2004-12-03 - 3:58 p.m.
Turkey day. yep, it happened. Love and I united our families together in her house for a few interesting hours. It wasn't oil and vinegar, which is pretty good by me. It was the longest amount of time I have spent with my family on a holiday (or any other time) for a few years now. I liked it. I am still an inmate in this reality, and they are the closes people to being trapped in the same cell as me. Love's family made the turkey, we made the side dishes, and my brothers and mother came to eat. We started early and ran until 4. I believe we went home and crashed. Friday morning I worked on my final project for class. Saturday I believe we cleaned, and then went to Faerie game, and had a very pleasant time. Sunday ran too long, but had the wonderful movie, Incredibles, in it. This week has been sacrificed to the gods of academia and trying to cultivate a bit of sanity in the madness.
Tonight is the 8th annual Symposium, and I will have a drink in honor of all the people who cannot make it. I miss you all. Our death seems to lie in ever shrinking social circles, or maybe its just me.
I have to warn you, the following is incoherent rambling of a pissed off individual.
I am having a very anti-social moment at the moment. Or perhaps it is an attack of misanthropy. Mob mentality, rule by masses, and general antipathy for that which oppresses the individual. Society is a construct made of people, but not just people, individuals. Now these individuals are capable to visit countless help and harm in whatever manner it decides on a whole. However, this all happens through mob mentality, and is generally used to harm people who are not really trouble, and bolster people who are, and I only mean this on an individual basis. If one starts argueing for protecting "society" then, I am may be wrong. I see society as people who are taking personal action, and that people should be reminded of that. I feel that "society" gets blamed for a lot of people having the same bad idea, and individual responcibility gets midicated in that. The same runs partly true for democracy as well. Vindication through being able to say you didn't support the current administration, everyone else did. But really, who did? What are we supporting, and how is it supported? Most people do not knowingly work from the wrong, but values of this versus that get confused between different peoples expectations. Just like I am confusing the value of individual expression and power with something of importance. More important than safety and even life in some instances. I am approaching personal governance and responcibility from a round about direction. I am starting to take it personally, or rather, not buy into "it's not personal, it's politics." When someone tells you who you can and cannot marry, that is a personal attack as a foreign soldier shooting at you. Maybe they are doing it because they do not know a better way, but it is still their action. I am just being pissy, because people are so bad to each other and themselves. Mostly I am being bad to myself for listening to "their" lies. Allowing "them" to have the control to make me think "they" have any control. Allowing them to spread the meme through me. I cannot make this arguement for personal choice, unless I feel someone else is telling us we do not. At the same time, I am trying to influence people into critically thinking about their decisions in the ultimate sense. If we actually made a society that served the WHOLE community, would it really be that bad? Can we attempt to control each other as little as possible. It is a big knot, and I would like someone to try to untie the whole thing. We get hung up on individual problems, but they all feed into each other, and they feel like they have a common root, centered somewhere around control, empowerment, economics, and some silly notion of security. I can believe in the ideas of control, empowerment, and even economics. I do not think false concepts such as "security" should be allowed to fester any longer. Low risk versus high risk, I can except, but this idea of safety has destroyed us. My safety lies in that anyone can kill me, and I cannot stop them, though I will try. Beyond that, why worry? Violence is base truth, that doesn't mean there isn't higher truth. Lazyness is probably a factor in the problem as well. I think the problem is big enough for us to get off our bottoms and start thinking about it.
So technilogical apprehension. Man, that is a fascinating subject. Fish broke down windows in the most fascinating manner. I am going to approach technology from the control angle. Technology is magic for all intents and purposes. Magic is for an easy way of doing things you can't do elsewise, technology does the same. Both of which work better in the hands of small children than sages (well, maybe not sages, but more so than Joe Average.) On the one hand, technology threatens to crush the individual in the manner lightly outlined in "1984" based on who controls it. On the otherhand, it could give everyone the kind of power in "1984" only diffused because everyone has it (See Incredibles for taste). Now for the result of such, the works of Johnen Vasquez (sp) should probably be examined, namely Nny's trip to heaven, in which everyone has "head-explody." Now the fear of control naturally gets taken to the next step of anxiety that technology as the means of control is in control. Our daily lives are at the hands of the technology we employ. We all know on some level, the machines have already won, because we cannot concieve of life without them. What happens if they want control? We either give it to them or we don't, just like we do with every other person every other day. We are afraid someone will ask for control with death as the other option, because we do not feel capable of sacrificing life for free will. Maybe we should think about that. Big words from a man listening to Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds singing "Death is Not the End."
So in short I am pissed off at control. Now, back towards my point. In the attack on technology, the attack is generally based around Media technology. I have not heard any arguements recently that power tools were causing our children to be more violent. Now these media sources are just that. They serve for the rapid transmission of ideas, unlike my writing style. They bring to children ideas, and parents disapprove of those ideas. Fast and loose right now, but try to follow me. It is those ideas, and the fact we do not encourage critical thinking skills that is where the danger lies. I do not think violent media promotes violence. I think people acting like big stupid apes, and not considering the outcomes of their actions in terms beyond social reprisal causes violence. Joe isn't going to shoot people because video games made him. It is because he doesn't see anything wrong with it. That is Joe's fault. Either way he is dumb, but we are more or less dumb based off of wether we tried to tell Joe not to shoot peope. I love shooting things in first person shooters, I generally use it, because I could use some objects that don't mind being treated violently, namely pixels (not the cat). This does not promote violence, it helps me bleed it off, in a cathartic manner. But that is merely an instance. Perhaps under other circumstances video games do have the power to make one more violent. I know windows does, and it isn't looked at as a game. Windows crashes again, we get pissed off. More violence from media. So the media transmits ideas allowing for more personal freedom, because without an idea you cannot choose to hold it. This threatens to crumble society, because there is the risk we might start thinking for ourselves. Or worse yet, we won't, and we'll be drowned in ideas with narry a way to integrate them all, and we may even be forced to think in order to make sense of the media we are bombarded with. Neither looks good for the church, because Ideas such as "My place is with me always", "I control my time and contribution to society", "I can say no to those I disagree with." All dangerous ideas. Not as dangerous as others, but still I hope the point is made. On the other hand, "1984" through globalization without individualization. Also, culture of one centered "society" in over arching structure tailored for the many. These are just conflicts not points.
So about now you are probably going "Quoi?" and I agree.
