In Defence of Human Decency
Jul. 1st, 2011 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
A person can be excused a certain amount of stupidity when they're young.
Shallowness of thought and over-simplification in analysis is a necessary corollary of lack of experience. If you're lucky, you live to acquire the experience and the tools to understand that the world is full of depth, breadth and complexity. If you're lucky, you get to keep learning.
I'm twenty-five years old this month. I can't use youth as an excuse anymore. Relative youth, maybe, but by anyone's standards, I'm all grown up now. And what you do, as an adult in the community, is step up. What you do is take responsibility.
I've spent a long time being bitter and cynical, convinced that no deed of mine can so much as scratch the surface of the indifference of politics, of Big Money, of the smug and the comfortable classes. The world is hard and cruel and cold and very large, and I am breakable, lonely.
Very small.
Well, I am tired of being bitter and cynical. I am tired of listening to the world when it tells me that I am small, flat, stale and unprofitable: tired of listening to all the voices that tell me my voice will never matter, because I am a woman/working class/a poet/a historian/not old enough/not profitable enough/not responsible enough/too educated/not educated enough -
I'm done with listening to those voices. Now I'm going to talk.
Maybe no deed of mine can change the world. That's okay. I'm better at words, anyway.
I can't change the world all at once. Maybe I can't change it at all.
But maybe, just maybe, I can change some minds.
Imagine what the world would be like if we placed people before profit. If we centred our lives around human decency, rather than the maximisation of capital. If we strove to be charitable and open-handed, rather than to be fair and even-handed; to be accepting, instead of tolerant.
To be merciful, instead of just.
I am a socialist. I want a world where social and economic relations are co-operative rather than competitive; where the least no less than the greatest has food enough to live, shelter from extremes of the elements, access to adequate medical care, and time and space enough for joy.
I will be bitter again, and cynical. I will be reminded that I don't really like most people; that I think many of them are utter fools who deserve the fruits of their folly.
And I will be wrong.
Because it doesn't matter if I like people or not. It doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong when I think they're fools. Every human being is a person worth valuing.
I have to step up. I have to do what I can to build the world I want to live in. All I have is my hands and my voice and my (copious) spare time. And I have to step up and use them, though it curdles my stomach with anxiety and all the demons of my self-esteem, because who am I to speak, to act, to dare?
Someone who has to breathe through the fear. Because human decency is worth defending.
Because the world I want to see is worth speaking for.
And I am tired of my cynicism. I am done with folding my hands. I have had it up to here with sitting quietly and minding my own business.
I might not change anything. But goddammit all to hell, I want to fucking try.
Shallowness of thought and over-simplification in analysis is a necessary corollary of lack of experience. If you're lucky, you live to acquire the experience and the tools to understand that the world is full of depth, breadth and complexity. If you're lucky, you get to keep learning.
I'm twenty-five years old this month. I can't use youth as an excuse anymore. Relative youth, maybe, but by anyone's standards, I'm all grown up now. And what you do, as an adult in the community, is step up. What you do is take responsibility.
I've spent a long time being bitter and cynical, convinced that no deed of mine can so much as scratch the surface of the indifference of politics, of Big Money, of the smug and the comfortable classes. The world is hard and cruel and cold and very large, and I am breakable, lonely.
Very small.
Well, I am tired of being bitter and cynical. I am tired of listening to the world when it tells me that I am small, flat, stale and unprofitable: tired of listening to all the voices that tell me my voice will never matter, because I am a woman/working class/a poet/a historian/not old enough/not profitable enough/not responsible enough/too educated/not educated enough -
I'm done with listening to those voices. Now I'm going to talk.
Maybe no deed of mine can change the world. That's okay. I'm better at words, anyway.
I can't change the world all at once. Maybe I can't change it at all.
But maybe, just maybe, I can change some minds.
Imagine what the world would be like if we placed people before profit. If we centred our lives around human decency, rather than the maximisation of capital. If we strove to be charitable and open-handed, rather than to be fair and even-handed; to be accepting, instead of tolerant.
To be merciful, instead of just.
I am a socialist. I want a world where social and economic relations are co-operative rather than competitive; where the least no less than the greatest has food enough to live, shelter from extremes of the elements, access to adequate medical care, and time and space enough for joy.
I will be bitter again, and cynical. I will be reminded that I don't really like most people; that I think many of them are utter fools who deserve the fruits of their folly.
And I will be wrong.
Because it doesn't matter if I like people or not. It doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong when I think they're fools. Every human being is a person worth valuing.
I have to step up. I have to do what I can to build the world I want to live in. All I have is my hands and my voice and my (copious) spare time. And I have to step up and use them, though it curdles my stomach with anxiety and all the demons of my self-esteem, because who am I to speak, to act, to dare?
Someone who has to breathe through the fear. Because human decency is worth defending.
Because the world I want to see is worth speaking for.
And I am tired of my cynicism. I am done with folding my hands. I have had it up to here with sitting quietly and minding my own business.
I might not change anything. But goddammit all to hell, I want to fucking try.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 06:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 01:56 pm (UTC)Which is not to say either of those things are easy to make, build, or find. But I want to believe in a future I'd like to live in, so I have to believe it's possible to effect meaningful change.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 12:45 pm (UTC)A little fire in the belly is cleansing.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 10:47 pm (UTC)There's all flavors of fire........
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 09:52 pm (UTC)This. I've never thought of it that way before, but that's a true and useful idea.
At any rate, go for it. Involvement is frustrating and exhausting but it's a whole different kind of tired.
"I guess the real point is that I care about having a decent world, and if you care about having a decent world you have to take sides."~ Madeleine L'Engle, The Arm of the Starfish
(here via seeing some reviews you wrote)
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 10:21 pm (UTC)(And hi! Nice to see you!)