Just Clearing My Head

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Saturday, October 23, 2004

My Comrades.

Thoughts I want to touch on, before they slip from grasp.

Problems with individual thought pervade through to macro-level thought, or what Orwell would call, groupthink. Reading Perestroika has caused me to evaluate my own opinions through time, opinions which I had once held to be unbiased. Information is incredibly flavored as it filters down through the various channels (paper, tv, internet) and I begin to wonder if it's even possible to make a solid opinion that is truely based on the facts, fair and balanced. Back to the original point. Often we find that individuals point out the failures of others as a means to elevate and validate their own life's decisions. Or they wait with baited breath for others to fail, in the hopes that their "successes" will be all the more brighly illuminated. Government bodies do this as well. The soviet revolution was begun on a platform of massively good ideas and intentions, but it challenged the burgeoning capitalism of the US, a successful soviet russia would make the term "world leader" that much more difficult to define. For the US, "the top" is a position that cannot be shared. Like old high school rivals, the soviets were dressed down, ridiculed, belittled, and never considered as a serious analogue or contemporary. Ossification in the high ranks of the politburo during the middle part of the century certainly only made this easier. Polemics, however, seems to have been the rule of the road.

My point, though (that evasive thing) is not quite so specific as the misinformation campaigns between these two super powers, but it is mired in the ideology.

These are missed opportunities for growth. In fact, growth is impossible when one simply sits back pointing out the other guy's mistakes in the vainglorious attempt to elevate one's own position. Yes, yes. And what have we learned? Look at the standard US news report from the situation in Iraq and the answer is painfully obvious. Gorbachev said,
Sometimes we are not only disappointed but have serious misgivings when in the US our country is treated as an aggressor, an "empire of evil." All manner of tall stories and falsehoods are spread about us, distrust and hostility are shown toward our people, all kinds of limitations imposed and, simply, uncivilzed attitudes are assumed toward us.
A bit of deja vu occurs when one reads this passage, non? When are we going to learn? And not just on a national level, to realize that simply chanting "we're number one!" until we're blue in the face gets us nothing but hoarse voices, but on an individual level as well...? Life must be undertaken with soberness, with consciousness. There is no king of the mountain, because there is no mountain. There is always something to be learned.

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