Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: I can't help but feel that we are falling inline with themes played in V for Vendetta. Your thoughts? World events seem too coincidental, but there is no such thing as coincidence.

twistedangelsays:

words-writ-in-starlight:

This is…a weirdly heavy question to just….get in Ye Olde Inbox, but okay, sure, we can talk V for Vendetta, I ain’t got shit to do.

Okay, to appreciate that I’m not just being a bitch here, you need to know that I’m not being funny when I call myself a cynic.  I’m pretty serious about that, I consistently expect people to act selfishly and be generally unhelpful until/unless I know them pretty fucking well.  @twistedangelsays (yoooo babe, back me up here) can confirm that my usual response to being told to depend on someone for help is to blink blankly and ask “but what would be in it for them to help me with this.”  (Her usual response is “they’re your teacher, they’re literally getting paid for this,” but I’d like to kindly remind her that teachers at colleges get paid regardless.)  The way I’ve described it several times in my tags is that I’m in love with humanity, and they don’t love me back, so I have a very peculiar view that’s half “God let’s just talk about the Voyager probe and random acts of kindness and the fact that we domesticated our primary predator” and half “I am genuinely not even surprised when people suck, and haven’t been in…forever, maybe.”  It’s a very capital-R Romantic viewpoint, think Grantaire from Les Mis, I am Grantaire and Grantaire is me.

That being said, here are my current thoughts on the V for Vendetta thing.

1. V for Vendetta, or any other dystopian story on the lines of 1984 or Brave New World, presumes a level of competence on the collective scale that I just haven’t seen in the American government (I’m American, we currently have Clinton and a racist Cheeto duking it out for president, I’m usually better about being aware of the wider world but I am Very Concerned about the election, so the only thing that I really took note of was Brexit, I’m sorry, this is gonna be pretty US-centric.)  Individually, I’m confident that many–um, some of our politicians and administrators are perfectly functional human beings with a high degree of competency, but I have yet to see that brought to the table in any sort of concerted effort.  I remember a lot of government criticism way back when the Occupy movement was a thing revolving around “Well, they don’t have a goal” and that’s valid, I made that remark myself, but also…like, fucking hark who’s talking, Washington DC, what have you done with your life lately.  So that’s the main thing, is that our government flat-out isn’t cohesive enough to execute a functional dystopia, we’re too much of a chaotic mess.
   
2. That being said, I don’t know how much that’s a positive thing.  I mean, the lack of a genuine totalitarian regime (and conversations about whether or not America trends toward dystopianism can please delayed to a later date) is obviously a good thing, but the entropic decline toward chaos we’re witnessing in the clash between the rising generation of (largely) liberal mindset and the people in power, who are by and large interested in maintaining the status quo…that’s going to be REAL messy when it starts to break down.  I mean, shit, it’s already breaking down, look around, read the news, and then maybe drink, ‘cause shit’s depressing.  Who needs totalitarianism when you have what-the-fuck-ever this is.
3. This is more general, but I’m of the opinion that people are neither fundamentally good nor bad, but rather fundamentally people (that’s a bastardized Good Omens quote, it makes some EXTREMELY good philosophical points between the demonic/angelic antics and Four Bikers of the Apocalypse).  As mentioned above, this means I assume a level of selfish behavior, particularly from those already in a position of power–power and wealth beget nothing so much as the desire to maintain one’s power and wealth.  In addition, that translates to a fairly telescopic view on the world, in which one’s immediate loved ones (possibly including self) generally take absolute precedence over the abstracted ‘they.’  Soooo that translates into “the human capacity for precipitating disaster is boundless,” in Moran-speak.

Anyway.  TL;DR: I don’t think much of people’s inherent capacity to be functional enough to run a V for Vendetta style dystopian system (this is also where a lot of conspiracy theories break down for me), but hey.  I’m sure they’ll impress me with their skill at fucking everything up anyway.  Let me take this opportunity to remind my American followers to vote against Trump, I don’t give a damn what you think of Clinton.

And if a revolution starts, I can shoot a gun and have medical qualifications in addition to a good tactical brain, fucking point me at the recruitment office.

I hereby confirm that @words-writ-in-starlight is my darling cynical wife. That’s why we make such a good pair: every idealist needs a cynic to bring them down to earth.

Also, unsurprisingly, I concur. I would not call America totalitarian or dystopian, though there are definitely aspects of those fictional societies reflected in our own (And it would get a lot more totalitarian if Donald Trump got his way and was elected).

I think the key is that it doesn’t have to be be full on dystopian to be oppressive and terrifying. There is corruption, there is discrimination. America is doing abysmally on issues in almost every area of policy. Problems abound. Change needs to happen, whether it happens systematically with politicians moving in the right direction (unlikely) or whether the people rise and force the issue (and my inner Enjolras is displayed for the world to see).

“Do you hear the people sing?” And all that jazz. So there you go: cynical nature of my dear wife confirmed and a slight tangent with an idealist’s spin no one asked for. You satisfied, Hamilton?

Anonymous asked: I can't help but feel that we are falling inline with themes played in V for Vendetta. Your thoughts? World events seem too coincidental, but there is no such thing as coincidence.

This is…a weirdly heavy question to just….get in Ye Olde Inbox, but okay, sure, we can talk V for Vendetta, I ain’t got shit to do.

Okay, to appreciate that I’m not just being a bitch here, you need to know that I’m not being funny when I call myself a cynic.  I’m pretty serious about that, I consistently expect people to act selfishly and be generally unhelpful until/unless I know them pretty fucking well.  @twistedangelsays (yoooo babe, back me up here) can confirm that my usual response to being told to depend on someone for help is to blink blankly and ask “but what would be in it for them to help me with this.”  (Her usual response is “they’re your teacher, they’re literally getting paid for this,” but I’d like to kindly remind her that teachers at colleges get paid regardless.)  The way I’ve described it several times in my tags is that I’m in love with humanity, and they don’t love me back, so I have a very peculiar view that’s half “God let’s just talk about the Voyager probe and random acts of kindness and the fact that we domesticated our primary predator” and half “I am genuinely not even surprised when people suck, and haven’t been in…forever, maybe.”  It’s a very capital-R Romantic viewpoint, think Grantaire from Les Mis, I am Grantaire and Grantaire is me.

That being said, here are my current thoughts on the V for Vendetta thing.

1. V for Vendetta, or any other dystopian story on the lines of 1984 or Brave New World, presumes a level of competence on the collective scale that I just haven’t seen in the American government (I’m American, we currently have Clinton and a racist Cheeto duking it out for president, I’m usually better about being aware of the wider world but I am Very Concerned about the election, so the only thing that I really took note of was Brexit, I’m sorry, this is gonna be pretty US-centric.)  Individually, I’m confident that many–um, some of our politicians and administrators are perfectly functional human beings with a high degree of competency, but I have yet to see that brought to the table in any sort of concerted effort.  I remember a lot of government criticism way back when the Occupy movement was a thing revolving around “Well, they don’t have a goal” and that’s valid, I made that remark myself, but also…like, fucking hark who’s talking, Washington DC, what have you done with your life lately.  So that’s the main thing, is that our government flat-out isn’t cohesive enough to execute a functional dystopia, we’re too much of a chaotic mess.
   
2. That being said, I don’t know how much that’s a positive thing.  I mean, the lack of a genuine totalitarian regime (and conversations about whether or not America trends toward dystopianism can please delayed to a later date) is obviously a good thing, but the entropic decline toward chaos we’re witnessing in the clash between the rising generation of (largely) liberal mindset and the people in power, who are by and large interested in maintaining the status quo…that’s going to be REAL messy when it starts to break down.  I mean, shit, it’s already breaking down, look around, read the news, and then maybe drink, ‘cause shit’s depressing.  Who needs totalitarianism when you have what-the-fuck-ever this is.
3. This is more general, but I’m of the opinion that people are neither fundamentally good nor bad, but rather fundamentally people (that’s a bastardized Good Omens quote, it makes some EXTREMELY good philosophical points between the demonic/angelic antics and Four Bikers of the Apocalypse).  As mentioned above, this means I assume a level of selfish behavior, particularly from those already in a position of power–power and wealth beget nothing so much as the desire to maintain one’s power and wealth.  In addition, that translates to a fairly telescopic view on the world, in which one’s immediate loved ones (possibly including self) generally take absolute precedence over the abstracted ‘they.’  Soooo that translates into “the human capacity for precipitating disaster is boundless,” in Moran-speak.

Anyway.  TL;DR: I don’t think much of people’s inherent capacity to be functional enough to run a V for Vendetta style dystopian system (this is also where a lot of conspiracy theories break down for me), but hey.  I’m sure they’ll impress me with their skill at fucking everything up anyway.  Let me take this opportunity to remind my American followers to vote against Trump, I don’t give a damn what you think of Clinton.

And if a revolution starts, I can shoot a gun and have medical qualifications in addition to a good tactical brain, fucking point me at the recruitment office.