let us try to recap to see where it exactly puts us…
we are born into a complex system of ism’s and ideologies.
these ism’s and ideologies can be social or economic or political…
or some combination of all three………
I was born in 1959 and thus I was born into an American society that
was capitalistic (but had socialistic additions to it and it still does)
I was born in the Midwest which means I was born into a religious culture,
my parents were not that religious but believe me, everyone else was…
because of the crisis of the Great depression and the second World War,
society was rigid, this means everyone had their place and people
goal was to fit into this rigidity… the path people took was the same path
and they had the same goals… the goal was called “the good life”
which meant a house in the suburbs, two cars, a TV, kids…(lots and lots
of kids, I grew up in a family of 4 and we had one of the smallest familes
in the neighbood) a white picket fence and a dog name spot and a cat named
missy… the idea of the stepford wives comes from the fact that it
was based on the this goal and everyone went all in on this goal…
and we know from our understanding of equations, that the sides
must be equal… so on one side you have everyone attempting to conform
to this “ideal” and what is the other side of the equation? The beatniks and
that entire group which called bullshit on the American “dream”…
the beatniks didn’t exactly create an alternative vision, but
they certainly opposed the 1950’s conformity to values and goals
which seemed to be empty and sterile, according to the beatniks…
the 60’s came which really didn’t happen until 1966 or so and lasted until
1974…the dream of the 60’s was to build upon the opposition of the
beatniks… it was to find your own dream and follow it……
and it was easy because of the various forces in operation at the time…
which came about because of the general understanding/feeling that
society was corrupt and didn’t care about the “people”…
many factions came into being, the civil rights movement which
had started in the 50’s and thus was the driver of the women’s
movement and the Gay’s, the Stonewall riots was in 1969, no coincidence,
at every point people rebelled against what they perceived as
injustice against certain people because of their race, color,
sexual orientation… ( a drive that continues to this day)
what this really means is that people have been fighting for their own
vision of what it means to be human (at least in the U.S) since
the 50’s and still the battle continues……
and today we have the ongoing battle… still being fought…
but why? Why should the battle be ongoing? I am quite certain that
the battle should have been won decades ago… but it took
a great deal of time before certain battles were won…
for example, homosexuals have the same rights and privileges as I do, to
marry and love whomever they want and yet, the battle continues,
but once again, why? why should some have rights and privileges
that others do not have?
for example, take the attempt by the right to disenfranchise voters…
voting, the basic political principle for which American fought and died
for over 200 years, and the right wishes to take this right away… but why?
the answer is simple, the attempt to maintain and control power which
is money……. the right doesn’t even attempt to hold itself to the same
“lofty” ideals of the Nazi’s in trying to control and dominate its citizens…
and where does all this leave us?
the lesson in all this is really that the need and desire for power and money
leads one group of people to attempt to control and dominate the other
segments of society. It is just another example of what this drive
for money/power leads us to, the attempt to disenfranchise people.
the need to create inequality to maintain power/money……
and this is done in various names, capitalism is one such name,
and American exceptionalism is another such name…….
ism’s and ideologies which drive people to attempt to
create inequality which is injustice…
but that leaves us with the question of how to escape this inequality/injustice
which we have called ism’s and ideologies?
but that isn’t the only question here… how to gain freedom not only from
ism’s and ideologies but from all forms of the forces that dominate our lives?
I have noted other aspects of these forces which control our lives,
natural forces such as gravity and evolution and religious forces such
as Catholicism and political forces such as our representative democracy
which is a false form of democracy and must be destroyed, and
economic forces such as communism and capitalism which demand
the individual be sacrificed to allow that system to achieve its
goal, be it the accumulation of wealth or the creation of the worker state,
(the religious is no different in that the individual is sacrificed to allow god
to achieve the final goal of creating the achievement of a paradise in heaven)
each system is more then willing to sacrifice individual members to achieve
its final goal, be it religious or political or social……
and how are we to gain our freedom in the midst of these
forces that demand our sacrifice and dominate our lives?
that is the real question! how is freedom possible when we
are born, live and die in the midst of various forces that
we have no control over and have no say over and is more
then willing to sacrifice us in the name of that system!
the modern question is simple, how to achieve freedom from
the modern forces which we know as ism’s and ideologies,
capitalism and communism and Catholicism.
and I haven’t even listed the other natural forces of evolution
and gravity among others which also take away our freedom…
for I can’t see how we can even escape these natural forces for which
we have no control over or no say over……
modern life is very limited by these forces, both natural and
social that have left us with virtually no freedom… how do we find
freedom from those social forces such as capitalism
or communism or natural forces such as evolution and gravity?
One might suggest that this domination of these forces that
doesn’t allow us any freedom or escape is the reason we feel
trapped or in despair in our modern times…if there is no escape from
these forces and no possible freedom, what might be the possible
reaction of people? Why it is clear from many of our modern social
problems such as drugs and other addictions… we attempt to escape
the modern straightjacket of ism’s and ideologies via the addictions and
the millions of people who have simply stopped caring because they
realize on some level that they have no power, no influence, no control
and no say in the forces that control and dominate our lives…
millions lead lives of quiet desperation because they know they
have no influence and no control or no say in the forces that
exist in their lives… think about your life… do you really
have any say in what happens to you? No, no you don’t…
and as long as we exists within the ism’s and ideologies
of representative democracy and capitalism and communism
and Catholicism, we won’t have any say and have no control
over our lives… we are simply disposable pieces of flesh
that are sacrificed in the name of the ism’s and ideologies
of our times…………
so, the question still remains, how to become free given
the nature of forces that control and dominate our lives?
so, how do we escape capitalism and Catholicism and communism
and all the other forces of social/political/economic forces
that control and dominate us today?
that is the question for our modern times…
and that is why this is called the “modern” times because
we are the first group of people to finally understand that
we are held hostage by the ism’s and ideologies of our time…
never before have people understood that they were dominated
and controlled by the forces of ism’s and ideologies of their time…
so how do we escape?
Kropotkin