"Whoever declares that the capitalist mode of production, the “iron laws” of present-day bourgeois society, are inviolable, and yet at the same time would like to abolish their unpleasant but necessary consequences, has no other resource but to deliver moral sermons to the capitalists, moral sermons whose emotional effects immediately evaporate under the influence of private interests and, if necessary, of competition." - Friedich Engels
Dear Internauts,
I've been reading John Green's new book, Turtles All the Way Down, recently, and, while I could quote some brilliance from almost every page, I'll need a few more reads till the best bits settle in. Combine that with the gorgeous film Loving Vincent, which I saw the other day, and my mind is swirling all the more with such a tremendous tide of these inspired thoughts.
One from Green's book which stands out at the moment is something about how sickness is so often talked about only in the past tense, or rather as something to soon be in the past tense. Pain and illness is that which we're getting over or getting past or on our way out of. However it is, he says it better than I can, but I'm too exhausted at the moment to try and seek out the exact quote.
And there's another one, of course—how we have so many words for everything but pain resists an accurate description. One of its many victims is language.
And it's not like I don't know what it's like to try and help out a friend who's suffering. It's not like I don't understand how difficult it can be to try and help out someone you love when they're done and out. It's not like I can really blame the folks who've skipped out and ghosted on me for wanting out. My options for answering any "how are you" continue to be either lie or tell some depressing, barely accurate half-truth.
Anyways, I've been having a lot of trouble focusing lately.
Still, I've been thinking a lot about the quote at the top and how it applies to so much I find unsettling. I can dissect that which bugs me the most in society, preach reform and a moral drive within the confines of modern times. Ultimately, though, some things can't be fixed.
My own inner struggle may hinder my ability to create, as—despite what we've been told—mental illness is more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to art, and yet I'm not blind or unaffected by the astounding injustice in the wider world outside my own mind. Well I strive to find some inner balance and write about a need for empathy and communal cooperation, I can't help but recognize that we can't simply talk the world into a better way. No blog or song will save us all. My personal critiques of politics, religion, or the media are merely the puppy scratches at the door of a bigger conversation.
The truth is that as long as we live and converse as if systematic injustice is inevitable and unchangeable, all of our squabbles about trying to find a better way of coping within those systems will continue to bounce back against us in vain. While a shift in perspective is necessary, for real change to occur, it isn't enough to look at the world differently. The object itself must be disassembled.
It's not enough that we try and be more commercially just within an unjust economic structure. It's not enough that we try and be more interpersonally just within an unjust social structure. It's not enough that we try and be more compromising within a corrupt political system. It's not enough that we agree that things are bad for any chance of good to occur.
Tear the roots out.
There need be no compromise of love and justice while seeking revolutionary change. In fact, a revolution without love and justice isn't very revolutionary after all, is it?
If upon hearing of some scandal or abuse, I simply say, oh that's too bad, yet I refuse to look inside and question my presuppositions, then I only allow for the continued existence of an environment conducive to similar wrongdoing. If I complain and jeer at some monstrous act or words from a public figure but refuse to consider the larger context by which they were allowed to come into power, the soil in which they were grown, then I might as well have not spoken at all.
If all I can say is that at least I'm not like those other folks in my demographic to make myself feel better, than I might as well be cheering on the worst of my kind.
For now, I don't really know how to be better, only that it's not enough.
Thanks for reading,
Odist
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