Friday, April 16, 2004

envisioning the place where i want to live

i usually get along reasonably well with people not sharing my own views, but tonight after a discusson with an old friend who somehow has turned to ethno-centric fascism as his governance model of choice, it dawned upon me that "labels" can only do harm. my friend doesn't have a clue about what socialism really is in its pure - uncorrupted by totalitarian governments - form. and he's not up for finding out, either by studying marx and engels, (among many people not so widely associated with either communism or socialism), or by listening to others who have. for him communism and socialism are two notions inseparable from stalinist fascism-like types of state regimes commonly associated with long state bureacracies that invariably lead to huge inefficiencies in redistribution and allocation of resources, and the like. said otherwise, my friend reckons that a social state could only be a place where inefficiency reigns and where all animal are equal, but some are more equal than others. and because he's made his mind that socialism can be nothing else, whenever the socialism label is brought up, he's got his ears closed. and regardess of whether he actually grasps the dynamics of the process through which his own ideas and emotions have led him to believe fascism is an answer to his problems, he also opposes to a society of spectacle, schizophreria, and backstabbing.    


i want a place where all animal are equal, and none is more equal than others. a place where work is not a constant process of exploitation and workers do not know the feeling of alienation. where social enterpreneurs have the means required to materialise their dreams. where social ventures are a derivative of a wider state of public awareness associated with the benefits of voluntarism. where there is no hate and envy for people know that free creativity, love, affection, friendship are a more blissful drug than eternal craving for more green tickets. where means of exchange serve for nothing more than facilitating exchange and are not elevated to the status of god. where all people's material needs are covered, and where tolerance is not synonymous with what we mean by political correcteness.


there're many things i could add to the list, but i guess i manage to get my point across. why would anyone dislike such a place and not want to live there among other autonomous animals? and if there's even a slim chance that some people may dislike this place, then what hope is left for all of us who, perhaps ignorantly,  place our hopes on technology-empowered multitudes and augmented social networks for reinventing our societies along more democratic ideals? note that i'm not saying that technology as another deus x machina will lead to rapidly expanding democracies. i'm only saying that technology holds the potential to transform our societies dramatically. and this is why we should be engaged in this process of co-evolution - so that it doesn't spiral out of control at our detriment. but if human intellect, or anyway some part of human intellect, is always doomed to subscribe to hybris and ill-control, then is a society of angels a mere hallucination, even in a society that technology has made affluent?

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