informage : Bombastically

Bombastically

Posted by sean Mon, 22 Nov 2004 02:20:52 GMT

I was brought up by a Feminist and a Marxist. This has its good and its bad sides. The good is that I was embued with a deep sense of equality and humanity and a strong critical sensibility. The bad is that it sowed within me a rejection of humans, of humanity, because I was brought up to believe that humans are bad. More specifically I was brought up to believe that men and capitalists are bad, but being a young man living in a capitalist society I interpreted this rather broadly.

When I was around 21 years old, after having been politically active in quite a negative way for some years, I had an epiphany about this. This wasn't sudden; it took place over the course of several years and arose out of a whole range of influences. The epiphany was this: humanity is wonderful.

This isn't a denial that the horrors and injustices I see around me are evidence of systems that contradict life. It's a recognition that right now, with this particular set of systems, is where humanity has got to so far. If I reject that I alienate myself both personally and societally from that which I want to improve and love, humanity itself.

It comes back to something that I heard during the pre-program for this year's Pioneers of Change summer school: "If you want to change a system, you have to be loyal to that system, you have to believe in it". If I wish to change human systems I have to believe and trust in humanity and human systems - the systems of the past *and* the systems of the present. And sometimes I find that very hard to do.

The introductory motto on the Pioneers of Change webpage is "A new type of action rooted in a new way of thinking". Of course what we put forward as a network isn't really "new", isn't entirely detached from the past with no relationship to it, and yet nor is it exactly the same as anything from the past.

The issues that we face as human beings today are radically different from those faced by peoples of the past. I believe that we can learn from their wisdom, some of which has been forgotten, and we can also learn from today's wisdom, and from all this wisdom we can synthesise something new and revolutionary.