Cynicism, Revolt and the new wave of Curious Georges
[my 110 blog verbatim appears below]
I know that good journalists are supposed to distinguish the bias of any media source they quote before they quote it.
And that admittedly, the magazine “Adbusters” is absolutely radical and anti-status quo, but for me, the opinions Adbusters expresses ring true in my heart of hearts.
That being said, I wanted to share with you something that psychologist Bruce E. Levine published in Adbusters’ May/June 2002 “Mad Pride” Issue. It originally appeared in his book, Commonsense Rebellion: Debunking Society-An A to Z Guide to Rehumanizing Our Lives (Continuum, 2001).
“There is not an epidemic of mental illness taking over society, but a curious revolt. Common sense tells us that many of our emotional and behavioral problems are natural human reactions to the growth of institutional society and the resulting loss of a) autonomy, or self-direction, experience of potency, and capacity and ability to self-govern, b) community, or strong bonds among small groups that provide for economic security and emotional satisfaction, and c) humanity, or the variety of ways of being human, the variety of satisfactions, and the variety of negative reactions to feeling controlled rather than understood.”
I’m immensely attracted to Levine’s phrase “curious revolt” because it conotates this image of a legion of Curious Georges (remember the monkey?) all grown up, sick of getting into little kid trouble for simply being curious, and ready to expose and challenge the evils of society and to celebrate what we’ve defined as meaningful.
We’ve told the youth staff that our main criteria for hiring them was passion and I am so extremely thankful for that. My biggest issue with making friends these days is the overwhelming apathy is see in people of all ages. I can deal with moderate amounts of cynicism, but I do think that too much of it can lead to apathy, and apathy to complete and sorrowful submission to the woes of the world. And appropriately, in the same issue of Adbusters I found a letter to the editor that addressed cynicism:
“The problem with cynicism is that it is a denial of defeat. You simply cultivate your jadedness, your tough soul-skin that won’t let anything through-not love or any experience you may want to have. Giving up cynicism in many ways means embracing your anger, hatred and rage. Cyncism is the easy way out from these feelings, but in the meantime you make it harder for yourself to live a genuine life.”
I’ve met so many super-intelligent people who are extremely cynical. And even some of the youth staff have voiced cynical-sounding opinions-and not that there’s anything wrong in expressing your opinion, even if it’s not what I/we want to hear, I just worry that people will get to that dark place the I’ve been to.
My senior year of high school I fell victim to the plague of cynicism, but eventually I discovered that negativity was a poison I had to get out of my system in order to function. I had let the cynicism develop into and overwhelming depressive state in which, outside of school, and sometimes when I was supposed to be in school, the only activities I engaged in were sleeping and watching television. When it got to the point at which I was failing all my classes I decided I had to find alternatives to just giving up-I needed to find solutions.
But I didn’t really know who to turn to, what alternative resources were out there. I didn’t trust my educators because I felt that they had failed me-- they had shown me the problems, but not the solutions.
And then one day I followed my dad into the Food Conspiracy on 4th Ave. I noticed a glossy cover on their newsstand that stood out from the rest. It wasn’t happy healthy neo-hippies holding wondrously bright organic produce or yogis deep in meditation, it was a visual mess. It was my first Adbusters.
As I skimmed the text and absorbed the images while my dad shopped, I noticed this little blurb about a Food Not Bombs collective that salvaged bruised produce from supermarkets and health food coops to prepare and feed to the homeless and hungry in their communities. I thought “Oh my god. Duh! Why do we have to throw food away if you can just cut out the bruise and use the other 95%!?” The blurb listed a Food Not Bombs website that I got onto the next chance I could. Within the site there was a link to a Tucson chapter, whose phone number I called immediately. No one picked up so I left a message.
Longer story short, I got involved with the Tucson Food Not Bombs crew and started to connect with local dissenters who connected me to other activists in Tucson. Amazed as I was by the efforts of the Tucson activists I talked to, I was still skeptical that their efforts were monumentally impactful. I asked them, however rudely, “Why are you wasting your time doing what you do? Don’t you see that your efforts can’t possibly remedy a society that is so messed up it will never right itself? What we need is a revolution, but the dissenters are just as lazy as the folk comfortable with the status quo so nothing will ever happen, right?” “Wrong,” is what I heard in response. The world changes because people invest themselves in changing what they can. Some people devote their lives to change, others devote a couple high-impact a week. There is no one solution-there are many. You just have to find out what you’re good at and go from there. Everyone has something to contribute to the greater good of humanity. Some people are built to be politicians, lawyers, and judges-they have the responsibility to change policies that make more sense. Some people are driven to create-there art can expose people to new ways of thinking and living and revolting against that which does not inspire. Etc. etc.
It was recommended I read Paulo Cuehlo’s novel “The Alchemist”. I did, and it gave me new perspective. The message is basically, find your calling and stick to it against all adversity because if you do, you’ll be exposed to the truths of the universe (what you discover along the travel of your life’s path will be analogous to the experiences of all other human beings).
The point of today’s rant is, keep searching for truth, meaning and solutions to what you find wrong in the world because someday somewhere you’ll find the tools that fit your grip.
I know that good journalists are supposed to distinguish the bias of any media source they quote before they quote it.
And that admittedly, the magazine “Adbusters” is absolutely radical and anti-status quo, but for me, the opinions Adbusters expresses ring true in my heart of hearts.
That being said, I wanted to share with you something that psychologist Bruce E. Levine published in Adbusters’ May/June 2002 “Mad Pride” Issue. It originally appeared in his book, Commonsense Rebellion: Debunking Society-An A to Z Guide to Rehumanizing Our Lives (Continuum, 2001).
“There is not an epidemic of mental illness taking over society, but a curious revolt. Common sense tells us that many of our emotional and behavioral problems are natural human reactions to the growth of institutional society and the resulting loss of a) autonomy, or self-direction, experience of potency, and capacity and ability to self-govern, b) community, or strong bonds among small groups that provide for economic security and emotional satisfaction, and c) humanity, or the variety of ways of being human, the variety of satisfactions, and the variety of negative reactions to feeling controlled rather than understood.”
I’m immensely attracted to Levine’s phrase “curious revolt” because it conotates this image of a legion of Curious Georges (remember the monkey?) all grown up, sick of getting into little kid trouble for simply being curious, and ready to expose and challenge the evils of society and to celebrate what we’ve defined as meaningful.
We’ve told the youth staff that our main criteria for hiring them was passion and I am so extremely thankful for that. My biggest issue with making friends these days is the overwhelming apathy is see in people of all ages. I can deal with moderate amounts of cynicism, but I do think that too much of it can lead to apathy, and apathy to complete and sorrowful submission to the woes of the world. And appropriately, in the same issue of Adbusters I found a letter to the editor that addressed cynicism:
“The problem with cynicism is that it is a denial of defeat. You simply cultivate your jadedness, your tough soul-skin that won’t let anything through-not love or any experience you may want to have. Giving up cynicism in many ways means embracing your anger, hatred and rage. Cyncism is the easy way out from these feelings, but in the meantime you make it harder for yourself to live a genuine life.”
I’ve met so many super-intelligent people who are extremely cynical. And even some of the youth staff have voiced cynical-sounding opinions-and not that there’s anything wrong in expressing your opinion, even if it’s not what I/we want to hear, I just worry that people will get to that dark place the I’ve been to.
My senior year of high school I fell victim to the plague of cynicism, but eventually I discovered that negativity was a poison I had to get out of my system in order to function. I had let the cynicism develop into and overwhelming depressive state in which, outside of school, and sometimes when I was supposed to be in school, the only activities I engaged in were sleeping and watching television. When it got to the point at which I was failing all my classes I decided I had to find alternatives to just giving up-I needed to find solutions.
But I didn’t really know who to turn to, what alternative resources were out there. I didn’t trust my educators because I felt that they had failed me-- they had shown me the problems, but not the solutions.
And then one day I followed my dad into the Food Conspiracy on 4th Ave. I noticed a glossy cover on their newsstand that stood out from the rest. It wasn’t happy healthy neo-hippies holding wondrously bright organic produce or yogis deep in meditation, it was a visual mess. It was my first Adbusters.
As I skimmed the text and absorbed the images while my dad shopped, I noticed this little blurb about a Food Not Bombs collective that salvaged bruised produce from supermarkets and health food coops to prepare and feed to the homeless and hungry in their communities. I thought “Oh my god. Duh! Why do we have to throw food away if you can just cut out the bruise and use the other 95%!?” The blurb listed a Food Not Bombs website that I got onto the next chance I could. Within the site there was a link to a Tucson chapter, whose phone number I called immediately. No one picked up so I left a message.
Longer story short, I got involved with the Tucson Food Not Bombs crew and started to connect with local dissenters who connected me to other activists in Tucson. Amazed as I was by the efforts of the Tucson activists I talked to, I was still skeptical that their efforts were monumentally impactful. I asked them, however rudely, “Why are you wasting your time doing what you do? Don’t you see that your efforts can’t possibly remedy a society that is so messed up it will never right itself? What we need is a revolution, but the dissenters are just as lazy as the folk comfortable with the status quo so nothing will ever happen, right?” “Wrong,” is what I heard in response. The world changes because people invest themselves in changing what they can. Some people devote their lives to change, others devote a couple high-impact a week. There is no one solution-there are many. You just have to find out what you’re good at and go from there. Everyone has something to contribute to the greater good of humanity. Some people are built to be politicians, lawyers, and judges-they have the responsibility to change policies that make more sense. Some people are driven to create-there art can expose people to new ways of thinking and living and revolting against that which does not inspire. Etc. etc.
It was recommended I read Paulo Cuehlo’s novel “The Alchemist”. I did, and it gave me new perspective. The message is basically, find your calling and stick to it against all adversity because if you do, you’ll be exposed to the truths of the universe (what you discover along the travel of your life’s path will be analogous to the experiences of all other human beings).
The point of today’s rant is, keep searching for truth, meaning and solutions to what you find wrong in the world because someday somewhere you’ll find the tools that fit your grip.