I shouldn't let myself get upset that there are bad people and injustices. Those things are just part of reality and aren't going to go away just because I don't like them.
On the other hand, I shouldn't pretend they don't exist just so I feel better. Refusing to see reality as it is, or refusing to speak up just because it's not what "polite society" does, isn't healthy. It's not honest.
Turning a blind eye to those things would make me a part of the problem. It takes away any possibility of being part of the solution. If there is a solution.
I will not pretend archators are good people or are doing right. I can't. I would be lying to myself and others, including to the archators. That's doing no one any favors even if it spares "feelings" and makes me a welcome part of society.
Finding a way to recognize the bad stuff without letting it get me down is a balancing act I've not perfected.
I hear you. I have my doubts about the existence of any "solution" to the problem of 'social power'. I have come to believe as a solitary individual that society or more broadly, any 'collective' has a debasing and defiling influence upon that minority of individuals that intrinsically possess a capacity for right behavior and that it most assuredly can not ameliorate or improve that capacity in individuals where it is absent. I also believe that reality is just a sequence of actions and thus only what I tangibly do in fact has any real relevance and the only actions I can legitimately and justly control are my own. Getting emotionally entangled in the behavior of others (politics) is a prescription for disappointment. One of my favorite quotes from that master of the pithy saying, Mr. Franklin sums this up: "Well done is better than well said".
ReplyDeletethis last week, neighbor 27yr old male, with first child on the way- traffic stop with one joint in his pocket. now lost job, unemployable at his trade, has "permanent record". the machinery of the state will now grind them down. not much the community can do to save them, to prevent injustice. it's the reality of the nightmare of what states are built to do: to subjugate serfs.
ReplyDeletestate destruction of lives and family is upsetting. injustice upsets me.
been looking for a "firefly solution"; somewhere to go and be useful, far away from "imperial entanglements" and the horrors of the state.
[firefly, spooner, von mises, star wars]
sci-fi is full of libertarian ideals.
fiction yearning for liberty.
'cause reality aint.
You and me, both.
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