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by rjett
3707 days ago
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As a free member of the western world, happily able to pursue "the dream," and unexposed to the direct effects of war and humanitarian crimes, what am I to do? If you think about it, the domestic conditions in the US, relative to many of the places in the non-western world, are such that we have no incentive to ACTUALLY do anything to change things for the better. Sure, we get upset about reading articles like this. But is getting upset for 5 minutes, writing an article, making a movie, or even settling into the mindset of being jaded and skeptical about our own country's leadership really the toolset we are left with at the end of the day to cause change? Is there revolution in the modern west? Or are we neutered by the relatively great living conditions we take for granted? |
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A) You dash to the rolltop and feverishly write letters to every politician you can think of. You then get on a bus with a bunch of other upset people, go to DC and wave signs with clever catch phrases. You then live in a tent on public space for several weeks.
B) You consider this information, your feelings, and your prior model of the way the world worked. Methodically you reexamine long unchallenged precepts related to morality, the role of the state, and the logical consistency of the entire endeavor. After a while you find that things make a lot more sense, you are no longer experience the effects of cognitive dissonance when new information hits your brain. You share this new understanding, through example (maybe by pestering strangers online, either or).
Clearly I favor option B, but one could easily deride it as slacktivism - though the self reflection is not something you often see in #Kony2012. Every example of positive change that I can think, involved marching and rhyming slogans, would not have been possible without a great deal of uncomfortable self examination.