“Changing minds is essential to any revolution, then. Social shifting is about changing people’s minds, I’d say, because with peoples’ minds come their goals, and so their lives. And the battle for minds and hearts is a battle for aims and ideals.” –Bartley, Grant. The Metarevolution (2nd Edition) (Kindle Locations 1167-1169). Punked Books. Kindle Edition.
I hesitated to post this. (If I have, you’re reading it.) I originally started out with this immersion in Bartley’s book with the intent of taking a stealth approach in going thoroughly through the book and submitting an article. But as I vacillate on the choice to click the post button, I can’t help but consider the possibility that taking the stealth approach might be a little like ambushing him and not giving him a chance to respond to any commentary I might have on the book. I mean I am commenting and playing off of what he clearly put a lot of heart and soul into. Plus that, I have always considered what I do on these boards a process in public (consider this Dear Diary Moment 4/17/2020) and it would give me a chance to develop my thoughts on it before I actually sit down to write the article.
That said, Bartley is right here. We’re not just going to vote our problems away. It will require a paradigm shift, a complete change in sensibility. For instance, in America, we would be a lot better off with the social democrat position of Sanders. But as a Social Democrat myself, I recognize that now is not the time. I recognize that before we actually institute the radical change that Bernie represents, we have to convince a little less than ½ of American voters to stop hearing psycho-shrieks every time anything something remotely Marxist is mentioned. And that holds a lot better odds than the above 50% we were looking at 10 years ago.
That said, I want to comment on another quote:
“Well, we clearly need some sort of revolution, even if just to free ourselves from the numbing effects of the conditioning misinforming our heads. We need more freedom because we don’t even know we need more freedom! (If you think you live in a world of optimal freedom, think at least twice. What does that freedom amount to, economically and intellectually? What are its boundaries and limitations? Generally we’re free to seek success as socioeconomically defined, which is currently a very limiting condition, as it means expansionist materialism.)”
There is a lot more to freedom than a choice between Coke or Pepsi.