quote: “Even if an enormous force of change were at our disposal, we couldn’t use it suddenly without producing…destruction.” -J.G. Bennett The Sherborne Talks
I had a bit of an argument this morning concerning Physical Education and academic standards. While this is a topic that may be interesting in itself, I realized that, as the argument spun off into whether or not it would be “fair” for the people who already had fulfilled this and other obligations for their degrees to eliminate it, what I was starting to think about is my tendency to monkeywrench.
As a self proclaimed “servant of chaos”, I often fantasize about tearing down the status quo, and start over using the lessons that we have learned in the past. A clean slate. What I don’t like about this idea is the obvious fact that the chaos that would be unleashed would destroy society, not heal it. (I have this horrible empathy problem-my compassion keeps getting stronger despite my attempts to quash it.)
So, I ask you to remind me just why the Status Quo is so worth saving, other than the obvious death and suffering. And, if you are so inclined, tell me that my chaos-succoring ways are absolutely correct, and that we should proceed with the tear-down immediately!
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I'm with you on the destroying the status quo thing. It's just that society needs some sort of structure, not too much structure, it needs a skeleton. Which is why the world needs folks like me who want to challenge everything and people who want to leave things the way they are at exactly the same time. The ideas should cancel each other out, but instead they create a sort of equilibrium which can only improve society. That is, if we don't kill each other first.
For example, sex roles. Why do we need sex roles? If a man is better at taking care of children than a woman who wants to become a cop and go after criminals, what's to stop them? Things have shifted a bit over the last 300 years, thank heavens.
Posted by Erik Slaine (Member # 5583) on :
I have to go with you there Synth. At least our demigogarie must have some sort of purpose. But I really get sick of people who don't want to change due to the fact that it's "unfair to those who paid their dues". In many cases, it seems that they shouldn't have had to pay those dues in the first place, so why should they insist that others do?
Posted by Sweet William (Member # 5212) on :
I wonder into what proportion the "former dues payers" are divided:
The "I paid my dues so everyone else should have to, too."
Or the "I am so glad they finally changed that rule, it was always bad."
Posted by Erik Slaine (Member # 5583) on :
True SW, I have seen the latter. Lately I've been dealing with the former, however.
I really like the sentiments expressed by Synth, however. It reminds me that, even though my voice is usually drowned by the majority, the alternate view still has value in itself.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
It is not that change itself is bad.
Many people are working on making change.
But in order to make changes you need to define the common ground for that change to take effect. Some analogies trying to get my idea across:
While I am trying to push A to B you may want to get rid of the whole freaking alphabet. I can never reach B if there is no alphabet.
Or, if I am pushing a boulder I have my feet firmly implanted on the ground to give me leverage. If you remove the ground from beneath my feet, then my effort is wasted and the boulder remains.
Or, there are not enough doctors to cure the sick. I am working on getting more doctors interested in actually curing the sick, not in making a profit. You want to get rid of the AMA infrastructure I am using to get more doctors to volunteer time. You are destroying the status quo I need to improve things. Meanwhile someone else starts destroying the entire Medical system, demanding we get rid of Doctors and Nurses and do everything by computer operated surgical robots and digitally enhanced micro-processing computer diganosis. This change ruins your attemts to get rid of the AMA.
The Status Quo is a wall. It can be used to hold up something wonderful or to stop progress.
Better the devil we know than the devil we don't.
Posted by Erik Slaine (Member # 5583) on :
Boy, Dan. I sure do like that last line!
That's the kind of thing I was wondering about. As you can tell from my first post, I really agree with you. This positive reinforcement confirms my maturing attitude, rather than the "Don't forget to smash the State" mentality I had in younger days.
Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
Ah, I too see wholesale change in our future. This is how I think about such things, my acolyte. I'm trying to help build a strong and living structure of the future that will succor life and love and joy and peace and all the good things I want the whole world to have. If I'm finding it exceedingly difficult NOW, with all this existing infrastructure in place, how much harder would it be if there were nothing?
Just like in Iraq, there will be so many extra challenges to getting the water systems to work than for similar systems here. When a part breaks and we need a new one? We can't get UPS to overnight it in for us. UPS doesn't run in a war zone. When we finally get it up and running? People won't be able to enjoy the benefits long before the system is sabotaged by those who prefer chaos. Then our efforts go to repairing the things they've broken, rather than moving on to new projects.
Use what's there. Don't sweep it away. When you dismantle the old system, let it be from disuse and neglect after the new system in place shows itself to be vastly superior. If it's difficult to build good systems and traditions and practices in an atmosphere of existing social structures, then it's many times more so to wrest them into being out of pure chaos.
Posted by Erik Slaine (Member # 5583) on :
::adulates ak::
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
Ever since I was about 10, I had the train of thought starting with, "If I had my own country..."
Often I came up with some really good ideas, and better ways of doing things than our current government and society does. While some of my ideas would be great to try to implement here, most of them are fundamentally incompatible with either the current government or the people who live here.
It's still a lifelong goal to accumulate enough money to buy six or seven old supertankers and flotilla them in the Caribbian Sea, and declare independance. The first 500 immigrants to my country would be given a free T-Shirt.
Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
<beams>
Posted by rayne (Member # 5722) on :
you know, this is just an internet forum and you have a principal, a penalty box, a murderer on the loose, a burninator...I don't think any of you should be worried about the existence of boundaries.
Posted by Erik Slaine (Member # 5583) on :
Give rayne a t-shirt!
How long have you been lurking?
Posted by jehovoid (Member # 2014) on :
Probably a day.
Posted by rayne (Member # 5722) on :
heh. I meant that, I wasn't trying to be creepy. You really do make an interesting read, though, I almost didn't register
Posted by rayne (Member # 5722) on :
I mean in a good way, like I enjoyed reading this forum enough I could have just kept reading and not posted.
But I am posting, so. The rest of my whole thought was actually, I think creativity is the catalyst for the forward motion of life, but it's sort of a painful thing for the creative people who feel the need to do the work. You end up being the one who recognizes the need for motion, and that means you can't be happy all the time, la la la, everything is fine because my life is fine. And sometimes you are alone when you hit the point where you're looking around and thinking things through and thinking..a-a-aughhh... something has got to change...
But I think there's hope, because people got in line to be burninated.
Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
Weird...I never wanted my own country. At ten I was a knee-jerk patriot who thought the US should conquer every other country so they could be part of a real democracy....
Posted by Jacare Sorridente (Member # 1906) on :
There are many things wrong with the way things are now. Anyone can see that. However, it is quite likely that there will also be many things wrong with the way things are in any system one can conceive of. Some of those things will be much worse than what is wrong with our society.
What happens in "The Lathe of Heaven" is an excellent example- a fellow who thinks he has all of the answers gets the power to change everything; what he ends up doing is digging a deeper hole with each change he enacts.
There is a good reason that human society is the way it is and that reason is because in general a lot of the things we do work the way they are supposed to. So instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater I think it makes more sense to try to identify what is wrong and working to rectify it rather than imagine "starting over with a clean slate" which is really impossible anyway.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
As a woman, I would feel really guilty if I were a fireman and couldn't carry a colleague out of a burning building. Then again, a lot of cops I know are pretty short and it is possible that with training my little sister could beat them up. My younger sister. I'm not actually bigger than her. Though I might be heavier.
![[Evil Laugh]](graemlins/evillaugh.gif)