Recently, this question of Reform, or Revolution? has been lingering in my mind. It was a central question I had during Occupy, and with the heat turned up right now, I think its a question on a lot of peoples minds: What are we going to do about it? On the one hand, reform presupposes that the system is actually fixable. If only we had LESS-militarized police, or MORE progressive tax laws, then things would be better... On the other hand, revolution presupposes that the current system is unfixable, but that a revolutionary movement could somehow be capable of SEIZING power, and then creating a system that works better. The insight I had today when I sat down to explore this question further is that neither of these two options will possibly ever work, at least not if what we really want is peace. Both strategies uphold the Domination culture- the idea that it is possible to create a healthy society by controlling, curbing, or manipulating the actions of others to behave in a certain way. Dont get me wrong, oppression works. Its very possible to control people by force. Thats why our world is so deeply tangled in it. But if what we want is liberation, peace and a lasting human society that does not suck the marrow from the earth and leave a wasteland of hate and rot for our children, then the domination culture itself must end. The trick answer to the Reform or Revolution question is Dialogue. It has always been dialogue. It will always be dialogue. Liberation is a process, not a solution. The strategies will change, community to community, century to century. But the process will always be the same: people get together and they talk. And once theyve talked, they take action. And then they talk again. And this process, repeated, forges a partnership culture, where each person is a free, voluntary actor in a future that they are actively creating, not a involuntary cog in an oppressive society that steals their ability to think and act for themselves. Perhaps it is not possible to create a global partnership culture. It does seem like a tall order at this point. But if it is not possible then the cycle of oppression will continue until one power succeeds in dominating all the others, and then that power would have to continue to oppress the fundamental human need for self-expression, in every generation, forever. That seems totally absurd to me. Domination culture will either disappear, or humans will, and if domination culture does disappear, it will be through the action of humans. It seems to me that we are in a very bad place in history, but a very human place. A place we have been before. The place where a critical mass of people look around and start putting their feet down and saying NO- There has got to be more than this. Life is worth more than this. I do not know what comes next. No one person can know what comes next- because whatever comes next, we will build together, as equals, building the next society, the next step in human progress, together. If were lucky well build a culture that will endure long enough to become oppressive itself and stifle the dreams of some future generation to such a degree that they will get to feel as alive as we do right now, the moment they realize that the future is theirs to create.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 23:46:25 +0000
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