Inquisition: Can we, all of us humans, simply just fucking agree already that major changes need to be made: to the base, the absolute bedrock of culture--to our general philosophy of thought and intellectual inquiry/debate? I am not talking, here, concerning the virtually meaningless political rhetoric of "CHANGE" that has been espoused ad nauseum by the Democrat-o-bots (the Democratobots!, the new reality show starring Obamobot and Clintobot (thanks to Edwardobot for participating!)); no, rather, I am deeply interested in a shift away from politically-minded thinking, a re-evaluation of spiritual (in the vaguest, non-religious sense) and philosophical concerns.
Over the past couple of years, my political involvement has failed to reach even the laziest level: simply voting in state or federal elections. And I am not the type of person to merely tout my "apathy," and respond to any challenge with the oft-used "my vote doesn't matter anyway." But it has become increasingly apparent that such a response would place a person just below a majority of those who are "politically active," i.e. people that just vote, based on, of course, slogans and symbols; and not on conscientious research and subsequent debate.
This whole entry has been and is going to continue to be: utterly scattershot. And I apologize for that; but these things, these towering IDEAS are hard to wrangle and tame. We are subject, in our current mass-media culture, to dizzying levels of stimuli: images, sounds--the whir of implacable technology. At times I am completely unaware and unsure of where my head is: on my shoulders? Hardly. But I must blow an intellectual load, prematurely yes, but with more discourse comes greater focus and stamina: then, an ability to parse these gigantic ideas and come up with some specifics.
I may be able to outline my general concern now. Yes: our institutions are broken. The SYSTEM and all its constituent mini-systems are irrevocably faulty as they are currently constituted.
The funny thing is, the claim that our votes are immaterial, is pretty close to true. It is my opinion that (and of course there are exceptions) citizens who are involved in the voting processes fall into roughly two categories: one type of voter is doggedly intent on supporting the party/candidate which is most likely to keep him comfortable, to keep him in his position of relative power with regard to social, economic, and various other concerns; the other voter, meanwhile, focuses on a candidate/party that promises the afforementioned CHANGE. The first voter is a short-sighted, selfish prick, while the second voter is naive at best. And I sure do love being able to draw these lines, create these groups opposite or adjoining one another. It has been made possible by mankind's capitulation to polar thinking (bad/good, good/evil, and on and on).
Sadly, I do not think that one can effectively vote EVEN IF his concerns are so narrowly defined and ill-considered. It seems obvious--due to the prevalence of distracting, ever-progressing technological advances along with our continued insistence, as a nation of good capitalists, that we must work at least one third of our waking hours--that simply we just do not have the time to reasonably acclimate ourselves to political issues. The problem is our reaction to this dilemna does not involve philosophical reconsideration. No, no, no. The media responds by covering less and less actual news in a less and less objective manner: more graphic explosions! Panels of "experts" talking over each other, espousing their unimaginative, self-serving policy stances. But with so little time to cover actual news that affects people, how do our networks find the time for this (as one example--this is just a paraphrase of the segment)?:
"Fish funerals" have become a YouTube sensation. People have been placing their dead fish in the toilet, along with tokens or garlands to mark the occasion, and flushing them in a filmed ceremony (that was the general narration to go along with video evidence of the funerals, and probably some wicked-sweet graphics too).
The Fox News anchor providing this story, after describing more-or-less what I just described, asked indignantly: "Don't these people have anything better to do?!" If I have to explain the sad, sad irony of that quote, then I am afraid our blogger/reader relationship must end.
There is much more to talk about, hopefully with lots more focus and clarity, but I have got to quit for the time being. My mind already caved-in four times in the midst of the preceding rant; this is all just too, too much. This is surely to be continued with more suspense, and maybe a love-triangle. And graphics! Mind-warping graphics. Til' next screed...
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3 comments:
I caucused last monday, nobody knew what they were doing, which would be fine, it should be fine, to be able to learn and then choose. But it never comes together. There's an agenda, to volunteer delegates, to nominate nomination delegates- we had to vote between three people, all of these people who don't know one another at all. Then the moment arrived when they asked for anyone present if they'd like to be a delegate- it was time for the conspicuously "collected" democratic participants to shine. The most lovely of all of us city folk, all striding forward to John Hancock the government a thing or two, yessiree.
Before the caucus, a friend of mine passively convinced me to vote for Barack Obama in the presidential nominations. His argument was that Barack is a candidate that brings in voters on the left as well as the center, with his tender, solemn gaze. He further argued that Hillary Clinton is a polarizing condidate, and thus would be ill equipped to run against John McCaine's mythological mavarick charisma. I read a good article that described Mr. McCaine's personal history here: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/4/the_myth_of_a_maverick_matt
And that's a good place to begin the discussion of the collapse of the system- why is is that the left(er) party must mobilize itself, must both harden and neutralize itself to sell votes, as if they're commodities, for the sole purpose of defeating a candidate without anything new to say about anything ("shape up or we'll kill you, mr. evil"), and who's entire appeal is in perpetuating the pax americana fantasy of global security through the bullying or postured threatening of "evil" throughout the world.
What happened to the idea that war is a shitty shitty thing? that it's just rich people forcing poor people to murder one another? I guess my question is, why is it so difficult to make anybody whose strategy is to "fight more and harder", presumably against evil, look simply absurd? I really want to know how to remove this compulsion of violence from discourse, which only serves to restict it. I mean, demographically, I'd say that as people become more educated, they become less willing to participate in violent struggle, because it becomes absurd, hegemony is brutality- the oppositional argument becomes a infantile condescention towards any idea of cooperation or diplomacy, such as "oh yeah, pray for peace... except war is happening, fag." Peace being this emasculating thing which can be easily undermined by this attitude which sells it authenticity through its "hardened" perspective.
I think that this compulsion to undermine argument through conspicuous condescention, is close to the target of the philosophical reexamination that you are advocating for. Why isn't this tactic seen as simply cowardly and ignorant? This method by which an individual seeks to appeal to the larger group that presumably excludes whomever wishes to advocate for such a childish, such a pathetic, such a feminine thing as peace? Why aren't people bothered by how disrespectful this is? IS everybody that frightened of speaking to one another? Yes. We're cowards.
you just blew my fucking mind, ryan.
"[...]why is it so difficult to make anybody whose strategy is to "fight more and harder", presumably against evil, look simply absurd?"
I think the answer to that question, in a general way, is that the task is difficult because there are no other options within that (limited) discourse. The discourse, the power-game has been constructed of which that debate is part and parcel, and it involves two answers:
1)don't fight
2)fight more and harder and longer until inevitable victory
i think there are, of course, minor variations with each option. But as far as the NPR set and the cable-news watching (consuming) set is concerned--there you have it.
It very much reminds me of politics (or the media discussion of politics)parallel with sports/competition that i've been talking a bit about, also. That's kind of the notion, at least the modern notion or axiom that coaches/players/fans/analysts have with sporting competitions. Concerning one game, one season, or whatever--the motivational tool is, no matter how many points/goals you or your team is down, the only response is to compete harder, more, with increased determination and focus (the only thing is that sports teams are generally not allowed "player surges" to overwhelm the competition) until, hopefully, the only acceptable outcome is achieved: victory.
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