1) why i rarely engage in political discussions outside of the confines of a classroom; and 2) how difficult it is to talk about structural political change without falling into either clichés that reflect and reinforce the status quo (on the part of my cohorts) or revolutionary rhetoric (on my part).
part of this dialogue was an extension of a conversation i've been having off and on with a lawyer friend in Atlanta for the past two years. we met at a Vice Presidential debate party in 2008, and while we agree on almost every detail of the economy, social justice issues, etc., we also share a fundamental ideological rift that might be described as the distance between my disillusionment (in the most unfortunate sense of the word) and his naiveté (in the most generous).
he is one of the few people i know who seems to not only read about contemporary political issues, but also attempts to integrate the ocean of numbers and opinions and statistics with some manner of historical awareness. this being the case, he brought a smile to my face yesterday when he used the word 'anarcho-syndicalist,' which i have heard only a handful of times since my History of Socialism class in the spring of 1997.
anarcho-syndicalism, interesting though it may be, is beside the point.
the point is that class stands out in my mind, partly due to introducing me to the Frankfurt School, partly for immersing me in the thought of the American Black Panther Party, and partly for the good-looking couple who sat near the back of the room.
she had blond dreadlocks, dressed like your typical nouveau-hippie burnout, and said little. he had medium-length dark brown hair, dressed like a gas station attendant, and said the word 'bourgeoisie' with more je ne sais quoi than anyone i had ever met before or since. for me this couple represented the pinnacle of fashionable revolutionary thought, and he would often argue with the professor and cite Mikhail Bakunin:
one of my biggest regrets from this time period (besides my half-hearted engagement with the texts) is that i didn't reach out to people like this more. i felt as if there was an invisible wall separating me from my classmates, and this manifested itself either in the form of petty, pretentious dismissiveness, or in the guise of Romantic ideation of others. this couple certainly fell into the latter category, and i never did so much as say a word to them outside of class.
nearly fifteen years have passed since then, and i wonder what happened to them. perhaps they grew reasonable. perhaps she cut off that beautiful dreadlocked mess atop her head. perhaps he traded in the mechanic's jacket for a suit jacket. perhaps they turned into good little liberals and have a Green house in the suburbs and vote every two years and drive a BMW because it handles well and do criminal defense work at $200/hour with a little pro bono on the side... but i hope not.
furthermore, i'm aware that this whole line of thought is simply more evidence of my ongoing Romantic ideation. be that as it may, the older i get, the more i realize that i've passed the age where those adolescent fantasies should have receded – and yet here they still are. i think that's what gets kicked up for me every time the election cycle runs around, when one can hardly walk down the street without hearing someone say: 'well, i don't really agree with _____ but at least s/he's better than _____.' for me, voting for 'the lesser of two evils' can be reframed in the following way:
i voted for evil today.
this, in turn, reminds me of last night's discussion at my weekly meditation group. the topic was the yamas and niyams, which serve as edicts regulating behavior in yogic philosophy. the first yama is non-violence (ahimsa), and it occurred to me last night that that's really what the issue of voting comes down to for me: faced with the two harmful options, the only ethical decision is to not choose.
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