evilgenius wrote:But it's also about how people just do not want to become involved. People don't want to confront their own attitudes. They don't really want to correct injustices.
Until the matrix which creates this social isolation and apathy is undermined there will be no change to this. You cannot have any meaningful civic engagement beforehand.
Individuals get embedded and set in their ways as they age, the saying you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. I think civilizations suffer this same process, when they age the system looses its elasticity, its ability to re invent itself, to address injustices.
You are asking individuals here to become involved but this represents a daunting task when individuals are only a reflection of the values of the culture they come from. It goes further though, we discussed how most folks are just followers. Even those few who are pro-active and initiators, even they cannot really "get involved" as you say because of the inertia that has embedded itself in our aging civilization.
Most folks who are initiators or pro-active end up seeking personal gain and become leaches on the society as a whole. The whole orientation is about gaming the system. Just look at our politics, our financial institutions, corporate policies, it's all geared toward extracting personal gain.
Nothing flows inward toward making the whole sound and resilient. It's all about individuals extracting the maximum out of the system.
We are reflections of the system. The entire human eco system on the planet is parasitic and is about extraction of resources that flow one way. The externalities of environmental damages are not considered in the economic system. Should we be surprised that individuals follow this same orientation????
As the system does so do the individuals.
This is why even those individuals who have the personal integrity are fighting upstream against an enormous current of dysfunction. This causes folks with personal integrity to retreat as well to more individual pursuits, not out of selfishness but because the system has reached a level of dysfunction where the only area left where one can effect change is ones immediate surroundings. This explains one of the reasons why I find myself on top of a mountain in an isolated wilderness. Once you jump a level higher to the macro structure like politics, the economy, the government, you are already in totally dysfunctional territory.
This is a rather bleak assessment but it is not hopeless since the pathway is clear. We are heading toward self destruction and the cracks that are opening will expand to chasms and it is within these cracks that one can affect change. There is a growing population of the disenfranchised. They have nothing to lose, the system has already spit them out. Are they a growing resource base from where change will come? Not in the early days because the parasitic orientation of those in power will do anything and everything to preserve their personal privilege. Today they have turned this into a political movement. It is overt and not covert.
Eventually when the cracks grow to chasms there will be a critical mass of the disenfranchised and the power structure will start to collapse. Civil war, class struggle, this will ripple deep through our civilization. It will be a time of incredible upheaval. Brave and courageous folks attempting change will be mowed down by the power structure but these folks will become martyrs. Eventually the parasites will be locked in their bunkers and the masses of disenfranchised will find them and hang them and burn them and dance around the fire. The brotherhood will be strong.
I have a crystal ball and it is not foggy. It is crystal clear.