along? Wait for someone to fix the problems? As we know our places and playact these roles we're stuck in, all that we do is reduce our ability to act outside them. You cannot stop the bombings in India, the oppression in China, the occupation in Iraq or the rape and murder and starving children in your own fucking backyard because you are not the person who does those things.
I belive that we are capable of changing the world through group action, but even in my most upright and conscientious moments I feel myself weighted down by the fetters of my role. Worker. Consumer. Producer. Police officer? Hero? Revolutionary? The change is so hard to make. The factors piled so high against us all. And even if you were to break free of the damning, all-powerful fates of the status quo, you'd be alone. What would you do?
In this way, we all exercise power on one another. We deliver an ataxic energy with expectations and reward repetition of behaviors with aplomb. Some of us have children. Some have fragile dreams. Presupposing parents. Consuming naivetés. There is always a reason to lay back and take the ride that everyone is offering. Our aggregate concern for the right and proper way of things creates a force that damns progress and retards cohesive effort to alter the course of history. I'm certain these bombings, the ironhanded law of the Taliban, and even the inhuman determination and pitiless cruelties of every genocide were buoyed along by each and every mind present.
What we expect is often what we get, and as more and more expect the same outcomes, they begin to be nearly assured.
posted by Maximillian @ 12:26 AM
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