Note:
Here are three more responses to my invitation in Coffee, Consciousness and Revolution. More to come.
Joe
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Hi Joe,
Your latest essay is very thoughtful. I hope you're right, that in every human being, at least the ordinary sort, there is an innate yearning for justice. Just as you said, we have our killer ape gene, which our "betters" try to make dominant, especially in the young men and women cannon fodder they send off to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. But, after all, those killer apes had groups, societies if you will, in which they instinctively cooperated with one another in order to kill the wooly mammoth, the saber-toothed tiger, or whatever.
There were hierarchies with dominant and subordinate apes, no doubt, but the group took care of each other as long as each abided by the rules. At least that can be reasonably safely assumed by study of other apes and other animals. Therein developed their sense of justice, perhaps. Human beings as we've evolved out of apehood have developed quite equal societies with no hierarchies as among our first consciously constructed social forms. All over the world we've run into human groups who were isolated and thus never much "advanced" beyond that stage, being far away from trade routes and interaction with other groups of humans.
So we know or can well surmise that such communal groups existed at the dawn of civilization. Throughout our history, people have tried to renew communal forms in somewhat more advanced form. Think of the medieval rebellion of John Ball and Wat the Tyler, with their slogan, "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?" Think of the Diggers, the Levellers, the radical priest Jean Meslier, the various egalitarian peasant rebellions in China, Japan and Vietnam throughout those cultures' long histories. Think of the modern-day socialist and communist movements, uhuru na ujamaa -- freedom and socialism -- in Tanzania, the worker-controlled enterprises of Argentina and Venezuela. So, yes, humans have an innate sense of justice, developed from living in groups of varying size and having to cooperate to survive.
Well, now we're faced with another such situation, aren't we? We'll have to cooperate in order to survive, although if some of the things you've talked about come to pass, maybe it's too late for survival even to be on the agenda. But I think the essence of the human is the striving for something better, something that reflects our best values. So we should get rid of the corporate leeches and the elitist leaders -- send 'em back to the farm, like Mao did -- and rebuild our societies worldwide, with us concerned first and foremost with where we happen to be, so that we can conserve what we possibly can and construct a sustainable cooperative future, in which justice does not mean "just us" any longer.
Peace,
Greg
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Joe,
I'm writing in response to your recent post about doing the right thing, going along with the herd, etc. As a weirdo and a life-long contrarian, I can say that it isn't easy to go against the herd, and the pay and hours suck. You lose much of your social interaction since you don't have much to talk about with other people once you stop believing in the collective mass-hypnosis.
Most of the intercourse in media and on the boob tube is basically non-issues that get people worked up over nothing, so they don't think about the real issues. Most of our government is concerned with non-issues, like terrorism, which is the biggest non-issue of all. Terrorists don't spy on me, they don't take my money and spend it on pointless wars overseas squashing brown people, but my government does this.
Doing the right thing, is, in the long run, the only way to go. We have to ditch the cars, move out of the big shit-box houses, close down the shopping malls (or most of them anyway), pull the troops out of all the other countries, cut the military budget by 80-90%, quit buying useless crap, develop a sane way of living on this fragile planet that doesn't resemble collective suicide, among other things.
Nobody in any position of power is talking about any of this stuff, but this is what has to happen. So, it's up to the little guy to lead the way.
There are a lot of good people out there who want to do a lot better, but there is so little in the way of example. The media never report on anything that might reduce consumption, only on things that promise to keep the whole suicide train in full speed mode (ethanol, electric cars, nuclear, etc). Nobody ever entertains the thought that we will actually have to reduce consumption by something like 80%, shrink the economy radically, and buy only durable goods that last many years -- not throwaway crap to fill the landfills.
Few people have any realistic idea of what renewable energy can and can't do, and the media are basically just as clueless as anybody else. What renewable energy can't do is keep the whole thing afloat, business as usual. Renewable energy can provide some energy, but not at the level at which society currently demands it. Fossil fuels are the accumulated power of hundreds of millions of years of solar energy. Renewable energy is only current solar power.
The solution? For me, I wonder if it wouldn't be a bit easier to just go to someplace like Mexico, where the society already somewhat resembles the direction that this country has to go. That's the direction the US and other rich countries have to go -- reduced consumption, modest lives -- but it will probably be an extremely painful transition.
Anyway, my two cents.
Take care,
Brent
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Joe:
You hit the proverbial nail on the head Joe. The human species is a social animal and basically a good animal as being "good" tends to lead to a better evolutionary outcomes. We are indeed used and abused and our very "goodness" turned against us for the greed and profit of others. Thus, we have the fake preachers of the Messiah who care much more about their estates and flying first class or private Lear jet than walking in the very real steps of a lowly carpenter who truly loved people and cast material things to the four winds for He knew the truth. It was the ancient Greeks who realized that the idea of moderation and balance held a central place in our bodies, minds and souls. Hubris was a character flaw of fatal consequences as seen in the ancient Greek epics. A revolution is simply a return to balance as you so eloquently put it. People do not revolt lightly but they will rise up when they discover that they have been lied to and that the reality they so ardently believed in was a giant fiction.
Yes, there are a few true psychopaths who enjoy mayhem and blood and suffering. But the vast, vast majority of people are simply good folk hoping to live as long and as well as possible. No revolution succeeds without these people. When a society degrades so far into greed and unreality that the "Average Joe" (no name pun intended) figures out he and more importantly his family has been screwed and lied to, than the troubles can really begin for the oppressors in their Bohemian Grove sanctuaries. I believe in the Cosmic force of Karma.
As a cop, I was on the beat long enough to see it at work. Call it God, call it the Great Spirit, call it poetic justice, but simply understand that it does exist.
Marty
