journal 9

we are brought up in the same community thus we have have some of the same understandings and ways to go about things. The wealthy do not have the same cultural context as the poor. Nor do they have much of the same language. Having more money means a better education and more opportunities. The vocabulary of a wealthy person can be more geared towards WHEN something will happen, because they will have the ability and the means to make something change. Where as a person living within the lower income bracket, their dialogue may be centered around how or if something will ever happen. Hope is a common theme. But hope can really bean an enslaving being itself. Looking foward to a possibility that may never happen. Accepting things the way they are for now so that a miracle might happen later. My friend Sarah Told me this story a while ago:

“A man has been locked in a basement. One thing that keeps him going is the hope that someone will come and save him. So he sits there with his head down going hungry and thirsty for days. Finally one day he breaks, he realizes that no one is coming to save him. He becomes hopeless. Within that hopelessness he realizes he has nothing to loose. So he becomes empowered to break out of the basement, because he has nothing to lose anymore except for not trying. So he tries his hardest to break free and escape, if his capture comes and tries to kill him on his way out it wouldn’t make much of a difference from him dying in the shackles he thinks. So he tries to escape, creates a new hope.”

Will our world need to become completely hopeless in order for real paradigm shift in everyone to occur?

Capitalism. We are brought up with it being the only way. The way it is. Represented by symbols. Money as a symbol for human time and worth. Giant buildings as abstractions, dollars creating invisible dollars on Wall St. I remember the moment I realized that the world wasn’t what it was cracked up to be that. I had read 1984 and started listing to Radioheads’ Hail to the Theif album all at the same time and it hit me. My frustrations with my life are a part of something bigger, that it wasn’t me. That I was feeling something real, that my depression and self loath wasn’t my fault but rather I was feeling the emotional temperature of the world. Depressed and discouraged. Some people don’t understand why there is so much more suicide, why people are on anti-depressants and anxiety pills. But in taking a step back it is quite clear and obvious, that the human race is sick as a whole.
In church we learn that the basis for a healthy life is a healthy foundation, such as God. In society as a whole our foundation should be our government, but that is cracked and unstable and uneven as we have built our goverment on an abstract symbol, money. Much if it in Wall St. not even actually existing.
On Social Justice. In the of Luke in the story of Lazarus it speak of a man who is so hungry that he would be grateful for the crumbs off of a rich mans table. Oscar Wilde expands and tells us to reject this idea saying, 'Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table? They should be seated at the board, and they are beginning to know it.' He suggests socialism as an answer also saying that Socialism may mean the end of marriage and family life, since relationships will become more free and open. It will also mean the end of crime since criminals 'are merely what ordinary, respectable, commonplace people would be if they had not got enough to eat.' Under socialism machines will do all the drudgery, leaving people free to live fulfilled lives.

Social Structures and world views. Continuing on the idea of the unstable structure of the government, I would like to add that much of our country is based on christian values. Capitalism is as it says based on achieving capital gain. Without stern restrictions and limitations to this, the abstract symbol of worth will become greedy and far bigger than us. IT already has become huge, we are controlled by this inflated faceless persons that we have collectively created and accepted and in our government receives a vote much larger than us. The common notion is that the world is F’d up but no one knows who or where to report to because it is this abstraction of something real that we are fighting that has this control over us. In our society CHARITY is viewed as one of the greatest forms of altruism. However, this is not true altruism as there is some personal gain and indirect benefits For example the Devos’s get a lot of support and appreciation for all of their Charitable donations, but in the end at the bottom weather intentionally or not (i happen to think intentionally) this is just another mask for personal gain, in the way of social status, and social support. “they can do this because the gave this.” But if I were to give the same percentage of my earnings and time to charity I would not barely be recognized for it. Politicians and persons attached to corporate names will often try to attend as many of those events as they can, but it is the trend that they only show up long enough to get a photo in. Often times not participating in the dialogue to create real change. This does not speak for everyone and all businesses but I do speak for a majority that I have had experience with and it’s all starting to come together, their actions with their intentions and each day I am further disturbed by the world we have created for ourselves today.