(no subject)
I just bought a pair of polarized prescription sunglasses since lenscrafters has a $100 rebate on all sales right now. Also, I managed to snag an old mid-90s radiohead documentary (right after OK Computer), cheap PJ Harvey and Smiths albums, and The Graduate, which is too good of a movie not to own. I also bought a book of capitalist theory and the German swear dictionary my dad used to have (I like that "It's not my cup of tea" in German is Das ist nicht mein Bier).
I've realized that the reason I'm an evolutionary socialist is the same reason I've been interested in the relativity of thought and reality (which my Junior and Senior I.S. dealt with in substance but not theory, how peoples' ideas/cultural norms change with time). This means despite all my interest in talking to hardcore reds in San Francisco, I'll probably get into very heated arguments for thinking that a blood-and-guts revolution isn't the way to solve things. But full-fledged revolution is crap, like a round of musical chairs with the Tsar left standing. The only way to truly change the world (bloodlessly, genuinely, democratically) is to convince people of your ideas, but the only way to convince them your ideas are best is to convince them that those ideas are actually theirs as well. People will only change if they have ownership of the change, so you just have to coax them into realizing that, say, making more fuel-efficient cars will earn them more money, or some such thing. It all makes sense: my interest in Taoism and history of thought, coupled with being a lefty, just lends me to some kind of public policy work. It's all part of the same theme! How could I do anything else? That might turn me into a sleazy cajoler of bureaucrats, but my heart would be in the right place.
If I write about stuff like this too much, let me know to stop. I'm just trying to convince myself over time that this is a path I need to go down, and I'm pretty uneasy about going down it right now. In other news, California is pretty as always.
I've realized that the reason I'm an evolutionary socialist is the same reason I've been interested in the relativity of thought and reality (which my Junior and Senior I.S. dealt with in substance but not theory, how peoples' ideas/cultural norms change with time). This means despite all my interest in talking to hardcore reds in San Francisco, I'll probably get into very heated arguments for thinking that a blood-and-guts revolution isn't the way to solve things. But full-fledged revolution is crap, like a round of musical chairs with the Tsar left standing. The only way to truly change the world (bloodlessly, genuinely, democratically) is to convince people of your ideas, but the only way to convince them your ideas are best is to convince them that those ideas are actually theirs as well. People will only change if they have ownership of the change, so you just have to coax them into realizing that, say, making more fuel-efficient cars will earn them more money, or some such thing. It all makes sense: my interest in Taoism and history of thought, coupled with being a lefty, just lends me to some kind of public policy work. It's all part of the same theme! How could I do anything else? That might turn me into a sleazy cajoler of bureaucrats, but my heart would be in the right place.
If I write about stuff like this too much, let me know to stop. I'm just trying to convince myself over time that this is a path I need to go down, and I'm pretty uneasy about going down it right now. In other news, California is pretty as always.