The primacy of the narrative of the free individual vs. the oppressive institution

[scrollgirl]

The older I get, the less enamoured I've become of the primacy of the narrative of the loner rebel hero outcast who disdains and opposes the faceless evil bureaucratic power-mad government that needs to be toppled like the tower of Babel so that the people are freed from the yoke of oppression, yadda yadda

Comments

[ponygirl2000]

This is pretty tangential to your central point but it reminded me of a conversation I'd had the other week about 12 Years a Slave and how Hollywood has trained us to believe that the individual can rebel against corrupt institutions and be successful. The audience kept hoping for that moment, but 12 Years clearly demonstrates that in reality the individual gets crushed, and what's more anyone who's part of the system gets corrupted too. It left me thinking that the Hollywood myth is dangerous because it puts all this burden on the lone hero for saving everyone, when what really needs to be done is the harder work of creating an alternate system and ensuring protections are in place to protect individuals.

Serenity's hopeful ending at the time struck me as wishful thinking and now history's proven it - the reaction to revelations that the government has done terrible things is not widespread rebellion but rather a cynical shrug.

[scrollgirl]

Serenity's hopeful ending at the time struck me as wishful thinking and now history's proven it - the reaction to revelations that the government has done terrible things is not widespread rebellion but rather a cynical shrug.God, that's such a good point, that we've actually see it in real life now and despite some outrage, there hasn't been sweeping reform because of public pressure. We're just... really complacent people. It takes more than a starting gun to spark a revolution -- there's also the daily grind, the lobbying and protesting and letter-writing, little changes here and there, until it hits critical mass. Time creeping forward, the old ways dying out or becoming irrelevant. I mean, I'm no expert so maybe I'm oversimplifying, but I don't think real change ever comes as a bolt out of the blue

[cactuswatcher]

Very interesting, thoughtful piece

[tafkarfanfic]

Because the Westerners always wanted to separate themselves more from the Russians, and for Ukrainian to be something special as a language it had to be different from Russian.

Hm. Perhaps it's because my relatives come from the Ukraine, but I remember when my grandfather bought a Ukrainian-English dictionary for my mom in the early 1980s (she only had a little Ukrainian and he wanted to help her with it). He read it and FREAKED OUT because, direct quote, "That's not Ukrainian. That's Russian." His Ukrainian dictionary was about 60 years old and he pulled it out to prove his point.

Now, I don't speak any Ukrainian, but the way he explained it to me was that Ukrainian and Russian are similar in the same way that Portuguese and Spanish are similar. But they are distinct languages.

[cactuswatcher]

I had the same experience. I know Russian, and I bought a Ukrainian Dictionary (published in England I think) in the 1980s to learn a little more about the language. When I got it home I was shocked that it had a lot of words that were Russian written down in Ukrainian style. And it was of little use trying to read the Ukrainian things I had. It's not to say that's not the way the person who worked on the dictionary spoke Ukrainian. I studied Slavic Linguistics in grad school and Ukrainian is very much a continuum of dialects between the Russian language dialects in the east and Polish and Czech Language dialects in the West. Which is not to say Ukrainian isn't different to those other languages even when they are in close proximity. Your grandfather's dictionary would have been much more helpful in reading what is considered literary Ukrainian.

[tafkarfanfic]

I agree a lot with this sentiment. And right now there's people in my country (old friends, even) who think that things can only be fixed by violent revolution. Why? Because their candidate didn't get elected. I hate how these movies have romanticized war. The people who are writing them have generally not been in a war, nor are they close to anyone who has

[scrollgirl]

Yeah, it's not like I hate action movies because explosions can be fun, but some of the tropes used to justify explosions can reinforce damaging stereotypes and romanticizing war is right up there. For the television equivalent of movies romanticizing war, I've found it frustrating that even the better, more nuanced cop shows have the good guys stepping over the line and not actually being called on it, never facing consequences or showing the damage to the people whose rights they violate. So that's the flip-side of my "institutions aren't evil" argument, because who's the good guy and who's the bad guy is often whatever's convenient for the plot.

But there were many who felt they should pay NO taxes. It's an interesting parallel to today's Tea Party. Yeah, I heard that's where they got their inspiration from, but didn't realize it was actually a somewhat faithful imitation... Ugh, I just have no patience for Tea Party asshats

[raincitygirl]

I have nothing intelligent to say here. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading this post.

[scrollgirl]

I loved everyone's comments! Definitely learned some things I hadn't known before re U.S. history. I'm glad you enjoyed the post too. :)