Making a plan

2002-05-21 - 2:39 a.m.

I've been catching up on my reading, mostly online tutorials about how to be a better activist. I -do- know that good activists are, well, active.

I will work on it.

And I've been catching myself trying to think about what my perfect society would include. Not just the "no racism, or oppression, or poverty, or hunger, or sexism, or prejudice," but actuallyt trying to imagine what sort of rules would be in place, what sort of government. And at the same time, trying to imagine -how- we'd get the governments and rules that would best serve everyone.

When or if we decide that having a very small group of billionaires and billions of people who can't afford to feed themselves or their families, let alone worry about shelter, isn't the world we want, what can we put in its place? How would we go about doing that?

It's a big problem, a huge problem, one that doesn't seem possible. But I'm also trying to keep an idea of the time scale we might be dealing with. Our way of life is built on the history of other ways of life. The Free Market economy came from ideas in a different world...before we had capitalism we had something else. Before communism there wqas something else. And before those ideas came in vogue, most people could not even comprehend them, could not imagine living their lives any differently.

I'm learning that nothing is inevitable, except, maybe death, and that in the end it is our ideas, and hopes, and concerns and fears that drive history. None of us are bit players, or ALL of us are bit players.

So, what I need is a goal, a world free of oppression, where people aren't just -allowed- to be people, but are encouraged to be. I need the rules and institutions and roles that such a world would require to be self-sustaining, because if the world lasts that way for ten years before falling back into oppression, it's not really helpful to all the people after it. And I need a series of steps that I, and other people, can take to bring such a world into existance.

Well, I'm up for the next 6 or so hours anyway, so I might as well spend the time doing this...

Cheers,

The Magus

previous - next