Newsgroups: bit.listserv.fnord-l
Date:         Fri, 14 Aug 1992 17:24:39 EDT
From:         Robert Holder <robert@WHIPLASH.ER.USGS.GOV>
Subject:      Re: Beating a dead horse
X-To:         FNORD-L@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu

hoo boy, well alp writes:

> Can democracy work if the people are all fascists?  Can you have an anarchic
> political system if the people dislike anarchy on a personal level?
> You are all required to answer, all 100+- of you.

FORGIVE ME IF THIS IS OFF-TOPIC FOR THIS BOARD, BUT SO FAR IT HAS NOT APPEARED
TO ME THAT THIS BOARD HAS *A* TOPIC... apologies to the people who know what
this boards topic is.

Isn't "anarchic political system" oxymoronic?  My response to this message is:

1)	There is not and never was any democracy on this planet, and there never
	will be one either because...
2)	Power, (unfortunately for aesthetics) dictates ideology, ethics, culture
	and everything else.  Look at cambodia: that's what happens when you
	hand machine guns out to all the fourteen year olds, and teach them to
	rat on their parents.  We can all laugh about it *now* but back in
	"the year zero" it didn't seem too fucking funny, and the days of
	working in the hot sun at the slave labor camp while your next door
	neighbors' 16 year old daughter stood over you with an AK-47 probably
	dragged on and on.  Power destroys the nice symmetry that we humans
	like so much to see in our lives.  This is the lesson of the modern
	age: Human emotions have not grown in step with Human intelligence,
	and this has magnified the effects of raw power.  This leads to...
3)	Humans are the only truly "vicious" creatures on the planet.  We
	kill and destroy because *we get off on it*.  The Human sense of
	"wrong" evolved to give us more pleasure in the acts which evoke that
	sense.  Humans *could* make the right choices, but a glance at history
	and the current economic/cultural/political/environmental situation
	of the planet is enough to show that for a Long Time Now, many people
	have been making Bad Decisions.  This will not change, unless Humans
	change what they are.  A "new" system or "new" plan or "new" slogan
	or "new" flag Will Not Change One Goddamn Thing.  Our species has made
	the mistakes it has made because of flaws in our design.

Your good intent to transform this world (or some part of it) into a more
sensible or intelligent or efficient or even just more aesthetically pleasing
form will be frustrated unless you are a Super Genius Genetic Engineer.  That
free will so nobly bestowed upon us has so far been generally put to poor use.

I believe that Humans COULD fix themselves and their world, but all the
evidence I have seen has led me to believe that they WON'T.  IN FACT, they will
be handed the key, shown the golden path, airlifted over the Terrible Journey
to The Threshold of Paradise, and will come to the very BRINK of ACCIDENTALLY
STUMBLING into Utopia, BUT THEY WILL REFUSE TO GO IN.  They'll be afraid.
They'll complain that it's not familiar.  They'll hesitate.  They'll feverishly
manufacture bonehead alternative after idiotic folly after inane plan which
they'll say they want to "try first" before they give the real thing a shot,
and then they'll get distracted by the latest professional athletic
competition/TV War/chance-for-an-easy-buck/etc. and they'll be "too busy".

Humans do not have the ability to stop fucking each other over.  Good luck
to everybody out there who thinks otherwise, and you have my sincere
admiration.  But then, I also admired the 700 in "The Charge of the Light
Brigade".

Now, if you have no intention of "fixing" anything, and want to see anarchy
happen for the sake of the spectacle, I believe you will have a much better
shot at success than the first crowd.  But of course, I would have a personal
fear of you and would be very wary if you showed up at my house.  In any case,
I would not lend you any money, although you would probably be a lot of fun
to hang out with.

Do you think I am a defeatist?  I am a realist.  And I am not a cynic either.
It is BECAUSE I have such hopes for humans that I am so disappointed in their
performance.  It is because I realize what we COULD be that the awareness of
what we ARE has, over time, been burned into my brain.  I have not yet reached
the exalted plain of enlightenment from which I can survey the Pulsating
Human Creature and see the beauty and wisdom in its uglinesses.  The scraps
of beauty thrown my way are sweet, but in general, Humans are Ugly, Venal,
Sneaky, Low, Cruel, Merciless Vermin who effect elaborate moral/ethical/
religious/political "systems" which they use to rally around until they get
into a big enough herd that they can go fuck somebody over "for the cause" at
odds great enough to ensure that they won't have to actually do anything
brave or risky and then use the "philosophy" of the "system" they are members
of to rationalize the whole thing so they can feel good about themselves later.

Thank God for laughter.

I don't believe that humans are ALWAYS like this and maybe they are not
like this more than 50% of the time.  But HOWEVER OFTEN they are like this,
it is too much as far as I'm concerned.  So when you say "can this-or-that
system/idea/technology succeed", I would say "no", no matter what you mean
by "succeed", unless you genetically alter the Human Species.

Gee, I just flamed the whole Human race!  If only they all would read it...
Maybe I could start my own cult.  Then I'd REALLY shake things up!  *I*
wouldn't get greedy!  *I* wouldn't make stupid mistakes!  *I* would create
the Perfect Culture, and it would work, unlike all those idiots who went
before me.  Riiiiiiight?

Ya, right.

OK, my shields are at 120%.  Blast Away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~robert holder~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~       unix beast wrassler  us geological survey        ~
~ robert@whiplash.er.usgs.gov  st petersburg florida usa ~
~ FREEDOM HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN EXPENSIVE THING dr m l king ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~namaste~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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