Re: The residue of insomnia & life/ever-so-long reply

Phillip Allen White (pwhite who-is-at carbon.cudenver.edu)
Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:08:49 -0700 (MST)

On Sun, 1 Nov 1998, diane celia hodges wrote:

> . Capitalism + anarchy = postindustrial chaos. How to
> salvage/reinvent/recreate/rediscover/rewrite a moral or ethical
> consciousness in such a state?

to employ a cliche - act locally, think globally.

yeah, i'm liable to get into dark funks when i consider the _big_
picture - as well an indignant and angry - but also overwhelmed and
helpless.

the global picture reduces me as an individual to meaninglessness
- when i focus myself on incremental, explicit daily action that i have
some control over (my choice of words, a physical gesture, a story to
tell, a reference to illuminate, etc.) then a tad bit of a difference can
be made, sometimes for more than a moment.

> Public debates do take place, but in my experience, the lack of critical
> consciounsess invariably interferes,
> and self-interest takes over. There is so much resentment, now, aganist
> what "difference" means, the targets of social hostility are so clearly
> defined, krist. I feel like wearing skirts and high shoes, you know?

well, no ..... is this like wanting to wear a starched white shirt
with french cuffs - cuff links - an armani suit, etc?

but, well, i have to admit to myself that for practically
evreryone the world is a scarey, risky, disorienting, unpredictable place
- certainly it's that way for the folks in the neighborhood i live in -
and so i grow a garden and give away apples ...

> Why aren't I SAFE in this world? Why is my peril so acceptable to so many?
> How do you expect us to continute to WRITE our frustrations before we sayy,
> screw the canon man, show me the change.

questions we all face - the change Emma Goldman wanted never
happened until she was well dead - and by then those changes weren't the
ones people wanted. new changes were wanted. like, no matter how ordered
and understandable i get my own life, something i dodn't expect or want to
see, appears - usually me in a way i never before recognized - and i've
got to start all over again. and watching my mother work out her last
days on earth, i can see that even dropping dead is a hassle.

i have decided that people do what's the best that they can do,
and without specific support - long term - i can't expect them to change.

> wow. am I having a bad day or what?

a sad day, perhaps? but, hey, when i've got a sad day, i just
wash that Man right out of my hair!

you know?

p.

phillip white pwhite who-is-at carbon.cudenver.edu

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A relation of surveillance, defined and regulated,
is inscribed at the heart of the practice of teaching, not
as an additional or adjacent part, but as a mechanism that
is inherent to it and which increases its efficiency.

Michel Foucault / Discipline & Punish

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