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Sep. 21st, 2007 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerThis was going to be an edit, but it was getting longer than the original post...
Apologies once again to the rugged individualists, libertarians and eco-warriors who, despite the disclaimer, felt lumped in with the rest of us in the previous post, but as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stevieannie says, what we have is the world the majority have deserved, and who among us has never been part of the majority, or taken the easy path? From a distance, as that bitter little song says, we all look alike, and what we look like is the majority, and where we are going is where the majority will take us. Which is not to say it's not worth trying to do the right thing: every individual who stands out makes the majority smaller by one, and if enough do it then possibly a change of direction can happen...but it will need more than individuals leading by example, because the majority can always find excuses and justifications and it's-all-very-well-for-yous to stave off the unpleasant truths.
What it will need is a new idea. As I said, a new conception. When the dinosaurs died out, it wasn't the cue for a grand resurgence of trilobites. Something as yet undiscovered has to compete with the lazy compromises, offer something more immediately attractive than convenience and cheapness, and the alternatives that appeal to my intelligent and perceptive friends manifestly don't cut any ice with the people who throng the aisles of the supermarkets every day, who think putting an X on a piece of paper is all they should have to do about governing their collective destiny, and who are too busy using (or wasting) the increased leisure time our technological progress has given us, and the seemingly unlimited energy that flows out of the sockets as long as they pay the bills, to wonder what would happen if it all stopped.
I hope someone is working on discovering those new somethings, because the dinosaurs have got awfully big, and the meteorite is still coming.
Apologies once again to the rugged individualists, libertarians and eco-warriors who, despite the disclaimer, felt lumped in with the rest of us in the previous post, but as
stevieannie says, what we have is the world the majority have deserved, and who among us has never been part of the majority, or taken the easy path? From a distance, as that bitter little song says, we all look alike, and what we look like is the majority, and where we are going is where the majority will take us. Which is not to say it's not worth trying to do the right thing: every individual who stands out makes the majority smaller by one, and if enough do it then possibly a change of direction can happen...but it will need more than individuals leading by example, because the majority can always find excuses and justifications and it's-all-very-well-for-yous to stave off the unpleasant truths. What it will need is a new idea. As I said, a new conception. When the dinosaurs died out, it wasn't the cue for a grand resurgence of trilobites. Something as yet undiscovered has to compete with the lazy compromises, offer something more immediately attractive than convenience and cheapness, and the alternatives that appeal to my intelligent and perceptive friends manifestly don't cut any ice with the people who throng the aisles of the supermarkets every day, who think putting an X on a piece of paper is all they should have to do about governing their collective destiny, and who are too busy using (or wasting) the increased leisure time our technological progress has given us, and the seemingly unlimited energy that flows out of the sockets as long as they pay the bills, to wonder what would happen if it all stopped.
I hope someone is working on discovering those new somethings, because the dinosaurs have got awfully big, and the meteorite is still coming.