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December 5, 2002
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
If you haven't read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I highly recomend it.
One passage that stands out for me is this...
" To speak of certain government and establishment institutions as “the system” is to speak correctly, since these organizations are founded upon the same structural conceptual relationships as a motorcycle. They are sustained by structural relationships even when they have lost all other meaning and purpose. People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands it to be that way. There’s no villain, no “mean guy” who wants them to live meaningless lives, it’s just that the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless.
But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding. "
Those two paragraphs explain why people who call themselves anarchists will never get anything done. They explain why all those who go out and protest things for the sake of protesting things are fools.
Posted by ed at December 5, 2002 6:25 PM
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Comments
That's why I say F.T.K. whenever I hear some asshole go on about vague political speeches.
Posted by: Lare at December 5, 2002 7:39 PM
This will make me sound like an old lady, but I think a lot of those people do it for attention. "Ooh, see how intellectual-yet-scary I am." Yet, a lot of the "anarchists" out there believe half of the shit they preach because of some two-bit pamphlet someone handed them. To quote the brilliant Chumbawamba, "I read in print, so it MUST be true."
Sad, sorry bastards.
Posted by: Linda at December 5, 2002 7:46 PM
The thing that intrigues me, is that "anarchists" believe they are all about being "FREE", to think, do, be, whatever they want, and yet, within their circle, they're all the same, they all dress the same, they all act the same, and they're all preaching the same tired dogmas, just as any good Christian or Republican does.
Posted by: lysa at December 5, 2002 9:59 PM