THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

[pasithea]

Preface: This post is really questioning myself using an external voice. All use of the word 'you' should be interpreted as being about the writer, not the audience.

You've always moped and been sad that you missed the 60s. That far off fantasy time of great cultural change. And yet, you know that like the magical heterosexual 50s, they didn't really exist. It's a myth. Hippies were a subculture. Most of america was exactly as it is now. A bunch of miserable people who hate pretty-much everything that's different from them.

So.. Look around you right now. Burning Man, Free Hugs, and great stands against racism, homophobia, and the rape of our planet. Perhaps you're missing the revolution. Look at everything that's going on in the world today. How can you be involved? How can you be a part of it? How can you join the revolution and make change happen? The world is largely what you make it, and you live in a time and place where great cultural change is within your grasp if you're willing to reach out and be a part of it. Make the world a better place. You have the power. Everyone does. A million tiny changes add up.


So... Now back to the audience: What can I do to make the world a happier, nicer, more beautiful place? How about you?

Comments

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.

[kit-kaboodle.livejournal.com]

I think a trap I personally have fallen into is the notion of changing the minds of the enemies of freedom. I think it is a lost cause to trying to explain to people that they are in Plato's cave or the Matrix. The Dominator Culture wants and NEEDS enemies here at home. Let's not play their game.

I was melancholy about this very subject today. I'm the kind of chap that desperately wanted to "beat them at their own game." I don't think that is possible. I think the game is rigged. Actually, the game is so slimy, that I wonder why I took the Faustian bargain to begin with.

But enough cynicism. To answer your question about making the world a better place...

You are quite correct to bring up the hippies. I think those are a few people who really took Dr. Leary's advice to Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out to heart. This advice says nothing about throwing Molotov cocktails, that is something the Dominator culture would understand. Actually living a life that is about peace and love, and really meaning it, not just some fashion, is far more dangerous and world changing than anythng the Yippies did. To some extent, the Punks, who dropped out of society, were dangerous to the status quo, but their embrace of nihilism derailed them.

Hippies are still reviled as the most dangerous thing to ever happen to the status quo. This is strange, since they failed to bring about the changes to society, even to themselves. If you do a google search on 'hippy' there is plenty of propaganda still from the mainstream. Stuff like "I hate Hippies" t-shirts for little clean cuts to wear. The hippies were thrown into a political context, but that was never their goal. It is to the hippies, the punks, the bohemians, the dadaists, the artistic movements of the past that we should look for inspiration.

Re: Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I think there's a problem for me in that some kind of line must be drawn. For me, I can't have a tolerance for intolerance. The They Might Be Giants song really kind of sums it up for me. I can't stay silent and tolerate someone being a racist or anything else hateful in front of me. I feel compelled to take a stand.

The trick there, of course is that you attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Simply calling them mean, petty, and hateful probably isn't going to be productive and ignoring them doesn't make them go away; if anything, it emboldens them. So. I don't know precisely how to deal with that. My main thinking is that I need to change the world enough that people like that don't exist to begin with, but it's a big job.

How do you change the world and teach respect? My current strategy is art and animation that takes a positive position instead of a negative one, but sometimes it's so hard not to be negative. Also, an indirect positive message generally takes a lot of time to produce, where anger is cheap and plentiful, and even a direct positive message is often interpreted as condescending. But we are only human and sometimes we need a quick release. So.. A good solution there would be helpful.

Burning Man, Free Hugs, Flashmobs, raves, conventions, and stuff like that seem to be the best path. Turn people to your point of view not by force or talking down to them but just by having so much fun and being so pretty that they want to join you.

The problem there is that at some point, one also needs to deal with law because the hardcore haters are going to try to legislate away your culture in a ditch effort to keep their paradigm predominate and that gets us back to proselytizing and sometimes being angry. It's a vicious cycle. We're winning ever so slowly but it's three steps forward, two steps back every inch of the way.

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

I've worked in activism a good bit. A lot of activists (tho prolly a different percentage out there in Cali given the high density of codeheads) are verbal folks and sociology/psych/english major humanties etc... types. They don't have code skills. Organizations and campaigns fight for budget. Since you have so many rad code skillz..... you should look to where they might be needed and offer to deploy them. Also.. a lot of demos rely on theatre to get press coverage. You could also deploy your rad creativity/sewing/making things skillz there. Pick a cause, show up at the meetings and do. Also, if she's up for it... you could bring Julia to some demoz and get her to photograph so the org has cool pix they can post on their pre-fab or the website you create for them.

What kinds of activist & public education presences are there on SL? Any thing you can do there? How about going to different causes and seeing if there is anyone trainable within those causes that you can teach to maintain a SL presence?

You could also make little viral animations with important messages and spread them around.

Maybe you could teach codey kinds of stuff to immigrant women's groups and improve the lives of women seeking to make decent money here. Or you could just help teach them English. There are orgs to do that here in the ATL so there might be some over there in CA.

Maybe you could help some of the microloans women in impoverished countries sell their wares on line....

Lotsa stuff you can do. Good for you for asking.

I need to get off my ass and do something more myself. I've been dormant too long.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I'm already working on some animation for the upcoming vote time but I feel very much that I'm on the defensive and just trying to hold ground. I need positive change. :(

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

Oh and you and the geeks you know could form a collective to study privacy invasion technologies and anti-demo weapons (like that sonic shit they're gonna break out if Obama wins) and design and construct combatant technologies.

I've always said I'd like to put together a collective of folks with different skills to fight the evil shit the gubmint spends all the DARPA money on to oppress us. Kinda like La Femme Nikita :-)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Me, I'm just trying to make it a little prettier by hiding in my cave and drawing pretty stuff. Sometimes I slide bits of my worldview under the surface, especially in the long-form pieces.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I have lots of grandiose plans to do stuff like that, and sometimes I accomplish it, but too often I get caught up in the details OR I feel like it makes my work too superficial OR I feel like I'm not doing nearly enough.

My limitations in skill and time are very frustrating to me. I think that's part of why I get so warped about people play WOW all day or something like that. There's so much to do and they just squander all that precious time. If they're not using it, I wish they'd give it to me.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Ultimately I feel our political system is a crust on top of our economic system. Take energy out of that system: start making or doing things for yourself instead of buying goods or services. This is very hard, there's a reason why consumerism dominated America in the 20th century -- it was a clear advance over what preceded it for most people. Start with easy stuff that has a good emotional or sensual return on investment, stuff that has a low hair-shirt self-denial factor. Both because you're more likely to stick to it, and because hair shirts are generally unattractive.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

*nod* I do most of my shopping at the thrift store and I'm making more and more of my own clothes. I also don't have a lot of the gadgets and thingymabobs that so many geeks do.

The single biggest one for me though is eating out. Tonight I'm making potato and leek soup with homemade sourdough bread. Tomorrow, beans and rice.

I enjoy making stuff. :)

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

You're already doing better than I am. I'm hoping to get a fabber together and start making some of my own manufactured goods, but I'm not there yet.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

I work in an industry that manufactures scarcity. Everywhere there are satellite beams accessible to the masses for a low investment of equipment and labor. For that investment they may watch TV for entertainment and information all they like. Dozens of news channels, hundreds of sports channels, tens of pornographic channels, all there in the air for anyone to have. Except for a 32 bit encryption key we use to control this data and charge money for access to it.

Do you think our system will be toppled when people make their own garments, or tables and chairs? Do you think it will be a hippie free thinker like you that will own the patent to a universal constructor, or will it be a defense contractor or energy giant who will keep it's grip on the technology so firmly that the system works just like it always did only with less land devoted to factories, and less money allocated to factory jobs. Won't people still crawl over each other tooth and nail to try to prove dominance and call those who they "beat" losers and lazy, and good for nothing?

Sure your in home fabber could fab another fabber, but that's against your license, and the law. You'll be fined and have yours taken away if you try it.

After all, why should everyone have luxury just because it's easy to create? What good is being better than other people if you can't show it off and have nicer things and more of them?

very partial reply

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

1. I watch a fair amount of tv, but I never turn on my actual television. The torrent servers provide. :)

2. Repreap.org. :)

very partial reply

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

1. I watch a fair amount of tv, but I never turn on my actual television. The torrent servers provide. :)

2. Reprap.org. :)

[paka.livejournal.com]

Actually, I feel like I missed the '40s. I empathize more with my grandparents' generation than my parents'. But you've got a good point here; I often wish I'd been around to fight the Germans and then, after returning home, been part of the white people who realized that American racial inequality was wrong and that we needed to do something about it. But then, would I have done all that? I don't know.

There's a lot of "just surviving" that people do. I'd like to think I've done some of what I should be working on. There's a lot that I haven't done, though, and maybe it's always that way?

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

At work, during sexual harassment training I wanted to crawl into a hole and die when I was told that a couple publicly displaying affection for one another is sexual harassment against those who witness it. Yes, love, how disgusting, how offensive that others might feel affection for one another. Woe to the company that harbors affectionate couples.