For several weeks now, I've been intending to post something along these lines. The wording may come out all wrong, and it may be subject to some gross misinterpretations, but...here goes nothin'. That notion of the moral arc of the universe bending toward justice—credited to Dr. M.L. King, Jr., inspired by Theodore Parker—is one in which I truly, firmly believe. Even when there are periodic setbacks and backlashes, the momentum toward justice is re-established, like a scrambling quarterback who is chased toward his own endzone makes a rapid turn at just the right moment and ends up gaining yardage. In using the term "justice," I mean a really big-picture, long-term connotation: justice for the disadvantaged people(s) of the human world and for the natural world, conditions that allow both to flourish. But here's the problem: We're running out of time. The bending of that moral arc may soon come to mean nothing if the global corporatocracy continues to drive us toward an uninhabitable future. Make no mistake: The corporatocracy is at the wheel, or at least in the shotgun seat shouting navigational instructions to the leaders of nations, elected or not. We're just along for the ride. We can back-seat drive all we want to, but our directions will not be heard, much less heeded. That's one of several reasons why, with increasing frequency these days, I'm tempted to just give up and pursue a hedonistic life, occasionally peeking out at the collapse of civilization for the sake of additional amusement. Hedonism ain't cheap, though, and I ain't exactly flush with cash. Perhaps my main reason for wanting to throw in the proverbial towel is coming to terms with my own chronic depression and apparent unemployability. I'm a well-educated white male who cannot find a suitable job, an IT professional who in this so-called Information Age feels as obsolete as a buggy whip manufacturer. My main source of income for the past year or so has been rideshare services. (At least I'm good at that.) It doesn't help that I have (1) gaps in my résumé and (2) decreasing tolerance for managerial/institutional bullshit as I get older.
Perhaps it also comes, in part, from the Green Party's lack of traction in Texas and the United States. As I have explored previously, this results partly from the Greens' own internal problems, and partly from heavy-handed repression by the two-headed War & Wall Street Party. Sure, other countries (especially in Europe) have Green Parties that either form governments or participate in ruling coalitions. Are those Green organizations 100% true to the principles of the Green Movement? Certainly not, but the compromises they make in order to be successful make them susceptible to supporting (even aiding) the expansion of imperialist capitalism. Ah, imperialist capitalism! It can survive only by growing, but its very growth accelerates both climate chaos and gross inequalities in wealth and income. But its pilots and navigators don't really give a fuck about that. They are too focused on bottom lines and their own wealth even to acknowledge the problem. They will keep bankrolling media operations to make sure that regular working folks don't notice the connection. The more I learn about the current state of the world and the way it's heading, both short-term and long-term, the more I foresee Karl Marx's vision of a spontaneous worldwide workers' revolution as the only solution. As much as I abhor violence, as much as I understand that successful violent revolutions tend to lead to violently repressive régimes, consumerist capitalism isn't something we can eliminate through voting or civil disobedience. Nonviolent approaches chip away at the problem, but the capitalist order repairs the breaches and finds novel ways to enrich itself at our expense. Homo sapiens comes with an unfortunate defect: Thanks to science, we know on a rational level that certain behaviors are destructive to ourselves, our loved ones, and the environment, but we continue those same behaviors. It's not that we never learn; it's that we learn and proceed to ignore the lessons. I'm not a big fan of Guns 'n Roses, but their album title Appetite for Destruction is a very apt descriptor of the human condition. Just because I envision salvation through violent revolution doesn't mean that I will participate in that violence. And just because I might some day decide that resistance is futile doesn't mean that I'm encouraging others to do the same. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels primarily predicted the revolution at some unspecified future date, when conditions for workers would become sufficiently intolerable; they did not necessarily advocate mass violence. Nor did they advocating quitting the struggle; but then, from the perspective of the 19th century, there was a lot more time to set things right, and global climate disruption was not yet a thing. When I start to wallow in these gloomy-doomy scenarios, my mind sometimes drifts toward Zendik Farm. The Zendik Tribe has disbanded in recent years, a victim of changing times and increasingly demented leadership. Their approach to what they called DeathKultur was one of non-participation rather than active resistance. They advocated Creavolution, a systematic approach in which art, music, literature, lifestyle experimentation, and movement toward self-sufficiency would expand consciousness and advance the species. I saw Creavolution up close on two visits to Zendik Farm, back in the 1990s when the Tribe was still farming and making art outside Bastrop, Texas. I even hosted a half-dozen Zendiks at my apartment one weekend. What they had was beautiful. In retrospect, it was also as doomed as any other attempt at achieving utopia, but I still had fantasies of running off to join them. I would have had to default on a lot of credit card debt for that even to be possible. While we live, we can resist the corporatocracy in whatever ways our aptitudes allow, secure in the knowledge that we are on the right side of history (or at least not on the wrong side). If we're fortunate, we can carry that knowledge to our deaths, and maybe even die with smiles on our faces. Meanwhile, the main fact of our lives is that we must live with the hell that is other people, with all their defects that don't always mesh with our own defects. Perhaps we can convince those other people to join us in the struggle instead of abetting their own oppression. Comments are closed.
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Blogging Sporadically since 2014Here you will find political campaign-related entries, as well as some about my literature, Houston underground arts, peace & justice, urban cycling, soccer, alt-religion, and other topics. Categories
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