Containers of Containers -- A pamphlet on the Notion of Cosmolosophy and the Need For Change: What, Who, and How, Do We Decide What We Talk About, As A Society?

Assuming, of course, that our goal is to still preserve a society that has worked out what it means to agree to what will now be our norms of social behavior; the social contract as they say. A complex set of things that we've agreed to because it makes sense for one and all, because that's what you have to have in order to have any semblance of hope for preserving Democracy. Because, certainly, you can do all sorts of versions of imposition of order, incentivized by the pointy end, of much more pointy sticks, these days. And any fool can see how unbalanced that has always been.

I ask this now because I was struck by a snippet of a trailer making the rounds now for Bruce Willis's new movie, "Death Wish". In this snippet is, what one could suppose to be any of the usual DJ, BlogJ, VideoJ, or any other jockeys one might now imagine. And he is talking about, of course, the Willis character's (talking the reins from venerable Charles Bronson) vigilante actions. And don't panic here, because I don't want to talk about that topic in particular right at the moment.

It's what this supposed DJ says, or I should say, a prefacing statement he makes, before the trailer cuts to all of the things they think you need to see be sufficiently titillated to see more. And that statement is: "It's all over the web now so we have to talk about it."

When I heard that statement it immediately brought up two related considerations; each automatically suggesting the other.

First: Just because something is "all over the web," does that mean it not only automatically demands our attention, but also our involvement? Just because it's "all over the web?"

And then, juxtaposing that should be the other side of that question: Just because something isn't all over the web, does that mean it doesn't demand our attention, as well as our involvement?

This is where I get confused. It seems pretty straightforward to me that, given how confusing it's become to work any kind of lasting political consensus lately, an intelligent person would want to take a step back and start putting a great deal more concern into the question that is this post's title.

I think, and I make no bones of the fact, that this is, indeed, my bias; I think that a good portion of the problem here is the commercial, commoditize everything, dynamic, that personifies, the now mutated thing that we still call Capitalism. The commercial dynamic that puts "net gain" as the primary motivator so that it becomes inevitable that everything you see, feel, hear, read, or otherwise get washed through with, is suspect for whether its giving you anything, even remotely related to, what you really need. All without much suspicion at all that a few will probably be getting a great deal more of what they have come to believe they need; which are counters. And this is so because, no matter how, ultimately ephemeral, these counters really are, if you control enough synthetic ware you can make them do amazing things. And that's just the money motive itself. On top of that you also have the human weakness for God King, Dictator, Pharo, War Lord, or whatever other term you want to put to authoritarian social orders.

And of course, it is a human weakness. Both on the side of the individual being tempted into it, as well as on the side of, whatever percentage of us, that actually doesn't want to be fully responsible for themselves, or the bigger picture; which requires learning, and thought, and participation in leading, to be able to take that responsibility on. And for some of us it can be quite enough to just have others tell you what to do, give you order, and a set of rules to follow. And it can be surprising just how bad such systems can get before even these folks are made to feel that enough is enough.

This really does seem like basic stuff to me, but maybe that's part of the problem. It's one of those "Gosh darn it. No wonder I didn't see it. It was right in front of me" kind of things that everybody excels at, to one degree or another. Whatever it is we better get over it quickly. Not making a choice, or what you want to think is not making a choice, is, in fact, making a choice. Continuing to do nothing but business as usual is a choice. A very bad choice. Remembering, of course, that I am biased in this.

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[Post Note: You see how the temptation for going back to old, unbalanced, authoritarianism, can reassert itself so easily. J.V.]