We're the lost dreamers, the last dreamers. We're the ones whose hearts still beat out of love, not fear. We live under the stars, these concrete boxes are not for us. We remain alone in every massive crowd, and when the electricity flows through us all only we can feel it.
I know there are more of us.
Why can't we find each other?
I'm here. I keep waiting. Come find me.
12.31.2013
12.27.2013
A little SL-induced rant.
Sweeping generalizations have no place in discussion of a specific situation.
You cannot make an overarching statement such as, "Attractive people always get promoted first," and expect to apply it blindly to every situation you come across. Sometimes, you and the rule will be wrong.
Now, if you were to throw out the name of a black man and the name of a white man and tell me they both lived in Birmingham in the 1960s and then ask me whose life was better, I wouldn't be able to answer. And then you'd look at me and say, "But that's such an easy question." And I'd look back at you and say,
"Okay. No one can deny that the black man hasn't had an easy life, what with him being paid a whole dollar less per hour at the auto factory where he works, and not even being able to take breaks in the same room as his white coworkers. And even now, he's still scarred from the stories his grandma told him as a child, the ones about watching her childhood best friend's father be lynched in his backyard. But at least he's inherited the family house, small though it may be, and his wife brings in some money too with her sewing. They're raising their daughter alright.
Now, the white man may have a house three times bigger in a gated neighborhood, but he's about to lose that just like he lost his job, and his wife, and his kids. Because white picket fences couldn't keep the flu out, and now he's afraid he has it too. There's nothing more tragic than a man left all alone to confront his own mortality, especially when he's afraid he'd done injury to God in his younger, carefree days.
Which one has it better? In this case, I think that's an easy question."
Now, if you had spoken of the general population of blacks and the general population of whites, that would certainly have been an easy question. No one doubts that segregation affected blacks much more adversely than whites. Yet attaching names that tie to individual people can reverse the conclusion, because while an institution deals with masses, each individual in that mass has his or own set of circumstances that are shifted at the forefront when the situation changes to center upon them.
And regardless of what the trend may be, you don't know shit about an individual case unless you know about the specific situation. It could well be a white man who had it worse during a time of segregation, it could be a thin girl whose self-esteem takes the greater hit from modern beauty ideals. Even when "better" and "worse" are measurable, for example in economic terms (just don't get me started on how you cannot determine how much emotional pain a person does or should experience), it is impossible to know exactly which scenario is the most problematic when all you're given is an identity and a generalized rule. Yes, maybe one side is favoured institutionally or has privilege, but that doesn't mean individual variances are now nonexistent and every member of a class suffers the same amount, in the same way. There are always exceptions to the trend.
Let's stop passing judgment on whose issues are worse, better, or more deserving of redress. Suffering is not a competition.
You cannot make an overarching statement such as, "Attractive people always get promoted first," and expect to apply it blindly to every situation you come across. Sometimes, you and the rule will be wrong.
Now, if you were to throw out the name of a black man and the name of a white man and tell me they both lived in Birmingham in the 1960s and then ask me whose life was better, I wouldn't be able to answer. And then you'd look at me and say, "But that's such an easy question." And I'd look back at you and say,
"Okay. No one can deny that the black man hasn't had an easy life, what with him being paid a whole dollar less per hour at the auto factory where he works, and not even being able to take breaks in the same room as his white coworkers. And even now, he's still scarred from the stories his grandma told him as a child, the ones about watching her childhood best friend's father be lynched in his backyard. But at least he's inherited the family house, small though it may be, and his wife brings in some money too with her sewing. They're raising their daughter alright.
Now, the white man may have a house three times bigger in a gated neighborhood, but he's about to lose that just like he lost his job, and his wife, and his kids. Because white picket fences couldn't keep the flu out, and now he's afraid he has it too. There's nothing more tragic than a man left all alone to confront his own mortality, especially when he's afraid he'd done injury to God in his younger, carefree days.
Which one has it better? In this case, I think that's an easy question."
Now, if you had spoken of the general population of blacks and the general population of whites, that would certainly have been an easy question. No one doubts that segregation affected blacks much more adversely than whites. Yet attaching names that tie to individual people can reverse the conclusion, because while an institution deals with masses, each individual in that mass has his or own set of circumstances that are shifted at the forefront when the situation changes to center upon them.
And regardless of what the trend may be, you don't know shit about an individual case unless you know about the specific situation. It could well be a white man who had it worse during a time of segregation, it could be a thin girl whose self-esteem takes the greater hit from modern beauty ideals. Even when "better" and "worse" are measurable, for example in economic terms (just don't get me started on how you cannot determine how much emotional pain a person does or should experience), it is impossible to know exactly which scenario is the most problematic when all you're given is an identity and a generalized rule. Yes, maybe one side is favoured institutionally or has privilege, but that doesn't mean individual variances are now nonexistent and every member of a class suffers the same amount, in the same way. There are always exceptions to the trend.
Let's stop passing judgment on whose issues are worse, better, or more deserving of redress. Suffering is not a competition.
12.25.2013
12.21.2013
12.14.2013
12.08.2013
12.06.2013
Random freewrite from English class.
... for everything that rises must converge...
[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]
Isn't that a falsehood of physics though, as everything moves toward chaos, moves toward disorder? The second law of thermodynamics, that the universe's default tendency is toward randomness? So how can the ascending few converge against the nature of their own physical existences when even the most minute particles cannot? How can they ever be united? For at the top, one is always alone, drifting, unable to attach, unable to do anything but look down at the masses remaining below in pure envy for those who did not dream, did not seek something better that never came? How can one aspire when this is the result?
[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]
Isn't that a falsehood of physics though, as everything moves toward chaos, moves toward disorder? The second law of thermodynamics, that the universe's default tendency is toward randomness? So how can the ascending few converge against the nature of their own physical existences when even the most minute particles cannot? How can they ever be united? For at the top, one is always alone, drifting, unable to attach, unable to do anything but look down at the masses remaining below in pure envy for those who did not dream, did not seek something better that never came? How can one aspire when this is the result?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)