First of all, without getting into a boy/girl debate over which sex is fundamentally most responsible for the current psychological enslavement of the species, I want to agree with the final statement,
The human race is a truly pathetic species. I am responding in two posts simultaneously because I want to stay focused, and not just puke up everything in one rant. Yes, our species is pathetic ... a very good point and something we ought not forget for one moment lest we lose our wonderful senses of humor.
Ridiculous is the term I use - in the same family as pathetic, I guess. That's why, in the other thread, I am trying to gel together horror and comedy. The combination is not tragedy ... The combination of horror and comedy is pathos ... that's what I think.
pathos - the quality or power in an actual life experience or in literature, music, speech, or other forms of expression, of evoking a feeling of pity or compassion.
And so as not to be misunderstood, I will explain up front that I am not just talking about "the other members" of this species, the people out there on the highways, the state slaves marching and taking orders, following their chain of command, but my very own being itself. Free-thinker or not ... humble computer geek philosopher or arrogant rich industrialist, we are both pathetic. I refuse to be enslaved in the coffee factory, but, Holy Hot Dog!, when I wake up from sleep (and even throughout the day as long as I'm not guzzling cold beer), I sure do go for that black medicine. I would rather be shot in the head than pick tobacco on a plantation all the hours of all my days, but ... you got tobacco?
So, when we say the human race is a pathetic species, we are talking about ourselves. Let's be clear about this. We are all pathetic and ridiculous ... more or less.
And so, rather than engineering faster and smaller computers and gadgets only geeks understand but the gorts devour as fast as the geeks can pump them out, why not do as Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, Harry Haller, suggests, and
make an end at last of the fat and well dressed and perfumed plutocrats who used the machines to squeeze the fat from other men's bodies, of them and their fiendishly purring automobiles. Set factories afire at last!
Make a little room on the crippled earth!
Depopulate it so the grass may grow again, and woods, meadows, heather, stream and moor return to this world of dust and concrete.
The principal thing is clear. There is a war on, a violent, genuine and highly sympathetic war where there is no longer any concern for Republic or President, for frontiers, flags, or colors and other equally decorative and theatrical matters, all nonsense at bottom; but a war in which every one who lacked air to breathe and no longer found life exactly pleasing is giving empathetic expression to his/her displeasure and is striving to prepare the way for a general destruction of this iron-cast civilization of ours.
In every eyes I see the unconcealed spark of destruction and murder, and in mine too these wild red roses are blooming as rank and high, and sparkled as brightly. I join the battle joyfully. In the other thread I will try to explain that, with or without civilization, there most likely has never been and never will be a "good time" to be born human. In this, we all share a common Fate ... It's a bummer to be human, and no amount of merchandise or technological wizardry is going to alter that. So, in such a situation, being content with less and discouraging creating fodder for The Machine seems all one could do to RESIST.
Watching TVLater I will correct my typos and grammatical errors.
~ just another pathetic unix geek who is sometimes a nervous wreck