"if I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution"

[glaucon]

so in the last week or two, I've heard two different people use the same argument to criticize things which they didn't like. the things, by the way, were Burning Man (which I don't especially care for either) and Slam (about which my feelings are mixed). the criticism was: "with the world going to hell in a handbasket, why are people wasting their time on such frivolous shit?"

this twiddling-while-rome-burns complaint is one with which I agree, but it can be a problematic criticism. I mean, yeah...the world is in flames, the US has gone bonkers, and the massive shit is about one squeeze away from massively hitting the massive fan. but what should we do it about it?

well, "whatever we can" seems like a good answer. write to your elected officials. call them. fax them. vote. take to the streets. carry a sign. shop responsibly. donate money or time to activist or political organizations that you can support whole-heartedly. think for yourself. don't laugh or stay silent when people start joking about genocide. speak truth to power. speak truth to the powerless. speak truth.

and lots of other things.

there's a lot that everyone can do, ranging from something as simple as what to have for dinner, to something as complex as joining a Movement and getting beaten up or gassed.

but...

does the hell-in-a-handbasketness of the situation mean that certain activities become pointless? or rather, does it mean that certain activities which have always been pretty pointless suddenly become criminally frivolous?

to my mind, Burning Man is pretty pointless. so is Slam. so are baseball, bobsledding, board games, billiards, beer, sex, video games, dancing, television, and approximately 84.5% of all conversations. to name only a few of the many, many pointless things that people enjoy doing with their time.

lots of things are pointless, but does that mean they're not worth doing?

sure, playing pool might not save a soul or a life, but if I couldn't play pool every couple weeks, I'd start to go nuts. and if I also couldn't have sex, watch tv or drink beer at least once in a while, I'd go *completely* nuts. and then I wouldn't be very much use to anyone, would I? I don't want to spend 16 hours a day at work, and I don't want to spend 16 hours a day on global handbasket duty either.

all of which reminds me of a conversation I once had with my ex-girlfriend karin:

K: what's a hen basket?
c: a what?
K: a hen basket. like in that expression "going to hell in a hen basket".
c: that's hand basket. not hen. hand.
K: what's a hand basket?
c: a basket that you carry in your hand, I think.
K: oh. that doesn't make any sense.
c: oh, and "hen basket" does? what the hell is a hen basket?
K: a basket that you use to carry your hen.
c: why would you want to put your hen in a basket?
K: so you can carry it around!
c: where would you need to carry your hen in a hen basket?
K: how should I know? to Hell?
c: oh yeah. I guess you have a point there.

so when it comes to deciding what to do with your time, and evaluating how other people spend their time, consider that there are a lot of things worth doing...sometimes even pointless ones. consider that "you should be an activist" and "you should go to Burning Man" are not mutually exclusive. and, whatever you do, don't put all your hens in one basket. or they might all end up in Hell.

Comments

[postmaudlin.livejournal.com]

okay, now i'm going to get defensive.

my criticism of burning man, in this case, has less to do with the state of the u.s. military than a top-of-the-foodchain type of entitlement.

i think that in times of hardship we're obliged to find desperate pleasures, not avoid them, but i think that we also need to be aware of the world we live in; the folks that drive SUVs and go to burning man and fill their heads with expensive pharmaceuticals are, at least the ones i know, very smart, very well-educated, very middle class (although they spent a few years slumming it and bar tending, so they can talk about when they were "poor"), read utne reader, and are incredibly selfish.

so, my complaint isn't that these things *have* to be mutually exclusive, but that they usually are.

and, extending the argument to slam, which i haven't done but will now, i don't think that a lame-ass poem about revolution does a damned thing to change the status quo except instill the feeling of self-righteousness in the audience and the speaker. it doesn't change a damned feeling except perhaps reinforce the feeling of armchair activism.

do i believe that poems can change the world? absolutely. i believe art can. and community (such as the ones created in and around burning man) absolutely can.

but i believe too often they're an end in and of themselves, and fall far short of real activism.

my sentiments exactly...

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

well, you won't get much argument from me with any of that.

for many people, recreation and activism don't coexist. they either squander their time on selfish pursuits, or they make a few gestures toward the activist direction and call that enough, or they mistake a change in their own consciousness for a change in the world as a whole.

I've definitely been guilty of all of those myself at one point or another. or more guilty than I'd like to be, at least. and being so, I try really hard not to look askance at other people when their efforts don't measure up to my estimation of what they could, or should, be doing.

but while I don't feel that everyone has to be an activist, or at least I try not to look down my nose at people who aren't active enough, I also feel a sense of anger and revulsion when faced with the sight of the privileged enjoying their privileges and wallowing in narcissistic nihilism. and the theme parkicization of counter-culture which I've been noticing for the last decade or so really fries my ass too.

so it wasn't your harshing on Burning Man that I was addressing, or your distaste for bourgeois hipster doofuses (doofi?) making self-satisfied "yup-yup-yup" noises to themselves all the way to the desert and back. I'm all for that.

I'm just afraid that it'll go too far...that if we start asking "what's the point of that?" about too many things, it may end with nothing having any point at all. there's a path that runs between the nihilism of never examining anything and the nihilism of examining everything too much. I'm trying like hell to stay on that path.

Re: my sentiments exactly...

[postmaudlin.livejournal.com]

yep. i agree with everything you said. and, as someone who subscribes both to hedonism and nihilism (and it's a bad boilermaker sometimes); as someone who consistently feels that my best efforts whether activist or artistic (which are sometimes one and the same) fall highly short and suspect; as someone who has lost a mother, a loved job, and is about to lose an ovary; i'm constantly struggling with the uselessness of what we do and the need to do it anyway.

thanks for putting all of it so eloquently, and i'm sorry i was so defensive.

and thanks, too, for the best post/response i've ever read on lj. it made me think. which i really don't do enough of.

besos.

d

Re: my sentiments exactly...

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

hey, no need to be sorry on my account.
I probably should have phrased my original post better.

good luck with the surgery, by the by. I've had a few friends go through somewhat similar procedures in the last year or two, and know it can be pretty depressing and/or frightening. I'd tell you to hang in there if it didn't seem kinda patronizing, but it does so I'll just say good luck again and get well soon.