Ok, bear with me.
Societies, cultures, nations….economies. These are all ideas. They exist as ideas first, before they physically exist. Sorta. Insofaras, someone has an idea, gets other someones to believe in it, until enough people believe in it to make it happen.
Fr’instnce: A bunch of guys are sitting around a camfire in Iraq 12,000 years ago or so and one of them belches and then says, “Hey, let’s be the Sumerian Empire!” The other guys scratch themselves and then say….”Sure, why not?” Then they go around telling everyone they meet that they are the Sumerian Empire and that they should join up and be the Sumerian Empire too. The folks who believe in this idea all join up, and lo and behold, the Sumerian Empire is born! (After they kill a bunch of guys who DON’T want to be the Sumerian Empire, because their idea is to start a chain of hamburger stands that have these cool lookin arches instead.) It starts with an idea. If enough people believe in the idea, invest in it and are willing to work hard (and, in this instance, kill people) to make it happen by convincing other people to invest in the idea AND build the structures, (both mental and physical and almost always, religious) this thing that started as an idea in someones head…..becomes reality.
Then of course, someone gets a better (or just cooler) idea and ‘defeats’ the old idea, thus establishing a new reality. Bye bye Sumeria.
We all are familiar with the Repub “we are creating reality for you to react to” quote right? Well the reality that they DID succeed in creating for a while started off as an idea, built on other ideas, in some think tank somewhere. That idea of how to gain political power in America and transform it into the America that their idea said should exist was invested in by enough people to eventually make it, force it, into becoming real. The fact that it was a stupid, unsustainable, unjust, unfair and just plain BAD idea does nothing to refute the basic premise. They took an idea and made it into reality and thus changed the world.
Now it is our turn.
Their idea was flawed and it failed.
The world….RIGHT NOW….is waiting for a new idea. There is a void, a vacuum, waiting to be filled by a new idea, leading to a new reality.
Why not give it ours?
Ok, there is the little, inconvenient detail that we actually do not, at this present time, possess a cogent, detailed, completely thought out, easily explainable and sellable presentation of our idea.
That, I think, is the crux of the proverbial biscuit.
We have a bunch of words and phrases like, peace, freedom, equality, justice, human rights, equitable resource and wealth distribution….love….etc. “Stuff” like that, but, we don’t have an actual idea. A single but encompassing idea that enough of us agree on that makes it possible achieve the consensus necessary to ‘sell it’ to other folks in a way that will get them to invest in it, work hard for it, fight off the opposing ideas, and make it into reality.
Our idea is vague and nebulous. Mostly because as soon as a few of us get together and say, “hey! We have an idea!” A whole bunch of others of us say….”NO!” or “Your idea is wrong because of…” or “What about the Albanians?” And then we fall into infighting as to how to precisely phrase the idea. Well actually, we fall into infighting about what beverages should be served at the table (Ha! What SHAPE table???) where we are going to sit down and talk about the idea and never really get past that to actually discussing the idea. We never get to the point of actually presenting a coherent idea that regular folks can invest in.
Well………fuck us!
The time is ripe and we NEED to get our shit together and DO IT.
Screw the details, screw the infighting, screw the …um…other shit!
WHAT IS OUR IDEA?
The world is ripe, waiting and ours to change….to create.
Carpe Fucking Diem, motherfuckers, the time is NOW! The vacuum is waiting to be filled and someone is going to fill it. If it is not us it will be some new, even scarier Cheney.
All we need is something to tell people who are wandering by and ask, “er, what exactly are you folks trying to do here?”
What do we tell them?
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(heh! I nearly killeded this little loaner puter getting this pub’ed! Fortunately, hep is on de way! Thanks to an erroneous donor, I should be getting a new pony tomorrow, hallelujah!))
… Global Dharmacracy!
Instead of trying to create reality, we actually acknowledge the reality of our planet and all the living creatures upon it.
Because they didn’t create reality at all — they did create a Potemkin veil behind which they stole from everyone and from the planet. Now that veil is being ripped away and we see the destruction they have accomplished. That destruction is the reality.
And they spent 30 years doing this, Luntz and his focus groups, taking over state and city government and the media. 30 years and lord knows how many billions of dollars.
At least they recouped their money by stealing from the rest of us.
Global Dharmacracy would look at what is actually there on a planetary measure. (This is partially inspired by Patriot Daily’s great essay on what is being proposed in Ecuador.)
an idea?
hey, I just thought I’d throw it out there squirming on the table, you know? 😉
no ponies? for shame…. 😉
i’ve come to the conclusion that the most desirable possible reality is completely unimaginable, and all of our efforts to create it are actually in opposition to actually achieving it…
this philosophy allows me to slack, guilt free 😉
we need to sell it & in these days & times that needs the perfect ad campaign & sound bite phrasing.
i too have been feeling a need to do something.
the phrase at my house has been ‘fair’s fair’…. and it cuts both ways.
in my eyes
it’s only fair that EVERYONE have at least one meal a day.
its only fair that bastids who screw people have all their assets taken.
it’s only fair that addicts receive treatment rather than jail.
it’s only fair that everyone have the opportunity to an education.
it’s only fair that everyone who receives an education put in community service time helping others who cannot afford but need services (or helping to teach classes in their field)
i could go on & on with examples, but you get the idea.
& thank you for this.
YOU are the BEST!
♥~
The word I’ve heard used is narrative. We have to be able to tell a story, or a set of inter-related stories that paint pictures of what we’re aiming at.
As you say, ideas are too easy to debunk and trivialize. We can have an idea like “liberty and justice for all” and the other side will create stories about how this group or that group (“the illegals”, the terrorists, the “third world”, etc.) doesn’t deserve the same liberties or the same justice as they do.
Telling stories is more difficult and more powerful. Some of the founding of United States culture still resonate strongly (equal opportunity, we don’t torture, we give lots of money to help other countries and people, and many, many more) despite the direct proof that they are not operating anymore.
We can start to find our stories by looking at the counter-stories that the right tell via talk radio and the TV pundits, then seeing what they are trying to fight against.
They want us to be divided, but we can’t really be divided because we’re all in this together and our diversity is our strength. They want us to hate, so we look for love in the everyday operation of the world and describe the interconnectedness and interdependence.
Well, obviously, I’m not a story teller. Many of us are and there are countless engaging stories to tell!
my .45 has grooves worn down to nuthin’ the metaphor has been written to death, and still i’ve not been able to get the basic idea across.
alternative energies.
WE are the alternative energies. add a whole bunch of other self-organizing spokes around that wheel and woobedooby, the idea, in all it’s potential.