We mutually pledge to EACH OTHER our Lives,

bheld · 01-02-2008, 06:04 PM

our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

John Donne's Meditation XVII:

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

The basis of democracy is the fundamental belief in an egalitarian society where one is only limited by his or her own ability. It is a collective mission of individual self-actualization. Whenever forces move to obstruct that potential, democracy suffers.

The greatest disservice to this nation and to democracy worldwide is the notion of "rugged individualism." The concept exploded in the 1980s with the Reaganite movement and coincided with the "Me Decade." From this point on the focus in government was on the individual, not society as a whole. Ideas were framed in a different way. We stopped looking at what we could accomplish together and started wondering what was being taken away from us.

What do we have to show for it now? Never before has our society been more fractured, paranoid, or manipulated. We are pitted against each other over intractable issues while the purveyors of this endless series of conflict hollow out this country into a shell of what it was and still could be. Our lives are defined by a continuously declining set of inputs. Television is now the sole occupier of our collective time and the singular source for our version of reality.

A decline in social interaction has accompanied the new focus on the individual. People used to come together in their communities for all sorts of occasions. Now most social interaction is done at work around the water cooler or through secondary modes of communication such as the telephone or the internet. Sports, television, celebrity, and memorializing the empty events of our own personal lives account for 99% of interpersonal communication. We have become the most "educated" uneducated society in the history of civilization.

It's time to wake up. What has become of this country? For all of the idealized nostalgia heaped upon the 1950s, this much is true: we were a nation of dreamers then, and anything was possible. What should have been the most hopeless, fear-laden times in this country's history were its greatest. We went to the moon. We ushered in a new era of convenience, of technology, of hope in which our advances made possible for the first time the long-held belief that no person should want of food or shelter or medical care.

We were derailed.

Now we're lost, we've been lost for a generation, and we're going to stay lost until each individual out there reaches out. In order to find meaning and purpose in our own lives we need to find each other. We need to rally together to feel human again. What is separating the human race right now from any other animal on earth? Is it our ability to reason? To create, dream, love, build, advance? The potential is there, but in practice we destroy, ignore, hate, and do everything but exercise our God-given gifts as human beings. What makes us more than beasts? What makes you human?

I reject the culture of consumption. I reject individualism. I refuse to take part in a mad dash for resources. I will not be defined by economic expenditures. This new world that was born the same time as I is not the world I want to leave to children.

We're in this together. The hopes and dreams of generations past, present, and future are all dependent on what we do in the here and now. We owe it to the memory of those that came before and the potential of those that will follow after we are gone to take care of this world and everything in it, to join together to further humanity.

There's no agenda here. It's just time to start thinking big again.

Thorgrim · 01-02-2008, 06:32 PM

Have faith in the future

Although I do share your concerns, we live in a society where apathy is embraced as if it were a virtue and the "best" way advocated to succeed in life is to screw over your co-workers

A cutt throat, honorless, and apathetic society is exactly why Huckabee had his surge, and the Democrats still have the energy as anyone watching the primary/caucus numbers will see

William Jennings Bryan is one of my favorite Americans of all times, and he showed that faith and populism can be successfully put together...and not in the bad cultish way

bheld · 01-02-2008, 07:18 PM

I think changes are coming. Society can only self-medicate for so long.

Thorgrim · 01-03-2008, 05:12 AM

Originally Posted by bheld

I think changes are coming. Society can only self-medicate for so long.

I still can't believe the huge changes we've made in gay rights...under GOP rule and despite their actions

People underestimate the left-of-center crowd, and there have been many conservatives who have surprised me with an outlandishly liberal view on one issue or another

The whole Green movement is full of 1994 GOP voters

goldenponderbob · 01-03-2008, 10:01 AM

Most of those who signed the "Declaration" were rugged individualists.

Democracy (50%+1 votes = the supreme law) hadn't been invented.

50%+1 without a BOR to respect minority opinions has caused as much harm
as any other form of terror.

For me, a perfect society, is one wherein those who wish to remain "Islands unto themselves" are respected and left alone.

bheld · 01-03-2008, 12:02 PM

The term was co-opted in the 80s to reflect the ideology of the times. If you want to talk about rugged individuals you could throw Thoreau into the mix along with many other people I respect. I have nothing against the concept and I think you're right in that it's uniquely American and something we don't want to get rid of. I don't have a problem with the lifestyle, just the way the lifestyle is used to describe political and economic agendas.

Basically the phoniness of Reagan's rhetoric and persona is what prompted the comment. The whole cowboy thing and "shining city on the hill" and every other garbage metaphor that came out of his mouth.

Thorgrim · 01-03-2008, 04:41 PM

Originally Posted by goldenponderbob

Most of those who signed the "Declaration" were rugged individualists.

Democracy (50%+1 votes = the supreme law) hadn't been invented.

50%+1 without a BOR to respect minority opinions has caused as much harm
as any other form of terror.

For me, a perfect society, is one wherein those who wish to remain "Islands unto themselves" are respected and left alone.

Humans have evolved as very trival and community-centered individual...while at one point we were vultures (eating the marrow off dead bodies as our big food source) we never were solitary hunters, it's in our genes and that's why they call people "anti-social" but not regular people "pro-social"

I'd say the numbers are pretty low on the genetic causes of people who want to live alone in a cave, and we can cure most people of childhood issues that would lead them down such a path, and they can re-enter society, as we were all meant to do