> Marvin Gandall wrote:
>
>> It is about fear, as in the panicky response to 9/11. You can make
>> the case that all great progressive change as well as reaction has
>> been the result of fear - in such cases, the fear of suffering and
>> death from hunger or war or both.
>
> But the left used to be about hope, optimism, the future. Now many of
> us are backward looking, romanticizing peasant agriculture or the
> horny-handed working class of old, quaking with terror over the risks
> of biotech, secretly or not so secretly rooting for an economic
> meltdown. It's a tough package to sell. At least the Christian right
> has eternal salvation on offer.
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
I have a hard time visualizing anything truly socially constructive or progressive being derived from fear, unless it's only progressive or constructive for a subset of the society as a whole.
The fear of starvation, poverty and unemployment during the depression wasn't what drove people to organize around "radical" causes... those trends existed before the economic downturn... and war? Ask the Vietnamese how much their society progressed because of the US incursion, ask the Iraqis how long it's going to be before their society stabilizes... Centuries!
You'd think 9/11 would have knocked some sense into the American consciousness considering how long it's taking to recover from ONE attack, and extrapolate that out to years of mayhem brutality and strife. But first Americans need to learn to spell "extrapolate".
Politically, fear is used to divide people into groups and consolidate their thoughts into a unified pattern... usually against "others".
Doug also wrote:
> gotta confess, I just don't get the video game thing. It seems
> weird and alien to me. Not because of the technology, but because
> of the solitariness and alternative universe aspects of it.
It's no more solitary and otherworldly than living your life in a cubicle, or standing in front of a friggin engine lathe 10 hours a day, and depending on what the "cubie" or lathe operator are doing, may well be more socially constructive. I used to run a punch press for a small shop in Vemont, punching out vent screens for the Lockeed brakes on F-16s. Playing "Tony Hawk" skateboard would have been a much more socially constructive thing to do... if it had existed.
(disclaimer: I am not a "gamer" and there are none, besides the windows stuff that's technically unremovable, on my computer.)
I'm gonna go downtown to posterchild now...
Poster for the day:
Picture of wounded Iraqi child containing a large panel underneath with the dictionary definitition of "complicit". ...#1, guilt by association (Webster's vest pocket edition).
Leigh