You want to know me? This is me. Well. Part of me.
Feeling very... angry, for lack of a better word, about the world we live in.
I was talking about how excited I was that I was getting my own place soon in front of my brother and he was like, "Yeah, well. I'm not far behind you." It just concerns me because he has no intention of going to college anytime in the near future. He says he'll go in a few years once he's stable living outside of the house. He says that he'll work his way though school. I don't think he understands what the world is really about. Amy and I talked about this today, that when you grow up in Montgomery County and no where else, you have this veil over your eyes. Living in the richest (or second richest, it tends to flip-flop) county in richest nation in the world gives us this really fucked up view of the universe. I'd like to think that I'm educated enough and have made an effort to really see things for what they are that I'm at least a little better off than a lot of people in this area. But who the fuck am I kidding? I've never really lived these things, experienced them. As much as I think I can empathize, I can't. I've never lived in absolute poverty or not known where my next meal was coming from, or even wondered if I was going to get a meal this week. That's one of the reasons I really want to do Peace Corps.
But. Moving on. He has no idea how hard it's going to be to work and go to school, especially while struggling with drug abuse problems and his choice group of friends. I know where he's going. I've seen it. It's the path that Matt and some of his friends are taking. No college, trying to struggle to live while mooching of their parents. Matt will probably be a mechanic for the rest of his life- or join the army. The only one of his friends who is actually making something of himself is Justin, who's getting a kick-start from his parent's money, but actually working really hard. I honestly, as much as I want to be supportive, don't see Rob succeeding in the endeavor that so many people I know have failed at. I worked while going to MC, struggling to juggle by the end of the year, and I wasn't making enough money to support myself- thank god for my mom. I don't know how he will.
The really sad thing is that it shouldn't have to be this way. We shouldn't have to go to college just because it'll someday give us a better position in the world. We should be going to college to learn. Period. Not everyone should go! If you have no interest in learning more about the world around you, that's fine. Do something else. But our society values those people so much less, just because they don't have a drive or interest in learning or have the type of intelligence that allows learning to come easily. They still serve a purpose, do something important with their lives. Matt loves cars. He is a great mechanic. But he'll probably never get the chance to work on some crack developing team for a good company because he doesn't have a degree. No matter how good he is, no one will ever give him a chance.That's sad. I don't have pity for him because of what he's done to me, but I have pity for people in his situation. It's the same story with my mom. She's amazing, fantastic with people. She can make a friend with someone in 2 seconds flat, a trait I envy very much. She's great in retail, customer service, anything dealing with people. But she's been held back time and time again from becoming a manager or getting a higher position because she never completed college. She's replaced by someone who maybe has a degree, but doesn't know shit about the business or just doesn't care.
The world is a fucked up place. We value people based on their job and how much money they make. But that's not real value. With the incredible array of talented and intelligent people in the world, we single out those who are athletically adept, musically adept, and have the type of intelligence that allows them to succeed in our school system. We reward these people, and these are the people who support our societies structure. But does the ability to make a slam dunk, or sing on key, or even have the brain capacity to dodge the law and find loopholes in a court case really count more than the ability to fix someone's car? To build a house? To catch a fish? We do things that we hate because we think that we can make money and succeed. Be better off than our parents were. Progress.
I hate that word. What the hell is progress exactly? The next diet pill that kills more people than it helps? The next nuclear warhead we create? The next smaller, better, cell phone that only distances people more from each other? We're brought up in this culture that whispers in our ear, "build, bigger, stronger, faster, expand, destroy, beat someone else, superiority is the key, success!" Why are we so obsessed with progress and success? I'd consider progress to be stopping world hunger, to be learning to live with each other, to be flying to the stars in search of a place where we can call home once it gets too crowded here. I'm not saying that all technology is a bad thing. The space program is an amazing amazing dream (you can thank your government for cutting funding). The incredible medical advances that we've made have allowed us to live longer lives. But are these lives really more fulfilling when they're longer? Or does it only continuate the sad, petty, existence we've carved out for ourselves in which our only sources of satisfaction are consumption and lust.
We feel this drive to move forward. But why? What would happen if we just
Stopped.
Stopped.
Changed things.
Maybe that's the real problem. We're afraid of change. We're afraid of what we don't know and don't understand.
But what if we really changed things?
We're supposedly educated, we have the technology. Why can't we... change?
People have written about utopia for thousands of years. A place of perfection. A place where mankind can be happy. People say it's impossible. That we could never embark on such an endeavor and have it be successful. But... we've never really tried. Maybe we're just afraid.
Now, I'm not saying that it's never been thought up, or even attempted; look at the USSR, that was... an attempt (although warped) to bring the Marxist utopia into reality. But they didn't really listen to Marx. Marx was a great admirer of capitialism. He thought that the productivity and efficiency of it all was amazing. He just didn't like the social aspects that it entailed, the alienation of the worker, the division of class. But he knew that capitalism was necessary to the development of man. He thought that if we could get to a point where we had perfected the efficiency of capitalism, maybe we could change the bad aspects of it. That's why the USSR didn't work. They were an agrarian nation behind the times, they couldn't implement mass production and other tools of capitalism, causing the idea of a united communist nation to eventually collapse.
But.
Look around us.
Capitalism has triumphed. We have SO MUCH. So many things, so many choices, so many opportunities. But all these opportunities and dreams don't mean anything if we're not happy. We're so alienated from the world and from ourselves, devalued by the very system that lifts us up, until we're nothing more than the money we make and the goods we have.
We're alienated from nature, only a thing to be conquered, we beat the earth while it's already down and writhing in pain. Why? So we can expand. So we can exploit the resources that (since they exist) MUST be for our use. We have no respect for the world. If it exists, it must be for us. When did we get the idea that we're the cusp of evolution's work? We're the end all be all. There's nothing else. The very fact that we exist justifies the fact that we are the rulers of this world. What kind of fucked up logic is that? We don't think that anything other than ourselves matters. Period. Is your life worth the same as that of a cow? Yes. Why? Because you are both alive. Does that mean that I shouldn't kill and eat the cow? No. If it's for survival, than it's all fair game. But we've gone past the point of destroying for survival. I think we're surviving quite well. No. Now we destroy because it'll ensure our survival in the future. Well. keep destroying. Eventually we'll have no future.
Finally, we're alienated from ourselves. If we're not happy, we think, "What's wrong with me? Stop rebelling you foolish brain, we should be happy living this way!" Then we pop a pill. Maybe we're unhappy because we shouldn't be living the way we are! We're too brainwashed culturally to realize though. We are so out of touch with ourselves that we don't even realize that we're unhappy for a reason. Do you really think that we would evolve to be unhappy? That doesn't even make sense. Society, the way we're living, THAT'S what makes us unhappy, we're just too alienated from ourselves and the world around us to know it.
I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but imagine something just for a second. Imagine that we all spend several hours a day producing food of some sort. Maybe you farm, maybe you fish, maybe you're helping load what we've harvested. With the technology that we've developed, we could easily feed the entire world that way. If everyone just... took a few hours out of their day.
The rest of the day is yours. To do... whatever you feel. People aren't inherently lazy, you know. That's the main objection, is that people would slack off and never get anything done. But think about school. You get out for the summer and you're so excited and happy and yeah, you slack off a little. But by the end of the summer you're ready to go back. Same thing with school work. I know some people hate reading in general, regardless of setting, but, in most cases when you're assigned a book to read in class, you hate it, you don't want to do it, it's work. If someone handed you the same book, and told you that it was good, you might open it up. start reading. Love it. Want to read more, start actively reading. If I could do nothing with my life, I might do that for a while- just nothing. But I think I'd really like to learn. Once I knew enough, I think I'd like to teach. Educate people. So, I work my few hours, then go teach. Teach people who actually want to learn. Who are there for that purpose, because they've worked their hours and would really just like to think about something. Matt could work on peoples cars. Because he wanted to. For no other reason. And honestly, although he's one of the laziest people I know, I know he would. My dad would cook. He loves cooking. He'd cook for people just because he wanted to. Maybe there are some people out there who would do nothing but sit under a tree and dream. But so what? There are people who would still be driven to create, but for the sake of the creation itself, not for money. There would still be rocket scientists whose greatest pleasure would be to send a person into space. There would still be people to clean, I know everyone knows someone who just likes to clean for no reason (Amy). We could be happy. Develop relationships with people, learn, love, create.
There would be problems, yes. Of course. I don't really want to hear your bullshit objections like, "well what about people who wanted to murder in their free time?" That's a crappy argument. Yes. There would be problems. But could they possibly be any worse than the problems we have in the world today? Genocide, murder, rape, pillage, torture. We think we've advanced. But we haven't much in my eyes.
With the technology we have, we have a chance to make the world a better place, instead of destroying it.
Maybe I'm too idealistic. But the destruction of hopes and dreams by waves of pragmatism is what's gotten us here today. I know I'm not a great writer. But saying something is better than nothing at all.
*Edit*
Despite my attempt to force people to contact me personally... I thought this was worth responding to in text form.
Dammit Andrew...
ILoveToBeRandom: I know you don't want to read any comments but my phone is just out of reach of my hand so I'm typing this - call if you want to discuss further: The extreme SparkNotes version of my thoughts on your LJ post: For one thing, I would be extremely unhappy in the society that you described. Society, in general, can only work if there is an informal (or formal) hierarchy of class. Human greed and laziness have to be considered when creating a society. While it may be true that laziness isn't inherent - they type of society you described would create laziness. Plus, what motivation do I have to "grow food" for anyone but myself? If food is all I need to survive - then I see no reason why I should put out extra work for others.
That's the problem. We assume that we need a class system in order to function. Why? As man developed, force was the obvious method of dominance. Man dominated man in order to get his piece of land, his woman, to gain power. It was necessary because we didn't have the means necessary for everyone to guarantee survival. So, people warred and killed in order to gain power over others so that they could guarantee the survival of themselves and their children. However, at this point, when we do have the capabilities to feed everyone, there would be no need to use force to create security of life, it would be an obvious assumption.
You have the motivation to grow food because without the technology that capitalism has given us, you would have to put in much more work to simply sustain yourself. If you wanted to grow your own food, no problem. But the point would be that it would take much more time out of your life, you'd be a farmer and nothing else. With people working together for mass production, we'd be able to feed the population without individual farming.
Yes, humans are egotistical by nature. We want to be happy and will do anything to make ourselves happy. But in an environment where you're not being culturally brainwashed to believe that money and power will make you happy, many of the problems of human greed would be eliminated. I don't believe that humans are naturally evil, lazy, greedy, beings. We just don't know any other way of making ourselves happy.
I'm turning off the comment option. Honestly, if you wanted to comment, please call me. If you have something to say, anything. I'd like to hear it. Not read it.
*Edit*
Dammit. Fine. I'll enable comments. >.< I hate people.
This is what I hate. Lack of personal contact.