Kill the Culture and Burn the Pulpit Part 2: Cultural Change

[LMNO]

I thought we were talking about individuals.

We are. How many individuals would be required to effectively change things?

Depends.  In the civil rights movement, it took about 200 leaders.  Out of 280,000,000 people.  So 1 in 1,400,000.

I honestly believe this is one of the most optimistic things I've heard in the past month.  It makes me incredibly hopeful and happy.  200?  That's actually achievable.  Incredibly difficult, but achievable.

[Cramulus]

I read an interview in Wired (?) a few months back, with the founder of wikipedia. They were talking about how wiki projects have become a very popular way of crowdsourcing large amounts of effort/data. Ever since wikipedia started, wiki projects have been popping up every day.

The interviewer asked him what the difference is between a successful wiki project and a failing one. The guy said it pretty much boiled down to having five people supporting the project at the same time. If you have five people, and they're all working on different angles, they can change the world.

[The Wizard]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography - the idea that you can influence the city's culture by playing with its geography. Project POSTERGASM is a part of this. I thought, let's take the stuff you expect to see and replace it with a joke you didn't expect to see. The people walking around in this area will be influenced by humor and fun, playfully inserted where you'd expect an ad or a missing cat poster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dérive - the Derive is the act of wandering around, drifting from place to place, getting into adventures. In order to do it, you can't be in the mindset of "I'm on an errand" or "I'm on my way to the local coffee shop to read for 30 minutes." If you embrace the unexpected, and are willing to take chances, you'll end up in some really cool situations.

Thanks Cram. I think I can use these for my work. Well, psychogeography for my work. I'll use the Derive for my own amusement. 

[Cramulus]

psychogeography in current events: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd_9oGq3K3o

[Captain Utopia]

 

Sounds lame but fuck it - it was a tears in the eyes moment there.  I dunno, it feels like we were built to have fun and enjoy ourselves with other people and to experience simple joys in spontaneous ways.  And although this is pre-planned spontaneity, there's a lesson there which is not insignificant.  To me it feels nothing less than we're learning to recapture a part of our humanity.  That's awesome in ways I am inadequate to express.

[Cramulus]

yeah! So many people thought they were in for a regular train ride. They'd get on, they'd get off, they probably would never think of those moments again. Instead, the mundane became a site for the absurd. Everybody that rode the train that day told their friends about something magical they never would have expected.

I was in on Improv Everywhere's No Pants Subway Ride in 2007. After the cops shut it down, everybody was riding the same train back back to the meeting point. And (among other songs) this round of "99 pairs of pants on the wall" broke out. And we sung all 99 verses!

Random people got on the train and experienced this amazing group energy. and you know what? they joined in! random old ladies were clapping and singing along with us, banging on the ceiling with their fists when it got down to 5 pairs of pants left... and then when we hit zero, the whole train exploded, rocking back and forth with people freaking out, laughing, high fiving, hugging each other... It wasn't just our moment, something created and enjoyed by this one small luntaic faction, we transmitted the insane joy, the spirit of spontaneous play, to everybody in the vicinity. I've never seen anything like it.

[The Wizard]

psychogeography in current events: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd_9oGq3K3o

This made my day. Thanks Cram.

[Doloras LaPicho]

There's no such thing as "individuals". Individual humans are only partly self-aware refractions of their culture, social and media environment, and DNA programming. So to say "individual humans are good but groups are bad" is not only superstitious nonsense - a verbal sacrifice to the unquestionable God of the Individualist Ego - but is completely bass-ackwards. The group makes the individual. An individual divorced from any group goes nuckin' futs - serial killer, Unabomber, sociopath, dictator.

Saying "social change must start from the individual" is precisely as silly as "changes in the tides must start with the individual water droplet". As above, so below: social changes is always and everywhere the same thing as individual change. One just does not happen without the other.

[Captain Utopia]

Our DNA predisposes some people to be more angry, others more fat, and yet others to be fat and angry.  But consciousness moves faster than DNA can evolve.  So while our conscious choices are influenced by our genes, we are not completely beholden to them.  We can choose to manage our anger, and we can choose to eat better and exercise. The relationship an Individual has to a Group works in a similar way.  Except now there is a moving target.  The Group will change its influences upon an Individual in response to the Individuals actions, and will - with limited consciousness - try to exert its influence. The limited consciousness part is critical.  For while an Individual can outwit part of the Group - if only for some of the time - that Individual will gulp freedom.  There is no freedom from a lifetime of Group saturation.  There is no original thought which can't trace its dirty roots back through a multitude of other minds.  But there are a few stolen moments we can use to plot against the Group.  To trick its greasy media channels to display our messages designed to weaken its grip on our minds.  One postered lamppost at a time. Left to its own devises, the Group will no longer be of limited consciousness.  The Group will be able to outwit the Individual at every turn.  This may be inevitable.  Our fevered struggle may just be slowing down the hands of the clock. Our?  Us?  The Group of Individuals fighting the Group of Non-Individuals. Every Group promises Freedom.  Every Group lies.

[Jasper]

Kinda liked that. 

I am sometimes given to consider whether individuality is a bad idea, a poor premise for a better world.  I am sometimes given to think that things would be so nice if conformity was immaculate, and everybody was on the same page.  Sometimes I think about my state of mind when these thoughts occur to me, and sometimes I glimpse the horror of having everybody Just Be Friends.

[Cain]

An individual divorced from any group goes nuckin' futs - serial killer, Unabomber, sociopath, dictator.

And religious hermits.  I never trusted those bastards, sniggering at the rest of us on their wheels set on poles, in the desert.

[Doktor Howl]

I thought we were talking about individuals.

We are. How many individuals would be required to effectively change things?

Depends.  In the civil rights movement, it took about 200 leaders.  Out of 280,000,000 people.  So 1 in 1,400,000.

I honestly believe this is one of the most optimistic things I've heard in the past month.  It makes me incredibly hopeful and happy.  200?  That's actually achievable.  Incredibly difficult, but achievable.

Sorry, it seems you need 280,000,000, since all followers are actually leaders and/or individualists.

Sometimes I hate this fucking place.

[Doktor Howl]

There's no such thing as "individuals". Individual humans are only partly self-aware refractions of their culture, social and media environment, and DNA programming.

Go kill yourself, then.

[The Wizard]

There's no such thing as "individuals". Individual humans are only partly self-aware refractions of their culture, social and media environment, and DNA programming. So to say "individual humans are good but groups are bad" is not only superstitious nonsense - a verbal sacrifice to the unquestionable God of the Individualist Ego - but is completely bass-ackwards. The group makes the individual. An individual divorced from any group goes nuckin' futs - serial killer, Unabomber, sociopath, dictator.

Wow. So from what this guy is saying, we aren't free willed, self aware beings, but rather drones reliant upon a group for their identity. Let me know if I interpreted that wrong, but that is such a load of bullshit. History is full of individuals who chose to act in a way that the greater group did not approve of. Martin Luther wrote his 95 theses and started the Reformation because he believed the Church, his group at the time, to be corrupt. Ghandi worked to heal the rift between Hindus and Muslims in India, sometimes in ways that angered the greater group. He ended up dying because of these efforts.

Those two are just the first ones to come to mind, but give me some time to think and research and I could give many more examples. People are not made by their genes or by their culture. They are influenced by it yes, but people can, and historically have, disregarded this influence to make decisions. People are made by their choices.

[Captain Utopia]

 

I was rather looking forward to seeing why Doloras was convinced that the other side of the coin didn't exist.

If someone expresses an idea forcefully, while thinking something through, is that enough of an excuse to jump down their throat and call their ideas bullshit?  What's the problem with asking someone why they believe something, rather than straight-out mocking them for it?  What's the problem with handling disagreements with civility and respect?

I don't see anything offensive in Doloras' 8-post history that justifies that treatment.