Okay, it is 10.25pm here and after reading this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039409/Eight-arrested-day-Wall-Street-Rage-protests-clogs-New-York-City-sidewalks.html
---- I am burning with passion to tell you why I believe in protesting and why there is always a point to it.
The Article:
Now what got me going was, as usual, not the article itself but I always find the comments on articles more interesting. How did someone else analyse, critique, spin and slot this story to fit in with their own world view? We are all guilty of this.
On this article, which is essentially about people (granted mostly left-wing college students) protesting about the global economic system and banking/ wall street yada yada. Agreed, vague targets, vague demands directed at a.... well... vague system.
Honesty, how many people actually try to understand about all the aspects of engineering that is global economics? I think the deeper down the rabbit hole you go the more you realize there is to it so you either don't have the time or are simply not interested enough to pursue the subject. Understanding economics is almost ethereal to the lay person - like a search for God. "Why are we doing things like this?" "What is it all leading to?" "Who's making this all work?" So instead of looking - we trust to the higher power to look out for our best interests. But unlike the search for God we know there has someone/some people there making the system all work but we don't know if they have our best interests at heart.
Anyway - off tangent on the (perhaps intentional) vagueness and hard to grasp "mystery" that is economics!!!
So these people were protesting and people were commenting on this article and most of the comments were scoffing at the actions and making cruel remarks about personal appearance (that person is fat, clearly by pointing that out you have just won your argument) of the protesters. Of course, when presented with two sides I always tend to side with the under-represented side because I enjoy promoting counter-arguments - but the counter side was just too easy for me this time and I had to post something of my own.
A short and sweet example of the statements made (won't waste your time on the cruel remarks just the thought provoking comments):
"Looks like the protestors consist mostly of college-aged kids who have no idea how the real world operates, because they have yet to operate in it. When they get hungry and their wallets are empty, they can always call up their parents and demand more lunch money be put into their accounts. Thank goodness I totally missed out on that stage of life - I was busy actually going to college and working through the summers in between." - Sue
My analysis of this comment...
Sue is bitter because she too dislikes the way the real world operates and feels angry that she was forced in to conforming and that she felt powerless to do anything about it Therefore, in her reading of the article, she believes these young people with their youthful zeal and ignorance of the "real world" are stupid and she will take some satisfaction from their failure to change things. Because she couldn't change things either.
She takes some pride from her ability to conform to the "real world" through becoming self-sufficient and her understanding of economics. Thank God she didn't have to embarrass herself and display her ignorance by protesting!!!
Chances are, she doesn't understand the "real world" system either, but she doesn't want to make a fool of herself so she conforms. Cloaking herself in her superior intellect by dismissing the non-conformers as juvenile ignorance which will come about with time while working (i.e. not having enough time to question the system that they are now a part of) or a stupidity that can never be cured.
She has taught herself not to question the system... well, at least not publicly (perhaps this also extends to the internet and her paranoia over who may be watching her remarks is greater than mine; but I'm going to think she's probably not actually a radical in disguise).
Anyway with my pseudo-psychological and biased review on where I think her comment came from, I'm going to plow right ahead with my point I made to counter the popular argument!
The vast majority of comments like this I believe come from the disillusioned lot (our parents generation) who believed they could beat the system and ultimately felt like they failed. Perhaps they did fail! And perhaps they didn't... They achieved a lot and world has been changed enormously in that time and in positive ways too - so perhaps they only see the failures in the things they wanted to change but couldn't.
I think this is a major cause behind the attitude of "Been there, done that! Take it from us we tried to change the system [government, economics, human-run elements of life] but now we're a part of it, so give up kid and conform because it'll hurt you more in the long run if you don't wake up and join the "Real World" now."
But what is the "Real World"?
When we talk about the "Real World" in these terms it's all man-made. There is nothing in economics, government, free-trade, property, banking and countless other institutions that affect our daily lives and are a part of the "Real World", that is natural and pre-dates humans. How can this be the "Real World" then? Like a cheap sneaker, our "Real World" is probably completely synthetic and has no decent, breathable ( and frankly less smelly), natural and more valuable leather component anywhere near it. So why do we call our global system that man has made the "Real World" ? And why do we think that this is what we are stuck with and that we are incapable of changing the system?
Here's a few reasons why:
A lack of imagination.
A superiority complex that assumes that the systems of the powerful, white west are the right way to go (Might is Right).
Fear to experiment with a system that now permeates every facet of our lives.
Ignorance of the system in place (whether intended by the powers that govern them or not - and it's certainly not God who's in charge of this man-made system).
Easier to do nothing.
You live the good life whether directly or indirectly as a result of the suffering of others. You do not want to face this fact or loose your pleasures in life so you turn a blind eye.
For whatever reason, there is a reason why we complain, complain, complain and still NOTHING CHANGES. And nothing ever will change UNTIL you face one of these reasons why you are inactive and YOU decide to change it. Because there's that thing that Michael Jackson once said and this thought has been echoed by countless others... "I'm starting with the man in the mirror, I'm asking him to change his ways".
"Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi.
PROTESTERS CHANGE THE WORLD - EVENTUALLY...
Thank God for Protesters because they remind us that all is not right with the status quo. Not everyone is happy - perhaps I should find out why he/she is not happy. Because there may be something I have missed here?? And it gives people another crack at trying to work out what they want from this world. Can you imagine hundreds of years ago when the peasants of Britain protested again and AGAIN over the centuries to be represented in parliament, what would happened if they had given up after that first attempt and no other subsequent generation tried again? Or more recently in the woman's protests to vote? Or for black rights in America?
Just because one generation failed to do something, doesn't mean that we shouldn't try...
By the way, here's what I said on website:
Betty S - " Looks like the protestors consist mostly of college-aged kids who have no idea how the real world operates, because they have yet to operate in it." Rich - "Sadly, there are thousands of people like these who waste their energy and time screaming about how they are not being treated fairly when they could be doing something productive." I agree that these kids are probably protesting because they don't get how the "real world" works. But I disagree that the protesting is a waste of time. Perhaps these kids have not been brainwashed into thinking this is the only system we can have? Instead of doing "something productive", (which probably equates to in your view as getting a job and conforming to a system that they never question) they are raising the question of "why do we do things the way we do?" And in times like these where world economics is a house of cards ready to fall, perhaps this is the best time to be asking those sorts of questions. No?
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Interesting...I don't believe the perceived problem is ideological, Capitalism verses something else, not proffered in any of the signs (perhaps "eat a banker" was the closest to a practical alternative)...rather it's a problem of entitlement...we're white, we're American, we deserve... unfortunately the reality is what they have to offer is really worth no more than what the cheapest supplier (China) is prepared to do the same job for...essentially with globalisation the US has priced itself off the market and as more and more jobs are being shipped off shore I don't see anything changing anytime soon. Which brings me to our "leaders" and why I loathe them so much...they undersatnd the system and how it works, and believe me it doesn't work for the educated and the intelligent it works first and foremost for the benefit of the politicians, so long as the "teeming hoards" the "Down trodden and oppressed" have a vote and they outnumber the former by a substantial number, the world will continue in its downward spiral..take "interest free sudent loans" as an example throw in "working for families" and you might get my drift. Just a couple of good quotes to end
ReplyDelete“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
Possibly, Alexander Tytler (circa late 1700′s)
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“Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.”
Henning Webb Prentis, Jr., President of the Armstrong Cork Company 1943
At some stage, whether by outsourcing or by robots this situation of lack of jobs was going to occur. The only way that this situation could have a positive outcome was is if robots taking over the majority of occupations goes hand in hand with the removal of the monetary system. Then people would not feel pressured to compete to live and have things. But this is projecting too far in to the future.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there was no practical solution offered in the signs - if there was it would either have to be a bloody big sign or a really small one with some universal simple message that somehow had some eureka moment for all of us. But I think that the fact that people are protesting PEACEFULLY is good, that even if people are still not sure where the rat is or how to deal to it, as least they can smell it.