“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” – F.D.R.
In an age of cultural apathy, being an intelligent, pro-active, well-informed individual at times seems prosaic and borderline criminal. It’s so easy to stay uniformed, even with the advent of smart phones and the formidable power of 3G. Instead our beautiful informative technology becomes a means of total denial and distraction. We use it to place a barrier between ourselves and the people we’re having dinner with; to play Candy Crush and check Facebook when we should be reading about the world around us and talking to each other. As a self-diagnosed pathological people-watcher, I can say that at times the hopelessness is irrepressible. We seem wired to not care because the problems are too big, but I don’t believe that’s totally our fault.
History tells us that all empires, from whatever birthing into the world endure rocky growing pains, experience one if not several social/political/cultural changes, and then eventually crumble. History also tells that a corrupt and abusive government must be overthrown for the good of its people. Try doing that today, or even getting people to acknowledge the infinite inadequacies of the American government. Democracy is dead, and starting a revolution is hard! Creating a Facebook event to piggyback a wildly disorganized Occupy movement, or slapping on a bumper sticker, isn’t going to do it. With the ties between corporate America and the government holding fast, what’s an ignored majority to do? If only a revolution today was as simple as a good-ole fashion pick-axe-and- torch revolt.
Historically there are a couple of avenues of social revolution has taken:
1) Civil disobedience: make signs and slogans, march down the street shouting the slogans, disrupt the daily droll of existence respectfully, set up a tent on the steps of the federal building and refuse to move your ass under any circumstances. It was a powerful method, but it’s an inconvenience at best today. We’ve all got to charge our smart-phones, eat, and use the bathroom at some point.
2) Non-civil disobedience: mess-shit-up, throw eggs at the police, break capitol building windows, blow up mailboxes. Flashy, simple, and effective at getting everyone’s attention; but ultimately pointless.
3) Apathetic disobedience: do nothing, sit in your room and brood about the problems you’re too small to fix, write an angry blog about it, send a letter to your congressmen they won’t read anyway, start a chartroom, start a petition, and still ultimately accomplish nothing.
I know, it all sounds a little bleak and pessimistic. Though I would have to say blowing up mailboxes would be fun and elicit a timely response, the question then becomes how can you start a cultural revolution from your jail-cell? It’s all very perverse and there truly is no easy answer. People need brash and devastating examples to shake them out of their haze all at once. I’m in no mood for those either.
So where does that leave the intelligent, pro-active, well-informed individual? I believe today that revolutions can only occur in small doses: the small organic farmer down at the market, the small non-corporate business selling American-made products, the small non for-profit organization publishing thoughtful social/political works, a small suburb that uses solar panels, or a family that rides bikes instead of driving cars.
America won’t last forever, but maybe, through a series of small revolutions we can delay our own desolation.
If not, there are plenty of mailboxes.