get into it!
Just watched Bill Clinton tear apart FoxNews here and now I'm feeling a little fired up. I love Bill, not because I think he did everything right, but because of the quality of his engagement. He's pissed off and is fine with being pissed off. He's way too sharp to let himself be played into these idiotically simple political manipulations, and he's courageous enough to lay it out there and call it like it is; and rip Chris Wallace a new you-know-what.
In stark contrast, I have found the majority of dialogue in the 'social change' scene to be hyper-idealistic, with an unspoken but nonetheless primary objective of avoiding conflict, avoiding hurt feelings, avoiding any sort of anything remotely resembling attack of character. But an even more primary, more fundamental objective seems to be avoiding personal exposure by relying on common rhetoric: "we're here to promote sustainability, we're here to get people to drive less, we're here to transform the system", safely avoiding having to actually face any sort of individual interior realities, and talk about those.
The charge of being part of a group is often enough to sustain some sort of version of 'happiness', so you're met with this sort of seemingly happy facade, but it's not quite enough to totally hide a deep, essential cry for aliveness.
You can see it in the eyes.
You can see that the spark of growth that wants to self-realize, and bust out and self-transcend, is stalled in a stagnancy. A stagnant complacency, somewhat succesfully obscured by the constructed self-identy based on a common, 'progressive' ideology.
QUESTION IT. Question the ideology, question the contradictions you notice but quickly push out of your consciousness in order to stay part of the scene. Just do one thing - question the reslembance between 'sustainability', and religious dogma. Roll your eyes at that as you may, and so you should have no trouble going through the exercise and emerging unchanged in your beliefs about the totality of the 'sustainabiliy' ideology. But just like a dogmatic religious approach that has more to do with adherence to constructed beliefs than it does about interior awakening, I suspect you won't be able to help notice a similarity with an idea of 'sustainability' that focuses almost entirely on adhering to actions and isms (veganism, vegetarianism, etc) than it does on fostering a sustainability of psychology or personal awakening - both of which are required for any kind of integral sustainability to be possible.
I don't want your tired ideas of biking more, or polluting less - I want YOU.
Comments
The Lone Changer I think
The Lone Changer
I think part of the solution is in not looking at change as being one thing - i.e. save the Great Bear rainforest and..we're done here. Change doesn't stop after a goal has been acheived. The challenge with single issue approaches to change is that it closes the book on change once that goal has been acheived. However, don't knock it - sometimes it's that very singleness of mind and myopic devotion to a single goal that makes change happen. However, after the goal has been achieved, be like Jed Bartlett and say, "what's next?"
- Login to post comments
Oh I kinda like Bill as a
Oh I kinda like Bill as a person, but I have a hard time believing anything that comes out of his mouth.
For some reason everything he says sounds like he is not being entirely truthful. Maybe this happened around the time of "it depends what your definition of "is," is" and "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." when it was obvious that he did.
Once integrity is violated, then the whole well is polluted, and even the good that one tries to do is viewed with doubt and suspicion. This is why truthfulness, words and deeds being consistent, is so vital for the positive progress of a person, a community and a nation.
And really, all that huffing and puffing and feigned anger in that interview was really tiring. Isn't it more refreshing if someone just says "hey you know, we made some mistakes." And it's much more believeable.
Peace
- Login to post comments
jominglau, great question,
jominglau, great question, let me see if i hear it correctly: how does one engage in one's genuine compulsion to bring goodness to the world, while navigating the negative tendancies of the sub-culture(s) which surround(s) that good intention?
it would be great to hear from others' experiences with this as well, so i did a new blog post.
- Login to post comments
lincolnposte, I agree, and
lincolnposte, I agree, and this has been something that has been on my mind recently... of this 'sustainabilty' ideology...
Firstly, I want to say that I fully recognize and commend the efforts that people have done in the name of social change... Society has come a long way as a result of the people who have believed they could change the world better.
My question concerns what happens afterwards.... in particular, in the "environmental" movement.... What happens when sustainability as a social movement has become mainstream, and the general public has embraced these ideas as the correct and necessary way on which to live ones life? To me, it seems like this "battle for sustainability" has become such a part of a person's identity that when society finally has transitioned to a more sustainable way of life... what then? There is that fighting instinct within people, to fight for what they believe is right, the ideals of how they think the world should be... What does one fight for? I guess one could continue the fight for a higher level of sustainability...
It's one of those struggles that I deal with, and perhaps someone could enlighten me about this... I see the energy that being part of a group can bring, but there is something that... is disconcerting... about the need to submit to that collective ideology that you speak of... How does one balance these diametric forces?