2001-03-23 :: 12:23 a.m.

ignorant anti-socialist propaganda

Soundtrack: Esthero, Breath From Another; Portishead, Live: Roseland NYC

Look what I do for Diaryland:

There is indeed a reason! You know how some buildings don't have floor 13 because it's unlucky? Well what is more unlucky than March? Nothing! So I canceled it.

Andrew

p.s. ok no, my bad, it's fixed now.

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Jordan wrote:

> hi Andrew,
>
> DLand's date seems to be set a month back. Any reason for this?
> thanks,
> -jordan.dl

What I did yesterday was I talked to the socialists here. They've been spraypainting their messages all over the place, including a lot of public property, private property, and university property (including some of the more historic buildings on campus). I was considering writing an article for the school paper about it, because, like most people, I found these childish acts inexcusable. So before I went and did that, I decided to talk to them and see if they had a good reason for why they did what they did. When I spoke to some of them about it, they presented a few justifications, none of which felt acceptable.

The first was that they are unpopular and therefore held back by the administration. This seemed the worst excuse of all. Their flyers are everywhere I look; they are one of the most prolifically posting groups on the campus. Nobody with a fraction of a functioning nervous system has escaped their ever-present crusade against corporations, sexism, university injustices, university fees, capitalism, and the Melbourne Stock Exchange.

It seemed like their "better" justification was that the system was so bad that it had to be worked against -- and this violent, militant action was the only way they could create a space for dialog. Because hey, here I was, talking to them. I told them I didn't buy it. It was like saying you need to punch someone in the face to get them to talk to you. If you are that shut out by the media, and that much of an outcast that you need to lash out to be seen, I have to wonder about what you have to say being worth hearing. The socialists back home on campus suffer from the Cause of the Week Syndrome. It's really cute in a blindly earnest way; I want to pet them on the head and ask them how much money their parents make that they can afford to be so rebellious. I can understand that this system forces you to ally with corporations (which obviously have no desire to see socialism come to fruition), and that the media has its own agenda (which also wouldn't like to see socialism get popular), but there comes a time when one must ask oneself, "Do I just kinda suck?"

The old bat in charge of the group answered that she thought Malcolm X was a more influential leader than Martin Luther King when the question was rhetorically presented. Sigh. [I want to link something I thought I wrote about a black comedian making a remark about racism in the US, but I can't seem to find it. He said something to the effect of "Shit is deep if you turn on your own about it." (This was with respect to the Civil War.) I was really uncomfortable during a lot of his act, because a lot of it was very white-alienating.]

So there's a few things at work in my mind about why I disagreed with them.

One, I like the ideal of socialism. It's nice, but it's nice in the hollow, substance-free way, because they refuse to define much of a goal (since that's against their ideals of democratic discussion). As if utopia will just magically -- shazam! -- happen when the workers seize up and Revolt and a great order, chock full of equality, comes of it. This one fellow I was talking to, James, was talking about how we need to undergo a total change in our consciousness to achieve this. But the girl I spoke to, whose name I can only attempt to spell (Zanthy?), said something very telling when I asked her if she'd be in this for the long haul. She essentially admitted to knowing she'd lose some of this zeal eventually, and that you'd really have to be a full-on missionary to keep at this your whole life. But her admission didn't make this temporary conviction seem any less meaningful to her. (James, a philosophy major, thinks this is going to be a lifetime commitment.) Nature abhors a vacuum, and that seems to me an unfortunate fact that these people, forever underdogs, with no definite goals besides lofty, unfocused bumper sticker slogans spraypainted on old buildings that never did anyone wrong, will have to face.

Two, as soon as this great socialist society arrived, the stuff I'm reading about in The Selfish Gene comes into play -- all it takes is a few people to exploit the trust inherent in the socialist system, and it falls to bits, poisoned from within. I know James wants to "shift the argument to the left" and alter my consciousness -- whatever -- but I find Dawkins really convincing, and just about all evidence I see regarding people is that, in general, we are selfish creatures. We do beautiful things for each other, it is true, but we also have a mission hard-coded in us from protein chains as old as time, and they still have a strong lock on our actions. Would we have to "re-shift" the consciousness of each generation in order to maintain a socialist society? (I am breaking a major rule of mine, having not read much of Marx at all and commenting like this, but I just cannot see such airy-fairy business ever coming to fruition. I'd much rather do whatever I could within the system we already have. It might be less, but it'd be more than just talk and failed candidates.)

Three, James talked about how people would be happy working in a socialist society because, unlike the way it is in our capitalist societ[y/ies], you would choose your occupation. But really, how many people have a mission in life that would truly make them happy? How would society function with everyone making good on childhood dreams of playing guitar? Who is going to pump gas? How many people feel drawn, literally called, to a profession? And if you could do whatever you wanted, who would do the shit jobs? I sure as hell won't be choosing to mop toilets -- who will? James suggested off the top of his head that you might have some kind of cyclical commitment to do a job you don't want to do (say, every five years, you do toilet duty for six months). But no one could really expect more than a very few people, if any, to take any pleasure in these tasks: what happens when they want to shirk the job? Who among the toilet jocks wouldn't resent the many that never had to do toilet duty in their comparably more comfortable lives? Sure, it benefits your community, and it's about your socialist collective thing, but you're cleaning up shit and scrubbing toilets. Or something equally distasteful and/or mindless -- serving hamburgers, renting videos, collecting garbage, cleaning gutters, washing dishes, making another shopping cart website. While I appreciate them all being done (since I like the world functioning and all of that), I reckon that most jobs wouldn't be chosen by anyone -- half the world would be too busy playing sports or fancying themselves artists. Combine this with the fact that evolution will favor slackers even if society doesn't, and there will be trouble in the ranks, I fear (though I'm sure some Marxist reader will want to tell me I'm quite mistaken and my logic rudimentary, I unfortunately don't see this "consciousness shift" occurring anytime soon for me).

---

Fairypond might be over, I am sad to say. I may just email her and encourage her to keep going. Fairypond Fan Club, unite!

I think I've officially hit the moment where the initial immediate newness is a bit worn off. I know a circle of people here, I've gotten my classes settled, I've gotten a fair taste of Melbourne. The absolute novelty factor is gone, but I'm still in a vacation frame of mind (originally I said "mentally on vacation"), so it's not like it's horrible. But it's a bit of a comedown nevertheless, and that's why Portishead appeals at this moment. But I'll pull myself together and get back on the happy track; I command myself by writing this. The fact is there are tons of new people to meet, and lots of the city to discover, and untold adventures in Australia yet to be had. It was just the day.

If I could talk to my genes, I'd say: Genes, fix my betraying body. If I could talk to my body, I'd say: Body, go to sleep.