What are some functional responses to my concerns? (Or how do I learn to stop worrying and love the bomb?) Or maybe this is a question about vocation.

Focus on your own little slice of life. While being who you want to see in the world try to get those personal traits into the people around you through sheer magnetism. Make them mirror you until you have changed the world. It’ll be hard for the first twenty years, just keep at it. Maybe things’ll turn around.

I just want to know how you fit all of that in your topics. I’ve never been allowed anything approaching that many characters in mine.

Yeah, I was surprised they all showed up. Somebody must have changed something.

@kevbo er… can you sum up that essay into something smaller…you can always join Dogberts ruling class…or run for politics

I tried. You can get by just reading the first half and skipping the second paragraph if that helps.

@kevbo without problems their would be no growth…

Crawls into bed with kevbo’s essay.

I’m 42 years old, and I faced your same choice about 20 years ago. First a little background.

When I was 9 years old, the city where I live did testing to find the 30 brightest children in the entire school system for an experimental open-concept class. At the time, 33 years ago, open concept was a new idea, so they wanted to try it with the cream of our generation. We were the best and brightest, all of us rated at the highest tip of the aptitude and IQ testing. (Just as a side note, up until this class I had thought I was the smartest person on the planet. Nothing had ever been a challenge for me, and I was smarter than everyone else I had ever met. Suddenly I was in a classroom filled with people smarter than me and I realized I wasn’t so special after all. It was a life-changing experience in humility.)

I explain this so you realize that I could have been anything. I had both the intelligence and the aptitude to be a physicist, a theologian, a statesman, a lawyer, a professor; no profession would or could be denied to me if I had wanted it badly enough. What I eventually became was a dirt-poor, chronically-depressed, hairy, filthy, wild-eyed anarchist revolutionary and law-breaker.

You see, when you’re smart enough, you start seeing the fnords around you. The invisible bars of the cage in which we live fade into view. The lies, the hypocrisy, the sheer evil of corporate media, the forces of capitalism, and the State become obvious. And, as you’ve seen, the only choices left open to you are either surrender or rebellion.

You can guess which path I took.

To quote Thoreau in Civil Disobedience, “When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the question, and their regard for the public tranquillity, the long and the short of the matter is, that they cannot spare the protection of the existing government, and they dread the consequences to their property and families of disobedience to it. For my own part, I should not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the State. But, if I deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax-bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably in outward respects. It will not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would be sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs. A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government. Confucius said, ‘If a state is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame; if a state is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors are the subjects of shame.’ No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.” [Emphasis mine.]

What tipped the scales for me in my decison, I think, was reading Albert Ellis’ Rational Emotive Thinking. I realized that I am not responsible for the thoughts, emotions, and actions of others, but I am responsible, totally and utterly, for my own. I can’t hope to topple the insidious evil of the world through the work of my hands alone, but I know that if I do not do all that I can to prevent it, then my life has been a failure. For, as Yeshua said in Mark 8:36, what does it profit a man to gain the world if he loses his own soul?

Am I bitter? Sometimes. I wonder what I might have accomplished as a scientist or a doctor or a philospher, if I hadn’t had to spend my life throwing my whole weight against the machinery of injustice, what diseases I might have cured or what eternal verities I might have enlightened if I hadn’t been spending my time organizing copwatch programs and fighting the State over and over and over and over again in court. I wonder if the devastating depression with which I am forced live—crippled to the point of being unable to stand up even to pee for an average of one day out of every three—is the result of this bitterness, of seeing my life spent doing little more than slowing the grinding gears of oppression. But I have to live in the world as it is, not in the world of my fantasies, and I am forced to admit that if I had to do it all over again, faced with the same evils, there’s not a god damned thing I’d change.

“It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win. Even though you can’t expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That’s morality, that’s religion. That’s art. That’s life.” — Phil Ochs

“recent understanding (or my relatively recent perception) that this is and has been done quite purposefully and methodically,”

Welcome to reality, sucks to know there really is a matrix.

You can be enraged, you can speak up and you can take time off. Nothing wrong with a little down time and there is nothing wrong with fighting a battle you know you’ll lose. Especially a fight you believe is worth fighting.

@SmashTheState ”“It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win. Even though you can’t expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That’s morality, that’s religion. That’s art. That’s life.” — Phil Ochs”

Wonderful quote thanks for sharing it.

I think it is a struggle every day for good, decent people who care about the world to keep from surrendering to despair and cynicism, but you can’t surrender. That makes you useless and if good, decent people who care about the world become useless, then all really is lost. You have to focus on what you can do, not what you can’t do, and what you can’t do is simply wave a magic wand over the world and fix it. One of the things that inspires me to carry on is Robert Kennedy’s Day of Affirmation speech and this is from it:

“There is,” said an Italian philosopher, “nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” Yet this is the measure of the task of your generation, and the road is strewn with many dangers.
First, is the danger of futility: the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills – against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence. Yet many of the world’s greatest movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant Reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal.
“Give me a place to stand,” said Archimedes, “and I will move the world.” These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers are making a difference in isolated villages and city slums in dozens of countries. Thousands of unknown men and women in Europe resisted the occupation of the Nazis and many died, but all added to the ultimate strength and freedom of their countries. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

And here is a link to the entire speech

Maybe reading the speech will help you decide whether to give up or not. And like I said, it’s a struggle, no easy answers. I don’t think someone like you can “learn to stop worrying and love the bomb.”

Just last night I saw a documentary on the homeless in England. Which pretty much can be anywhere. I was where you are right now on your thoughts of humanity and wealth and greed and have come to this conclusion. The world is too large a project to take on. I am neither rich nor poor but I did come from poor beginings. I can only try to change my life and make sure that I do not do things to hurt those around me. I can donate some money to charities and donate my time to helping others. I am certainly not an activist but I can do my best to affect people around me for the better and hopefully it will extend to others like a domino affect. To sit down and say, this is a problem that is way beyond me, so I surrender is weak and selfish. But to try to change the lives of people in my little corner of the world is better than nothing. I may not be a solution to all but I can manage not adding to the problem and if I’m lucky make things a little better for something.
The saddest thing in the documentary was how very invisable the homeless feel. Some are just greatful for a kind word and to be noticed. I will never be able to pass a homeless person again without wondering how lonely they may be. Not all in the streets ended up there by choice. Like so many people I thought they could dig themselves out if they desire. However how can you manage when you see the darkness of man, day after day. Picked on, ignored, insulted and treated no better than a roach.
For now I think volunteer work is best for me.

I applaud your question xx I feel this way too and often think about going to live in the woods… but alas I am not brave enough… you could try it for a few months though… I’ve heard of people that do this…. xxx I think you are a very passionate man and am convinced you’ll figure out what to do… perhaps finding the middle ground xxx

The only way you will be happy is to be left alone to interact with others in a fashion that you see fit. The only way that will ever happen is if you are allowed to live in a state of laizzez faire. All of the things that bother you are what happens when people do not allow laizzez faire and instead decide that they must control the lives of others. But my guess is, based on what you wrote, that you rarely if ever cast a political vote for the laizzez faire candidate. I do not know this of course, but that is my guess. And if I am right, then you are enabling your own unhappiness. It happens a lot these days.

As others have said, it is the sum total of people acting in their own enlighted self-interest which brings about most long-term change. Watching the strem of history teaches several lessons, not the least of which is that it’s not what the “movers and shakers” in the stream do which determines the course of history, it’s what the ordinary people on the banks of the stream do that matters in the long run. There’s no need to change your life in an attempt to “accomplish something.” Bringing your perceptions and insight to the place you’re in right now is more than enough. It takes great courage to swim against the current, so to speak. You stand the risk of becoming known as “that kook who believes that crazy shit.” But THAT’S where you can change things, by standing for what you believe right where you are.

@keybo When I was younger, my outlook on the living of life was largely congruent with yours. In my case, I felt paralyzed in thought, though I didn’t drop out of society.

Then, I decided to make my physical home, wherever or for however long it was to be, a place conducive to creative thinking…an oasis on my personal terms.

I am not suggesting that my thinking is on the same level as yours. But, what I am saying, is that one is able to be true to their ideals without the obvious appearance of being at odds with the world.

I caught a program last night about empire and population growth, which (while fraught with many fallacies) traced this universe of problems back to the dawn of “totalitarian” agriculture 10,000 years ago, since agriculture allowed humans to grow their populations (which then fueled growth of agriculture) and also created the first significant wealth iniquities. So… wow.

One of the main theses ofthe program was that empire, while ubiquitous, isn’t the only way and isn’t necessarily the “natural” way to run humanity, and there are lots of other models available to us, but we are prone to defend empire because it is what we know and it is what most immediately appears to ensure our survival despite the disconnection it breeds in us.

For some 2 million years prior to the rise of agrarianism, our genus has been anarchic. Anarchy doesn’t mean without laws, without rules, or without order. It means without rulers. In fact, according to anthropologist Julian Jaynes, consciousness is only about 4000 to 5000 years old, and that prior to this there was no need to differentiate between individuals, since each member of the tribe was essentially interchangable. Indeed, we know from studies of modern stone age tribes that they never possess a first-person, that when asked to describe their activities, they rely on third-person. Jaynes’ argument is that agrarianism permitted the rise of permanent shelters, and then cities, and with the rise of the city came the need to specialize. Consciousness arose as a result of the need to differentiate between specialists, and indeed, to this day our names—our identities—are usually based on the occupations of our predecessors.

Agrarianism was responsible for a whole host of ills. The worst, of course, was property. Property has always existed in the sense that if you pick a fruit from a tree and you’re hungry, you own the apple. However, hunter/gatherers had no need or ability to store food, and food was generally so abundant that theft of someone else’s food was completely fruitless (pun intended). It was easy to simply get your own. Anthropologists estimate that hunter/gatherers spent no more than 14 hours a week sustaining themselves, and the rest of the time was spent in play, lovemaking, art, and education.

During the 2 million years of our pre-history, humanity was largely matrilineal, and it is this which prevented the invention of property as a concept. A female is always assured that any offspring are hers, and any number of females can share a single desirable male, always certain that the progeny carries their genes, so there is no need to restrict sexual access. Once you have immobile cities, however, everything changes. Now, in order to prevent starvation, you must have security to protect the seeds for next year’s crop and the domesticated animals from being hunted. You can’t use women for this because it’s a dangerous job; lose a single woman and the tribe’s reproductive capabilities are damaged, but you can afford to lose all the males but one and still recover your population in a single generation. The strongest male warrior is now the “chief” and has the ability to choose desirable females. The problem is that in order for the male to be certain any offspring carry his genes, he must have exclusive access to the female. And thus is born all the modern evils: chattel, slavery, property, and so on.

Yes, kevbo, there are other ways to live. There have been many anarchic societies over the ages which have existed in quiet, stable harmony. The two best modern examples of surviving anarchic communities is probably the Hopi and the highland Yanomani. In both cases, while there is a council of elders, they have no formal authority. Their advice is often followed—because it’s good advice—but they have no authority to enforce their decisions. Closer to home, early US communities in the northeast were anarchic, in which people met in town hall meetings to decide on laws and rules by simple of show of hands. Anarchism is a demonstratably viable way to run a community.

I haven’t worked this out for myself yet, really. But it’s might be the only way for me.

Beneath my many layers of depression, cynicism and ennui, I truly know that none of this is real anyway and existence has no meaning. I’m just trying to do my time, and along the way try not to cause myself and others too much harm.

Great question. I think about these things constantly. I blame it on taking way too any philosophy classes.

@SmashTheState

Anarchy is fine, as long as there are no wolves among the sheep. If there ARE wolves ( as there almost always are ), anarchy quickly devolves into autocracy.

Julian Jaynes is hardly someone to relay on as a viable source. His “metaphor/metaphrand” approach to consciousness ( arrising from the breakdown of the bicameral mind ) is entirely his own creation and is accepted by no other anthropologist that I know of.

@CaptainHarley Your mistake is to assume a community of anarchists is equivalent to a gathering of sheep. I assure you from personal experience that a community of anarchists is a community consisting entirely of wolves.

During the Russian Revolution, Lenin gave away Ukraine to the Germans, who promptly sent 600,000 of the finest, best-trained, best-equipped warriors in the world. Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist cossack, gathered together 30 men and one gun to fight them. He and his men crept under cover of darkness into a small town where a thousand German soldiers were bivouacked in the town square and mounted their gun on the back of a wagon—and opened up on the sleeping Germans. They killed the entire pack of them. The few Germans who managed to escape were hunted down by angry townspeople and killed with gardening implements.

After that, Ukraine rose against the Germans under Makhno’s banner. His anarchist army, the Makhnovshchina, had no supplies beyond what they could capture from the enemy, and never had more than 50,000 men at its largest. With just those resources, Makhno successfully drove 600,000 German soldiers from Ukraine.

This is not an unusual story. In Spain, under Buenaventura Durruti, the anarchist forces—armed mostly with shotguns and hunting rifles, and most without any combat experience at all—successfully routed Franco’s fascist Spanish army again and again, despite being outmanned and outgunned, and facing hard-bitten veterans who had fought for years in Africa. Why? Simple. In most military engagements, there is rarely more than 20% losses, and often much less than that. The idea is to kill the other side’s officers, and then the leaderless enlisted men surrender or flee. With an anarchist army, each and every soldier is present of his or her own free will. Officers are elected by the soldiers they organize, and generals are chosen by the officers. Anarchists do not flee when their officers are killed, they simply choose a new officer and keep going. An anarchist army therefore fights with the strength of an army ten times its size in regular soldiers.

From my own personal experience from 20 years of activism and organizing, I can tell you that anarchists are a pretty tough bunch. Not that we’re inherently violent, but we are always prepared to defend both ourselves and our comrades, fearlessly. The police won’t even come near us unless they outnumber us three to one, and even then they rely on tear gas, pepper spray, and the liberal use of rubber bullets. I recall seeing a video some time back of an anti-war rally at a university in Kalifornia. Therre were a hundred peaceniks and hippies gathered around a group of two or three organizers with megaphones. A half-dozen police arrived, walked into the middle of the crowd, tackled the organizers to the ground, shackled them, and began dragging them away. The reaction of the crowd? They waggled their fingers and chanted “shame shame.” I can tell you for an absolute fucking certainty that no cop in his right mind would walk into the middle of a pack of a hundred anarchists and start beating people up. Just doesn’t happen. Cops aren’t suicidal, and they know perfectly well we’re not afraid of them, nor are we averse to self-defence. Our willingness to use force to defend ourselves actually prevents violence in the long run.

Anyone who thinks a community of anarchists is easy pickins is in for a whole world of hurt. And that’s a large part of why anarchist communities have such longevity and success.

Apparently our definitions differ. : )

Embrace Kubrickism.

@SmashTheState You clearly have a lot of experience I don’t, so I’d like to pick your brain a bit.

It seems like you’re making a logical mistake here. You’re taking about anarchist/activists. These are the people who see the system now and want to bring it down. If thats how people feel, and they have been able to sustain those kinds of activities for a length of time, of course their going to be tough. They’re going to be damn though.

But thats a highly self-selected group. @CaptainHarley seems to be talking about an anarchist society (which you described earlier). This is completely different. We’re not talking about people who see something and want to fight against it, we’re talking about people who are born into a society and go with the flow. Why would you expect the same level of toughness?

Again, please don’t take this is an attack on your views. But I’d like to benefit from your experience.

@kevbo Whats your ideal? You say you don’t like the world as it is… how should the world be structured? If you answer this question in a relatively concrete way (e.g. @SmashTheState‘s concept that anarchy is best) then you can start looking for ways to make that happen. Sadly, I don’t have any answer for you. If you want to come up with a well thought, well reasoned goal, all I can think of is to learn about alternatives and see what makes the most sense. You can debate them on fluther or elsewhere and see where you end up.

In the end, I agree with @Silhouette fight the good fight. At least that way, you’ll die knowing you did what you could. Who knows, you might even find some comrades in arms.

@kevbo ” ..what vocation or career or way of functionally navigating in the world might fit me?

Clearly, you could write. You have an obvious gift for doing so, as exemplified by your eloquent and engagingly extensive question and your numerous, first rate postings on this site. A couple of shining examples of accomplished individuals in the field that your interests lie in are John Pilger and his friend and mentor, Noam Chomsky. Neither of these great guys are getting any younger, and interested parties need to start thinking about carrying on their kind of work.
Nexus Magazine ( A great publication and resource IMHO) welcome articles from contributors.

You could also consider film or documentary making. I recently watched Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore. It is superb. I especially liked the couple of successful Co-operatives that he highlighted. Positive and heartening stuff indeed. Heck, he is even inviting you to do something.

You could also consider play writing. Don’t you already have experience with staging events? Why not stage your own play?

Whatever you choose to do, I for one would like to commend you for your efforts thus far. I have picked up some good pointers and eye opening info thanks to yourself.( The Great Hedge of India springs to mind for example.)
Please try not to be too downhearted about the dirty underbelly of this beautiful world. But such feelings inevitably come as part of the territory. The skill is in being able to function practicably and usefully for the benefit of our fellows, after having delved into the dark and disgusting corners.

—@kevbo JUST STILL loving you and your questions xxxx

FYI, I think this is helpful.

I’ve decided to make bicycles.