Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Just Asking for Something Better

Deep thought for the day: Most people (not just North Americans) will put up with a political-economic system if it meets their barest expectations. Apologists for our system will say that the reason Canadians or US-Americans don't rebel is because they're absolutely IN LOVE with our corporate-capitalist democracy and wouldn't have things any other way.

But absence of revolution in the streets doesn't necessarily mean that people are in love with the system. Open rebellion is dangerous. It opens one up to retaliation from the powerful. Most people are swift enough to realize that declaring war on their system of government is probably going to get less for them in life than will keeping one's head down and trying to play the game. This is true for Canada and it's true for Central America and it's true for the Middle East. It's true for most all places most of the time. Only when a system utterly fails to meet up to its promises do people begin toying with the idea of revolt.

But we shouldn't think that it's all or nothing. That we can't demand radical change. Most Canadians (for instance) have a roof over their head and food in their belly and some sort of prospects. But we should tell them that things could be better. Much better. And we should tell them how that can be achieved and why it's not being achieved now.

We don't have to deny the achievements of the present system. We just have to point to how things could be better.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Only when a system utterly fails to meet up to its promises do people begin toying with the idea of revolt."

Har.

1776.

El Braino

thwap said...

Good point. I made too sweeping a generalization.

Todd said...

I don't think so. To my mind, you were talking about something much broader than what sparked the American Revolutionary War. They only wanted to sever ties with Britain and go their own way; revolutionaries like you and me want changes in society as a whole, not just to seal off a chunk of land so we can do what we want (good though that may be).

Or did you have something else in mind?

thwap said...

No, el braino is right. I was only talking about taking up arms to change a political system in general.

There was something about the age of bourgeois revolutions that produced a willingness to fight for change that wasn't based on total systemic failure.