Wombat wrote:the blokes all standing around the fire whinging about how bad things are (inflation, threat of war, etc) drunken . Having heard enough he challenged them and said "OK, that are you DOING about it? I am cirrently growing and storing my own food, collecting tools and supples and educating myself in skills that will seduce my reliance on the system".
Hi Nev,
Y'see, if a strange way, I think that is the oposite of what it portends to be. The survivalist in this example is not doing anything about the situations being complained about - he is backing out of his part of the collective responsibility; he is thinking only of himself. What makes sense to me is someone who becomes self-sufficient as part of their contribution to how society works. In the end, I do not believe we can avoid being a part of society - when more than one person shares the same environment, we
have to have politics; that's what politics
is. Two people discussing what colour to paint the sitting room are doing politics; several million people trying to figure out what to do about global warming is a more complicated example of the same thing.
Now the expression of political views and ideas can take many forms beyond putting an 'X' on a ballot paper (though I would suggest that without this opportunity, the rest counts for nothing) - writing letters to the press, posting on the internet, sitting down en masse outside a weapons factory, lobbying your MP - or indeed growing your own food, recycling your rubbish, reducing your energy consumption and building a compost heap. All of these things add to the form that society takes, and the collective result of what everybody does shapes that form. I would even say that a discussion over the barbie is a valid contribution to this process - that's how we form our views and learn how to live with other's ideas. To discredit a discussion as doing nothing is to miss a large part of how we work together.
Some people who know me find this sort of view strange coming from me - I aspire to living alone on my own couple of acres; I would like to be independent of the consumerist 'system'. I don't much enjoy the presence of any community around me, and I feel uncomfortable in a room where there are more than three people. But I do passionately believe in society - when Thatcher was UK Prime Minister, she famously said 'There is no such thing as society'; I think that was the stupidest thing any politician has ever said. We can all express ourselves individually, but the result of many individual expressions becomes society. We
cannot ignore each other; we
have to find a way through all this stuff together.
BTW, none of this is a jibe at you, Nev - you make an excellent contribution to this community, and quite clearly, to society as a whole.
), but some of the ideas make sense.
. Having heard enough he challenged them and said "OK, that are you DOING about it? I am cirrently growing and storing my own food, collecting tools and supples and educating myself in skills that will seduce my reliance on the system". The result was the sort of shocked silence that is usually reserved for the discovery a turd in the punchbowl.
