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Revolution. For one segment of our population word conjures up images of guns, bombs, daring freedom fighters striking in the dead of night, the despair of the bourgeois, and blood in the streets. For another segment it also conjures up mass executions, the destruction of the intelligentsia, and communism. Whatever the case, it brings to mind the overthrow of one thing, and presumably its replacement with something better, although few modern revolutionaries tend to think that far ahead.
In fact, few modern revolutionaries tend to think at all; and that's sad, because we need a revolution now more than ever. Our economic system is corrupt, our legal system corrupt, our politicians... well, corrupt; yeah, you get the picture. Every day, almost every hour, we come across things we don't agree with, things that nine times out of ten will either accomplish nothing at all (best case) or make things even worse (worst case).
Come on, all of you know what I'm talking about here.
Politics hasn't worked. Law hasn't worked. Throwing money hasn't worked (although not sure on this one, since like most I don't have the money to throw in the first place). Nothing so far has worked. Doesn't look like anything else will work, either.
So why don't we all quit @!$%#ing around, and fix it?
But before we run out and grab guns, bombs, and Tang (hey, revolution is thirsty work, and if Tang's good enough for astronauts...), let's think about it for a minute. Who should we be shooting? Republicans will say it's Democrats. Democrats will say it's Republicans. Anarchists will say whoever we damned well please. Most of us would say whoever convinced Justin Timberlake that he can act. The thing is that none of those people, nor any combination thereof, is the enemy here.
That's the real problem. The enemy isn't anything or anyone that can be blown up, shot, voted out, or bought. Our enemy isn't the Democrats, Republicans (except possibly Anne Coulter; that chick has problems that were previously considered only theoretically possible), terrorists, or, despite what some would have us believe, teletubbies... although those... well, never mind.
No, this enemy is far, far more insidious: it's us.
I know what you're thinking: "Wait a second... we can't just kill ourselves!" Well, you can, actually, but that's not what I'm aiming for here. In fact, killing anyone is pretty much going in the opposite direction of where we want to go.
What we need to be fighting is the two-part syndrome that has been taking America by storm, a little thing I like to call @!$%#ery. There are two parts to @!$%#ery: apathy and laziness. Apathy and laziness have a symbiotic relationship, and both are responsible for what America has become. And before any finger pointing starts, we're all guilty of it in varying degrees and on varying subjects.
First, let's take laziness. It's not laziness of the body, although I believe that the United States is still the most obese nation on the planet; this is a laziness of the mind I'm talking about. We let others tell us what is true, and even better, we let them tell us how to feel about those things rather than going to the effort of deciding for ourselves. We fall into the habit of taking Rush Limbaugh's or Michael Moore's word for things, instead of looking up the publicly available facts for ourselves.
But wait, there's more! In this country we supersize everything, and @!$%#ery is no different. We add a good, super-sized dose of apathy to the mix. Hell, we don't even get really pissed about something until someone else tells us we should. After all, if you don't know what's going on how can you honestly claim to be upset about it? To take a current hot topic, how many people infuriated by the health reform law even know what it says? How many people, for or against, have any numbers at all to back up their claims? Not many. End result? People are ready to fight, to forget every bit of human grace and civilized behavior, over something they really don't know anything about.
And the best part is that every single prognostication on how it will work in practice is nothing more than a more or less informed guess. Guess, mind you. If someone can predict the future with certainty then he or she needs to be picking my lottery numbers, not reading this article.
Take a minute, and consider the ramifications of this. Think about all the things that can go horribly wrong because of it. Think about the lies, the hypocrisies, and worst case, the horrible violence that can come about over nothing but our own @!$%#ery.
So what do we do? How do we fight it? Easily said, but not so easily done: we think for ourselves. If someone tells you something that pisses you off, look it up. Read about it. Understand it. It may be that you'll find that you were upset over something that, in the end, isn't there; but even if not you'll find yourself with a place to stand and intelligently debate the issue.
I believe that debate is an important step. Personally, I couldn't care less if someone agrees with me or not; I only care that whoever I'm talking to did the reading, did the thinking, and came to his/her own conclusion. The reason for that is if the other person is willing to go to that much effort then the odds of reaching an acceptable, practical compromise increase dramatically. This, in my opinion (and Hegel's, too, although that takes a bit of liberty with his dialect) is the essence of revolution, and the overall goal.
Thinking, evaluating, and deciding for yourself is the only absolute freedom any of us has. There are no thought police to censor our interior monologues (if there were, I'd be typing this from prison), no limits on what we can dare to consider... and in the considering, we go a fair way towards fighting our society's inherent @!$%#ery. Think about that for awhile.
Rest assured, more incitement to revolution is forthcoming but in the mean time think for yourself. Don't blindly accept anyone's word for anything that matters, especially mine.
