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From: vagans@dns.city-net.com (Sourcerer)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Dystopia, at last...
Date: Fri, 08 Sep 95 12:23:33 GMT
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In article ,
gold@sri.com (technical boy) wrote:
>In article ,
>Sourcerer wrote:

>> On Wed, 6 Sep 1995, techical boy wrote:

>> > In article <42dhvm$abp@dns.city-net.com>, vagans@dns.city-net.com
>> > (Sourcerer) wrote:

>> Someday you will have to explain to us what dystopic emotional rants have
>> to do with effecting social change or revolution.

>in all seriousness, they have a *lot* to do with it.

>if you want to know how it comes to be the case, that expressions of strong
>feelings (sometimes including "dystopic emotional rants") are therefore
>essential tools--*the* essential tools--of the activist for social change,
>and why, conversely, the methods of calm and reasoned debate convey
>essential advantages to the status quo, then i regret that the theory is
>somewhat boring but here goes:
>THE BORING THEORY OF WHY ACTIVISTS ARE LOUDMOUTHS

>if morals had reasons, they wouldn't be morals but economics, engineering,
>etc. so ethics, if there is such a thing, relies on the irrational.

>simple appeals to irrational empathy by means of expression of strong
>feelings (``Onlookers trembled with fear as they watched soldiers shoot
>nurses from the Red Cross who came to help the wounded demonstrators.'')
>frequently fail because the strong often have no sense of empathy except
>for those of a certain class of individuals, typically including one's
>family and often extending to one's race, but generally excluding broad
>ranges of indiduals from their concerns.

>consequently, another form of persuasion you take before activists go to
>the expense of boycotts, strikes, riots, etc., are various rhetorical
>devices including sarcasm, satire, irony, and the like. the aim is for the
>weak party to make a direct appeal to those irrational elements in the
>personality of the strong that are likely to be present--on one level,
>their sense of humor. on another level, ther sense of not wanting to be
>disliked/humiliated, of not wanting to feel shame.

>

I keep forgetting that busking the social power for handouts is the essence
of activism and revolution. I guess things ain't really dystopic as long
you still got foreplay.

It becomes clear why my comments about usenet no longer being a private
reserve were edited out.

Although we use the same terms, we don't mean the same thing.

>> There's a reason why the intellectuals go up against the wall first.

>har! good one. took me a minute.

>my hunch is, a lotta readers just assume that's your own brutality talking
>without a trace of irony. what i think you're saying is that dictators
>assuage their consciences for killing their intellectuals by telling
>themselves they're fighting noise pollution.

Neither brutality nor irony, but a statement of fact, which is explained by
your comment above. Once the social power is overthrown or replaced, the
intellectuals become redundant, yet they continue to flirt, now with you,
and you do what the former social power longed to do but couldn't, being
committed to maintaining a status quo.

>but that said, while `cyber' is often a lowlife phenomenon, as it has been
>for me, lo all my life, it depends on signalling protocols and intellectual
>horsepower that the unreconstructed `punk' cannot apprehend.

True, unreconstructed punks are just awful at the art of sucking up, mating
dances, submission postures and other display behaviors used to wheedle
favors from the alpha primes of the troop.

>> Yet I could criticize those who work against it, if for no other reason
>> than their poor timing and lack of strategic skills.

>yes. lameness. a chronic problem, yes, but not exclusively that of
>activists working against the forces of reactionary politics.

"Against"? Don't you see the dance? How you need them?

>> Revolutionary action
>> is *not* a ceremony of committment. It is not an opportunity to gain a
>> nice rush from your biochemistry for being so good, kind and helpful.
Jack
>> off instead...

>i tend to agree. but you don't say what it *is*. i think that it's
>something you do for your long-term self interest.

This is inadequate: revolutionary action is something you do for your
long-term self interest.

>

>> But, after 02/00, will come the inevitable depression. The repressed, no
>> longer able to make reparation for their acts, real and imagined, are
>> gonna make Ivan Karamazov look like a saint. That's our opportunity...

>listening, motley? as the religious fanatics prepare for the Rapture, we
>can loot their businesses with their blessings and a clear conscience.

I can't believe you misread me that way.

>> Calm voices rarely prevail. Prepare not only to get your hands dirty,
>> but bloody.

>> > the Jubilee won't have
>> > arrived;

>> Don't be so sure...technology is a wonderful thing in the cybergothic
>> dystopic future

>have you decided for sure that a self-fulfilling prophecy of a millenial
>catastrophe is in your self-interest? its not clear to me if it's
>inevitable or not, not clear if its in my best interest to try to defuse
>it, take advantage of the inevitable, ignore it and it'll go away, or what.
>new thread time?

I've proposed that millennialism is deeply rooted in our ideology and that
the occurence of a new millennium is having a profound psychological effect
on our society; that it is enhanced by the condition of novelty -- the
hyper-realism of the times, i.e., the tech.


(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O "I'll string my whips with scorpions"
\../ |OO|||O|||O|O -- Webster
|| OO|||OO||O||O The Duchess of Malfi

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