Yesterday I talked for an hour with this girl from the Jewellery department about the state of the country, of education, of our political system. We deplored the inefficiency of high school education, which does nothing to prepare you to the real world, on a religious, psychological, philosophical and ideological level - all big words. We deplored the class differences that occur as a result of this gradated educational system - high school diploma, Bachelor's, Masters and Doctorates, as well as gradated weight that an individual at each level can carry. We talked about revolutionaries, complained about poor governance and compared capitalist systems with communist systems. We discussed the dissonance between the beliefs and values of VIPs in their personal life and experiences, and those values that they take on when they represent the interests of financial and political bodies. - again, big words, but they almost must be used since I mean to include more than just corporations and governments. In brief, this got me thinking back to a thought I had last week, about each individual's political responsibility: How can a government hope to steer a population that is mostly reactionary? We would instead have to tell the government what we expect from them, what our values are, and then tell them to represent and act upon our values, in a way "commissioning" our governments, rather than simply choosing a template from a choice of three or four. In paralell to this thought, I disagree with the notion that political ideology can be represented on a 1D scale. There is light, dark, shades of gray, but also colors - all of which intermingle with each other and the various base light and base dark.
On to the meat of this post; An Idea That Was Born. Today I meandered along this concept, thinking of what I would be doing for my proposal - which is due tomorrow, and for the essay. I had of course, failed to realize that Karen Is Awesome and that the final essay need not be in final essay format. Thinking back to the conversation from yesterday, I typed the words "New World Manifesto" in the google search bar, and sure enough, found a review of a text entitled "MANIFESTO FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER" which appears to discuss ideas such as the establishing of a Fair Trade Organization, an International Clearing Union to regulate the balance of trade - and the establishing of a directly elected world parliament. His audience is the anti-globalization movement, which he renames the global justice movement. I may have to find that book and read it.
Anyway, one sentence is of particular interest:
"Democracy is unattainable unless it is brokered by institutions, mandated by the people and made accountable to them, whose primary purpose is to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak and to prevent people of all stations from resolving their differences by means of violence. The collective noun for such institutions is government."
I struggle to make sense of that statement. Regardless, I wondered about the accuracy of that statement, out of context; is our democracy accountable to the people? Does it prevent the strong from oppressing the weak? In other words; is this system functional? What are the fallacies that I have observed? This I have chosen because I realized that writing an effective Manifesto for a new system, ideological or whatnot, is more of a thesis project than a 2nd year final.
Thus, this is my idea. An assessment of our current political system, structured around the sentence described above.
If I were to use your code, I would be writing all of this in very small letters. Just so you know.
ReplyDeleteI like your choice of words when you speak of "commissioning the government" though I wonder what that would look like if I really explored all of the ramifications and resonances of the word. But commission used as it is in the art world, as in charge with making something, yes, I wish those elected to office would take such a charge seriously. But what else do I mean by that? [A long meditation would have to ensue here, mercifully cut short.]
Next point. I'd asked you who authored the quote you privilege--you'd said George Monbiot (Georges?). It would be important to say so I think, just so we know who's talking. Or was talking as you elected to high-light this statement.
Finally, does anything that calls itself "manifesto for a new world order" worry you? I think of the terrifying (and more or less realized) "Project for a New American Century."
That's all. Small letters, talking back.