Politics of the Present
Sep. 13th, 2010 01:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wolven7Had a conversation with M1k3y, earlier tonight, which has me recognising something important: A vast number of people in the world, today, are very scared of the world in which we live, and, as a result, they are allowing themselves to be manipulated into faulty, untenable positions. Positions of hatred for those different, positions of unchecked consumption, positions of blind aggression and unthinking action. But they are us, because we are all people, and we all have this drive, in us, to hate what we fear and blah blah blah. You've heard it. But we have other drives in us. To make something lasting, to continue on, to survive and thrive and learn more and do more and different things.
All of these drives are connected, if you can't already tell. Consumption, our drive to have and to take always more, is directly connected to the drive to excel, to exceed, to be never satisfied with the commonplace and the status quo. The need to be the one whose ideas win, who's "right," is tied to the desire to have our deeds and contributions known, forever. These are rooted in the same source, but their generation and expression are determined by the environment in which they are explored and realised: Your mind, and the minds of those around you.
If we are either predisposed to doing so, or if we are Strongly incited to do so, then we can change how we understand situations-- we can go from viewing them as threats to seeing new opportunities-- and we can change how we express our reactions to them. But, as I have mentioned, many of us are not inclined to see anything but threats, and many others of us are interested in inciting us to only such actions as benefits us in the Very Short Term, and so the rest of us must take steps to incite those of us who can't see past the next immediate threat, the next immediate paycheck, or even the paychecks we will get in our lifetimes. We have to put together a world in which we are concerned with not just who is wrong, who is bad, who is trying to take our liberty, but how are we right, how are we good, and how can we model a kind of freedom that can't ever be removed without our explicit consent? But there are those of us who will see even this as a threat.
Some of us will see this as a threat to our mental stability, a threat to our financial security, a threat to our ideology, a threat to the bulwark of certainty which we've built against a shifting, dangerous, luminous, multihued landscape of new and differnet societies. We have to convince ourselves that we have the "right" answer, that there is a clear path, and that openness is it, that recognition of difference is the one true way. We have to use the propaganda tactics, we have to subvert marketing tricks, and we have to accept the fact that we may have to use our fear against ourselves. Or, at best, against itself.
Because we will always be afraid of something. We will always find some externalised other on which to pin our uncertainty about the world, and some poor fucker to scape goat into the role of the villain for everyone to rally against. That will always be the way, and our only hope is to come to a point where we can recognise it, and pull it up from the levels of sublimnation, pull it up from unconscious ritual attribution that makes it seem natural, and out into the light of reason, or intuition, or meditation, or prayer, or whatever gets your thoughts and actions moving, so you can get through the day, and say "What a minute. What if I change this?" What if, now, they're not a scapegoat, but they're an ally? What if, now, you're both in it, together? What if, now, we're all trying to survive, and the loss of the primacy of an idea is not the death of your culture, but is, instead, a moment of its growth and gestation?
But to do that, we may have to use each other, for a little while, because we're afraid, and logic and rationality don't cut through fear. Other emotions cut through fear, emotions like anger, hatred, hope, love, contentment, desire, lust, control... The more people have these other things, the less afraid they are. The less afraid they are, the more you can guide them, step by step, to a position where they can intuit, think, reason, or otherwise Clearly Approach A New Situation. The more often, and more quickly, you do this for or to people, the more it becomes their own nature. If you can't see your way clear to using that fear, to manipulating people to a point where they can no longer be unknowningly manipulated, then we have, on our hands, a war with ourselves.
One side of ourselves is willing to do whatever it takes to make short-term gains, and/or to remain in or to keep others in a position of boxed-in, closed-off xeno- and neophobia; we have a vested interest in this. Schadenfreude, marketshare, the need for security, whatever. It serves a purpose. We need to ask, is that the part of ourselves that we want to win? How many of us are there who want to be the "better demons" of our nature, and to do what it takes to make sure that no one can ever again do what it takes to fuck us over? Because I'm betting there are a lot of us, and that we have the resources to do it.
I know there are problems, here, regarding the involution of power and change, and the fact that, when we start manipulating people, especially "for their own good," it is almost impossible to ever stop. But we have to try something new, because, talking to each other doesn't seem to be working, and eventually we're just going to end up killing ourselves.
All of these drives are connected, if you can't already tell. Consumption, our drive to have and to take always more, is directly connected to the drive to excel, to exceed, to be never satisfied with the commonplace and the status quo. The need to be the one whose ideas win, who's "right," is tied to the desire to have our deeds and contributions known, forever. These are rooted in the same source, but their generation and expression are determined by the environment in which they are explored and realised: Your mind, and the minds of those around you.
If we are either predisposed to doing so, or if we are Strongly incited to do so, then we can change how we understand situations-- we can go from viewing them as threats to seeing new opportunities-- and we can change how we express our reactions to them. But, as I have mentioned, many of us are not inclined to see anything but threats, and many others of us are interested in inciting us to only such actions as benefits us in the Very Short Term, and so the rest of us must take steps to incite those of us who can't see past the next immediate threat, the next immediate paycheck, or even the paychecks we will get in our lifetimes. We have to put together a world in which we are concerned with not just who is wrong, who is bad, who is trying to take our liberty, but how are we right, how are we good, and how can we model a kind of freedom that can't ever be removed without our explicit consent? But there are those of us who will see even this as a threat.
Some of us will see this as a threat to our mental stability, a threat to our financial security, a threat to our ideology, a threat to the bulwark of certainty which we've built against a shifting, dangerous, luminous, multihued landscape of new and differnet societies. We have to convince ourselves that we have the "right" answer, that there is a clear path, and that openness is it, that recognition of difference is the one true way. We have to use the propaganda tactics, we have to subvert marketing tricks, and we have to accept the fact that we may have to use our fear against ourselves. Or, at best, against itself.
Because we will always be afraid of something. We will always find some externalised other on which to pin our uncertainty about the world, and some poor fucker to scape goat into the role of the villain for everyone to rally against. That will always be the way, and our only hope is to come to a point where we can recognise it, and pull it up from the levels of sublimnation, pull it up from unconscious ritual attribution that makes it seem natural, and out into the light of reason, or intuition, or meditation, or prayer, or whatever gets your thoughts and actions moving, so you can get through the day, and say "What a minute. What if I change this?" What if, now, they're not a scapegoat, but they're an ally? What if, now, you're both in it, together? What if, now, we're all trying to survive, and the loss of the primacy of an idea is not the death of your culture, but is, instead, a moment of its growth and gestation?
But to do that, we may have to use each other, for a little while, because we're afraid, and logic and rationality don't cut through fear. Other emotions cut through fear, emotions like anger, hatred, hope, love, contentment, desire, lust, control... The more people have these other things, the less afraid they are. The less afraid they are, the more you can guide them, step by step, to a position where they can intuit, think, reason, or otherwise Clearly Approach A New Situation. The more often, and more quickly, you do this for or to people, the more it becomes their own nature. If you can't see your way clear to using that fear, to manipulating people to a point where they can no longer be unknowningly manipulated, then we have, on our hands, a war with ourselves.
One side of ourselves is willing to do whatever it takes to make short-term gains, and/or to remain in or to keep others in a position of boxed-in, closed-off xeno- and neophobia; we have a vested interest in this. Schadenfreude, marketshare, the need for security, whatever. It serves a purpose. We need to ask, is that the part of ourselves that we want to win? How many of us are there who want to be the "better demons" of our nature, and to do what it takes to make sure that no one can ever again do what it takes to fuck us over? Because I'm betting there are a lot of us, and that we have the resources to do it.
I know there are problems, here, regarding the involution of power and change, and the fact that, when we start manipulating people, especially "for their own good," it is almost impossible to ever stop. But we have to try something new, because, talking to each other doesn't seem to be working, and eventually we're just going to end up killing ourselves.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 06:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 07:42 pm (UTC)The Century of the Self (1-4)
The Power of Nightmare (1-3)
The Trap: Whatever Happened to Our Deams of Freedom? (1-3)
All streamable through Google Video.
These are sort of the foundation artifacts of my projects... not by themselves, but they were the start of my Grand Unified Field Theory of Why We Can't have Nice Things.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 08:28 am (UTC)Thanks again for talking through these issues earlier.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 01:55 pm (UTC)- Everyone is doing what they expect to be "right".
-- (From further discussions with
- Wolves have oft been ascribed with malign intent, and cobras are far more capable of doing one physical harm than any random internet troll, but we no longer point at animals and say, "evil" (at least, most of us). To that end, I'd suggest taking the same tact for "enemies" as dangerous animals: It's a waste of time to fear and hate them, and while humans are complex creatures, it's possible to understand them. If one does understand them, one can note their migratory patterns and avoid them altogether, or with a clever bit of social engineering, use them to one's advantage.
- And in the social engineering bit, and my economic interest, good diplomats and traders get everyone to come away from the table feeling like they did well.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 07:41 pm (UTC)