The Problem with Revolution

Several months ago, I set upon a plan to try to keep my Internet experience as open and Internety as possible by setting up a system to boggle all the “customized-for-you” algorithms that were just being announced. I don’t want a customized experience on the Internet. I want to be able to trip over things I would not have thought of, be exposed to new ideas and even tempted to buy things I would never consider in my right mind. I also, because I do a lot of research for a variety of freelance projects, don’t need a search experience that reflects my personal life – I need one that reflects the world.

So anyway…I decided to do a couple of simple things, most of them centered on google+. I decided not to separate out my connections there into defined circles. Everyone is lumped together – no matter what their views or why I know them. I also decided to circle people who had radically varied views and backgrounds to keep the mix balanced. Then, periodically, sometimes for sh*ts and giggles, I follow their links. Add to this that my search history is all over the map because of the freelancing and at this point, I half expect the “custom” ads to be signs saying, “Please Stop Having an Identity Crisis.”

Mind you. I am doing all this even though I have opted out of the customized advertising. I believed that promise like I believe in the tooth fairy. I pay attention to these things and it is shocking how fast the advertising/spam changes to match my clicks and searches. Anyone who thinks that any of the Internet giants has any interest in protecting their privacy and information would do well to go to cracked.com and read the series of articles on  five reasons to be afraid of google and others. Oddly enough, Cracked Magazine, which I remember as being ridiculous in my youth, has grown into one of the few online sites that has its feet squarely in reality.

But, I digress. All of the above was just to lay background as to why I have been able to sit back and read a myriad of opinions, especially concerning the current US Presidential race. And not just read one or two pieces, but to be able to see clusters of support communication. Democrats, Republicans, Progressives, Anarchists, Conservatives, Liberals, Libertarians…I have people who can’t stand Occupy and Anonymous, I have people who completely support them going in and out of my news stream. It is a very interesting mix. I have begun to enjoy the part of the day when I just get to sit and read everything that is going on.

Here is what I have noticed.

They are all the same. Oh, they may, on the surface, differ in their policies and desires but when you carry the thinking forward about what would happen if they got what they want and how it would be implemented –there is not one difference between any of them.

Not a one of them is concerned with individual rights or freedom of speech for they all use fascistic forms of censorship to block dissenting voices. Not a one of them has any type of economic plan that would bring any real change because all of them have (or are evolving) hierarchical structures that are no different from the bureaucratic machine already in place. Where one group would cut something in one area, they would also raise it in another or worse, have no valid plan for how to support various entities.

The problem with any kind of revolution is that all it does is change the people in the same system. Unless you are completely willing to destroy society, infrastructure etc and so forth – no revolution can become anything different from what it has replaced. If you don’t believe me, look carefully at all the revolutions around the world over the past 50 years and what the “new” societies became.

Does that mean that it is impossible to change the way things are done? No, not at all. But to create change you must first be willing to see where you are similar to what you want changed. One of the old adages is that “bias and prejudice are not to be gotten rid of, but managed.” Just because your group may be just about the same as the group you rail against and want to replace – doesn’t mean you have to strip yourself of that, it means you have to acknowledge it and turn it into a strength.

We are or possess, most often, the very same traits as that which we despise. To overcome these traits we do not get rid of them, but accept them and choose to amplify another trait so that the despised tendency has less priority. To try and get rid of it, impossible – all it will do is act like a slow poison and eventually burst out as corruption and destruction somewhere else in the system.

That is how revolutions go from a light in the dark to the darkness itself. They deny themselves the right to be just like what they despise and in doing so, do their opponent’s work for them as far as destroying their very integrity and existence.

c.2012 Cassandra Tribe. All Rights Reserved.