Blog Action Day
Oct. 15th, 2008 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crankyoldmanYou're probably going to see this popping up everywhere, but I'm going, as I tend to, put my own spin on it. The subject for this year's Action Day is poverty, and you know me, armchair activism pisses me the hell off. Keep in my my use of "you" is general and not directed at anyone in particular.
Maybe I've been listening to KMFDM's "Dogma" a bit much (ha, right, the "random" function on my player is so not random) or maybe it's what I keep hearing since I go to college, which is basically a place where lots of people that have had no experience with the world like to gather and talk about deep things, but my general idea is this.
Stop passing the buck.
There is no savior out there for you, and even most religions acknowledge that either the savior has died or their coming again signals the end of the world, so really, what's the point? Other than breeding a passivity in certain aspects where a person should be anything but passive. Worried about the condition of your soul? Well, you should be. And I'm not talking Judeo-Christian mythos here. I'm talking about responsibility.
You are the keeper of your own state of being. Everything else is just guidelines and ways to make sure you keep it at a state that is generally agreeable with other people.
While I believe the general aim of a lot of charities is wonderful (hell, and I support a few), the fact that they are separate entities and oftentimes there so that you can feel better about yourself creates a general futility to them. Also, as someone much smarter than me pointed out before, capitalism cannot exist without a certain level of poverty. And we all know how most shiny socialist experiments ended up.
So instead of guilting you into giving some charity, or showing you images of poor children, I'm going a different route. I'm going to ask you not to give into that guilt. Because you're doing no one any favors.
Instead, take a long hard look at yourself. Are you the sort that passes by beggars on the street, barely noticing them? Are you the sort that notices them and weighs whether or not they actually need that change they're asking for? Or are you the sort that ends up with no lunch, change, and barely holding onto your credit card when walking on a city street?
And don't tell me, just think about it.
What do you think is poor? Is poor gaunt and starving, or is it ravenous and complacent? Is it next door or some African country? When you hear 'poverty', is your first thought an 800 number, and some nickel a day rhetoric?
But most importantly, can you honestly do anything about it?
What you do with those answers, I leave to you. Personally? I'm not doing a thing different today than any other day. But I am reflecting on how my situation has changed, and that time that I was dangerously close to poverty myself (ha, betcha didn't know that, did you?) and what honestly did something for me. But mostly, I'm prepared to act when the time arrives, in whatever capacity I'm able.
I mean, it's not like I'm Bruce Wayne or anything.
Maybe I've been listening to KMFDM's "Dogma" a bit much (ha, right, the "random" function on my player is so not random) or maybe it's what I keep hearing since I go to college, which is basically a place where lots of people that have had no experience with the world like to gather and talk about deep things, but my general idea is this.
Stop passing the buck.
There is no savior out there for you, and even most religions acknowledge that either the savior has died or their coming again signals the end of the world, so really, what's the point? Other than breeding a passivity in certain aspects where a person should be anything but passive. Worried about the condition of your soul? Well, you should be. And I'm not talking Judeo-Christian mythos here. I'm talking about responsibility.
You are the keeper of your own state of being. Everything else is just guidelines and ways to make sure you keep it at a state that is generally agreeable with other people.
While I believe the general aim of a lot of charities is wonderful (hell, and I support a few), the fact that they are separate entities and oftentimes there so that you can feel better about yourself creates a general futility to them. Also, as someone much smarter than me pointed out before, capitalism cannot exist without a certain level of poverty. And we all know how most shiny socialist experiments ended up.
So instead of guilting you into giving some charity, or showing you images of poor children, I'm going a different route. I'm going to ask you not to give into that guilt. Because you're doing no one any favors.
Instead, take a long hard look at yourself. Are you the sort that passes by beggars on the street, barely noticing them? Are you the sort that notices them and weighs whether or not they actually need that change they're asking for? Or are you the sort that ends up with no lunch, change, and barely holding onto your credit card when walking on a city street?
And don't tell me, just think about it.
What do you think is poor? Is poor gaunt and starving, or is it ravenous and complacent? Is it next door or some African country? When you hear 'poverty', is your first thought an 800 number, and some nickel a day rhetoric?
But most importantly, can you honestly do anything about it?
What you do with those answers, I leave to you. Personally? I'm not doing a thing different today than any other day. But I am reflecting on how my situation has changed, and that time that I was dangerously close to poverty myself (ha, betcha didn't know that, did you?) and what honestly did something for me. But mostly, I'm prepared to act when the time arrives, in whatever capacity I'm able.
I mean, it's not like I'm Bruce Wayne or anything.