the_revolution_is_an_open_hand Dafremen I met a critic today with as strong an opinion as my own. He was a really nice guy and we had a good old fashioned intellectual debate. It was refreshing, but frustrating. If someone as intelligent as this guy had been so well conditioned, how did that bode for the rest of society? He asked me why it was that I didn't appreciate what society had done for me, how it had made my life so much easier than my grandparents lives were. Here was my response to him: Just because something is EASIER, it does NOT stand to reason that it is better. Divorcing my wife instead of working out our differences would be easier, it would NOT necessarily be better. Leaving my kids with a babysitter or at a daycare would be easier, it does NOT stand to reason that it would be better. Hell, disregarding the fact that said babysitter might be abusing my children might be easier, again, it doesn't stand to reason that it would be better. I am so tired of hearing how much BETTER things are when they are easier. Easier does NOT equal better, it equals easier. In nature, creatures that follow the easier path MAY gain advantage in the short term, but they also become softer and weaker in the long run, once evolution begins to work its magic. This softness and reliance on EASIER becomes a detriment in times of strife or dramatic upheaval, take drought, famine or introduction of new species. (Those of you who would research further, just take a look at what happened in Madagascar upon the introduction of non-indigenous species, the same holds true for New Zealand and Australia to some extent. The EASY life of the indigenous species disappeared in the face of hardier competition that had evolved under more competitive aka LESS EASY circumstances.) This person tells me that I misunderstand what they meant by easier. "Look at all of the leisure time we have now. More time for philosophical and artistic pursuits." They tell me. To which I respond: Perhaps if we actually USED that leisure time for those purposes, you might have a point. We do not. We bungy jump, shop and watch TV to fill the leisure time instead. We go to the movies, concerts, sporting events and parties during our leisure time. Hell, "party" is almost synonomous with "leisure" these days. We sit around playing video games all day, engaging in escapist activities or preying on each other in real life. Whoever coined the phrase, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop" might well have had 20th and 21st century LEISURE TIME in mind when they coined it. Again, more leisure time does NOT necessarily equate to BETTER. A life of leisure may be EASIER, but as I've already pointed out, it does NOT stand to reason that this makes it BETTER. Domestic sheep almost CERTAINLY have more leisure time than wild sheep running free. Domestic dogs almost certainly have more leisure time and an easier life than wild dogs. Do they have a better life? That is a matter of opinion. Certainly any wild animal resists domestication, some simply cannot be domesticated (take the zebra for instance.) Freedom is not EASY, nor is it necessarily leisurely, but is it BETTER than the alternative? In my opinion, YES it is. It does NOT stand to reason that it is better for EVERYONE, but since we call this the Land of the Free and we claim that it is founded on the principles of life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness, it DOES stand to reason that FREEDOM is better for the AMERICAN people than the alternative. And since we are constantly talking about how we want to SPREAD that FREEDOM to other countries, it stands to reason that we believe OTHER countries would prefer FREEDOM to the alternative as well. "You're so ungrateful! After everything society has given to you, you have no appreciation. You are so much freer here. You're free to SPEAK your mind here with me now because of this same way of life that you say is so bad." No, I am currently free to speak my mind because of what REMAINS of a way of life that we are slowly eradicating. The way of life we are living is quickly silencing people like me, or making our voices practically moot by drowning us out with contrary messages and social programming via mass media. Just because I enjoy the liberties that we STILL have, doesn't mean I should jump up and click my heels over the liberties that we've lost in the last 226 years. How much longer before excercising my right to speak out establishes me as a terrorist or a traitor in the eyes of society? When that happens, my right to speak out will be void and null and my words will be considered treasonous, regardless of the fact that I speak out in the name of freedom. I DO appreciate the liberties that our society has given me, but again, it does NOT stand to reason that I should appreciate what freedoms our society has already taken away from me AND my grandchildren too. One thing being born into this society has given me is a TRUE appreciation of how precious each and every freedom we have is. Perhaps if you could appreciate THAT, you wouldn't disagree so strongly with me. "Well what would you have? Anarchy? I mean you sound like you want to get rid of society." No, I would start by having us look away from the TV and look at each other. Sort of like you and I are doing right now. I would have us fill that leisure time with discussion, between strangers and within families. Between individual citizens and groups of citizens. I would have us keep our families together and I would have us teach our children to stop mistaking passion and excitement with love, by raising them in loving families. If we teach them to be patient before jumping into relationships that will likely result in broken families, we'll have less children that are the product of broken families which, in turn, will result in more loving parents. We can break the cycle and it's NOT that difficult if we all agree to try. THAT'S the hard part, agreeing to change. We should walk together as families, talk together as a families and as a communities as well. Coming together is as easy as turning our back on the idea that we can't come together. Making a difference is as easy as resisting the notion that we can't make a difference. We should know each other well and learn to value the things that REALLY matter: Honor, values and sincere caring, instead of pretty lies, trendy behavior, popular rhetoric and shallow flattery. It is the mass media message to be afraid of the world and the people in it that has us passing each other on the street without so much as a Good Morning or a Hello. The easiest way to divide people and keep them from becoming a united voice against a common foe is to break down the lines of communication between them. Machiavelli used the strategy against the peasants and the various feifdoms in order to keep his king in power. When people don't talk to one another in order unite in a common cause, the government and all of it's power hungry fat cats are safe. Speaking of power hungry fat cats, I would have us stop giving our power to strangers in Washington and keep it for ourselves to make our OWN lives better. If THAT is too radical for people to swallow, I would have them keep their power in their home town, where they are CLOSE to their elected officials. Close enough to run them out of town on a rail if they start to abuse that power. The more we crowd together in the big cities, the more power there is concentrated in one place, just waiting for some uncaring, unscrupulous jerk to snatch up and abuse for their own gain. At the same time, our relative anonymity in the big cities all but guarantees a voice that will go unheard, lost in the sea of voices. Hell, we COME to the big cities because we claim there is more opportunity there. Opportunity in this case equates to concentrated power..we just want our piece. In return we give up our identities, our dignity and our character. Seems like an awful uneven trade to me. Dying to make a living. The discussion (it was really more of a monologue in hindsight) ended on a friendlier note than it had started on. He seemed to realize after a bit that I wasn't a liberal or a radical. I'm just a normal everyday guy like him who would like us to partake of some traditionally conservative values in order to protect a traditionally liberal set of freedoms. After that we talked about religion a bit and philosophy. Like I said, he was a really nice guy. It seems that the revolution isn't so much a clenched fist as it is an open hand with a firm handshake behind it. 021208 ... ??? Of course, there's nothing wrong with your ideas, but for the most part, I don't really think that your goals are very realistic. I also have a problem with labeling anyone who disagrees with you as "programmed for pessimism" or "conditioned". There are negative connotations associated with the soulless robo-human imagery those phrases conjur up, and as such they sort of imply an unjustified value judgment. In a sense, we're all programmed for whatever we are, given that we all go through a process of socialization. Maybe you're programmed for optimism (at least, by your definition of optimism). And that's fine. Fundamentally, I think that your ideas for social change rely on dubious assumptions about humanity. One example, I believe, is your assessment of American leisure time. When you talk about Americans vegetating in front of the television, it certainly doesn't sound good. No one wants to become a television-numbed zombie. Are people stupid? Yeah. But are we to assume that before television, people weren't just as stupid? I like to think that the non-television-watching people who denied women the right to vote for 80 years despite an active woman suffrage movement were, in a sense, stupider and more complacent. You want people to take an active part in their government, and cultivate their understanding of philosophy and politics, but I'd say that's just not an option for most people due to either lack of economic or intellectual means. Many people work to earn a subsistence wage, and it seems to me almost vulgar to expect them to engage in philosophical discussion when they're mostly concerned with not starving or being evicted from their homes. Think about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: if people are simply trying to survive, how can they focus on fulfilling their full potential as human beings? Of course, you might say that their ticket out of poverty is participation. I'm not sure that's true, and if it is, I'm not sure it's realistic. But then there are the people who are simply dumb. Most people, Dafremen, are just not on your intellectual level. Now, in fairness, there will always be dumb people, where dumbness is defined relative to the intelligence of the intellectual elite. If we killed all the dumb people, the idea of "dumbness" wouldn't go away, but it would shift, and maybe anyone with a measured IQ below 180 would be "dumb" then. Maybe gifted astrophysicists would lament that all the "dumb people" want to do is engage in meaningless philosophical debate. Anyway, this doesn't even begin to address all the issues you brought up, but I feel like it's getting too long already. 021208 ... Dafremen I didn't bring up philosophy actually. The other guy did. I think that what people need is survival that counts toward future survival and I believe that leisure time is a waste if it is wasted. In your example I would say that it is wasted to the barely surviving if it is not used to put themselves in a better position to survive and make a better life for themselves and their children. 021208 ... User24 and besides, if the dumbness scale were lifted to IQ less than 180, you could be sure that the dumb philosophers would a) know they were classed as dumb b) not be as dumb as the previous set of dumb people (can't be a bad thing, can it?) c) acknowledge that the astrophysicists, while posessing an entirely different form of intelligence, are still intellignet. currently, our dumb people a) believe they are not dumb b) ignore or ridicule the intelligent people, or even accuse them of being dumb. not that I'm suggesting that KILLing all the DUMB PEOPLE would be a GOOD IDEA. Dafremen - I can't agree more with your views here. 030708 ... birdmad worse, in the US, they (the dumb people) become presidents and talk-radio superstars 030708 ... niska i agree with daf wholly, though i'm sure my view is far more cynical. what stands out to me is: "I'm just a normal everyday guy like him who would like us to partake of some traditionally conservative values in order to protect a traditionally liberal set of freedoms." it is this balance of values that our society has abandoned. we have created a world where the new royalty is elected by ratings and shock factor, and we revere them. what other country than america would anna nicole smith, monica lewinski, and snoop dog be given a platform to speak to the entire world, while intellectuals and GOOD role models have to struggle to at least tell others being respectable is a good thing. in fact, a lot of us make fun of the people with anything good to contribute to society, cause 'that ain't cool'. no, this time is better at all. but we have to admit, it's this blended generation of ours who caused this - comprised of people born to boomers, whose births span about three post-war decades, leaving us spanning two, and mixing it up with the next generation's kids... there are people whose families have been through four generations on the way to five, where some have been through three in the same amount of time. and we classify our own by four separate demographic groups! damn, if you're selling a candy bar - you have too many people to reach. just do it like kellogg's pop tarts and go fucking wack, because if you reach no one, everyone will probably notice. we are a world of young people, demanding more freedom than we are responsible enough to facilitate, because we are so eager to live, when we haven't found out what it is about life that is important to our own selves yet. people would rather not wait - it's 'now! now! now!' but later is not even an afterthought. it just hits us like a brick wall when we realize puppies aren't cute when they're bad dogs, pissing on the rug; as kids aren't cute when they're screaming tweens, snarking for money, and keying the family car. and just what is there left to rebel against anyway? is this what anyone really wants? "15 year old jackie wanted a baby, so she slept with four men. today we'll find out who the daddy is!" and the crowd goes wild! they're fucking cheering! WHAT? well, let's make sure we are them, before we jump in the sack and make babies, ok? i can't even watch daytime tv (cause i'm at work. but even when i'm sick, or just calling in sick...), it makes me angry and it's useless. how can so many people exist and survive, when they are total fucking morons? that's a really bad scenerio, and yes, i know it's generalized, but it happens, people. children are born too early, to parents with no real grasp of who they are, or what they will choose to accomplish in life, creating a difficult struggle where the family has to grow up together; but they wind up just growing up around each other. and today, it's rare that anyone can afford to stay home, or share time, or instil values. so a lack of nurturing, and a hoard of confusion is placed upon people who will be having children right about now, or soon. some will in twenty years, but we are all from the same time, and we're no longer a society with a fixed set of ideals. this is what leaves people dumb. They have a choice to either take the initiative on their own to better their lives, or wind up repeating the stupid things that made them dumb in the first place, based on their parental examples, their imposed stigmas and assumed small capacity. although, it's difficult for anyone to take initiative when their example growing up is a constant 'just get by...' and they aren't given the attention, motivation and stimulation they need to find something more in life than toil. knowing nothing about life, responsibility or love, before deciding to have a child for the sake of sharing those things with that child, is careless parenting and on the other hand, we want everyone to be able to prance around doing exactly as they please, but we don't realise the trade-off, so we complain about our society's condition while we push it forward. we are robbing ourselves of happiness, and we think it'll be better if we just fuck it all and indulge, regardless of the consequences? that's just dumb. holy shit that was a rant. i need a smoke now... 030709 ... Dafremen You guys rock. Perhaps there is hope after all. If you get the chance...read taking_it_to_the_streets. There are details explaining why I must leave you guys. Gawd I really shouldn't. I've found more hope for the future on this site than I thought likely. Daf 031006 ... unhinged my open_hand is definitely ready to slap the stupid out of the smugnorant 191222 what's it to you? who go blather from