I never thought much about race or identity politics prior to college. But if I did, I was proud of existing within such a melting pot. I knew that it was a complicated issue, but I was optimistic about it all, like things could only get better as time went on. There was a beauty in diversity and tolerance. Then the internet made the world go crazy about anything slightly complicated, and just further complicated them. So I checked out and took the first flight to the moon. From there, it’s much easier to see the greater pendulum of society swinging. For some reason, it seemed natural for me to always want to counter whichever side momentum swung it. Always magnetically repelled from it’s popular consensus. I wonder sometimes just how much of myself is shaped by my reaction to it.
“I’m just trying to think objectively,” is what I usually chase any unsavory opinion with. Often, that is then chased by the fear that it isn’t true at all, that I am just as prone to shopping at the marketplace of propaganda as anyone else is. It’s just that this side of the store is suited to my tastes. Everyone thinks they hold base objectivity. The truth is truth is fickle. The truth is I don’t give a fuck what you or I believe, just as long as neither of us believes in it too strongly. Be a human being. Be fallible.
But arrogance speaks loudest. A childlike tantrum in a public square at some dissatisfaction or another. An audience gathers to watch just because noise is being made. They shake their heads in whichever direction they agree with. The verdict is made, and the majority cannibalizes the minority while we all wait for the next screaming match to begin. I guess I just never pictured democracy a blood bath. A contemporary Colosseum. I am afraid to speak freely.
Waiting for the back swing. Maybe this is all leading to something, like some kind of great collective shit. Maybe some kind of pandemic crisis to remind everybody what is and isn’t important? No that probably wouldn’t do it.
But the more I try to think about ‘society’, the more the groupthink disorients me. Society takes on a personified presence, it becomes a being in itself. One that I strongly dislike. But also one that doesn’t really exist anywhere outside of my own mind. Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up under a spell of amnesia and have no idea what was going on out there? An identity reset. All that’s your concern is what’s in front of you. Not the thoughts of your neighbor, or your neighbor’s neighbor, and so on. Maybe it’s a naive wish to live in this, to be honest, all too natural bubble, but it’s damn nice to have the freedom to. The threat of injustice will always be there. I expect one day it will reach the moon.