Protest less, Act more

In 1971,  Marvin Gaye released his seminal What's Going On album, the Funk Brothers are listed on a Motown record for the first time and James Jamerson is superlative. 


On that album was a definitive anthem for the Woodstock generation, Mercy Mercy Me, Ecology.  The sixties awareness and consciousness raising gave way to the generation that was going to change the world, make things better and the world a haven of peace, justice and equality.


Now let's flash forward forty years to 2006 and John Mayer's anthem for the Millennial generation, Waiting for the World to Change.


Now it is the Fall of 2011, and I find it singularly depressing that the best an outraged generation can do is to Occupy Wall Street or any other meaningless piece of property open to publicity.  Woodstock this is not, nor is it much of anything really.  40 years after the summer of love and the birth of the generation to fix the world, the best that can be done is another protest.  To do what? Raise awareness? Consciousness?  Suggest that change is needed?

News flash: you cant "wait for the world to change" -- you have to be the agent of change yourself!


Ah, but there is the problem.  To actually implement and sustain change, you have to CREATE something.  Preferably something better and without the systemic flaws of the hand presently feeding you.


Worse, academics and intellectuals are imposing their own visions and aspirations on the various occupations in a vain attempt to give them some sense of coherency and meaning other than a generation throwing its metaphorical toys out of the buggy.

• It’s hard to decide which side is worse: a group that lets out an incoherent temper tantrum devoid of political ideas, or a group that opportunistically uses that outburst to claim their lame ideas were right all along. (Collins)

OWS and its ilk have generated media publicity for themselves, about themselves.  Its all so adolescent and narcissist.  There is no platform, no guiding philosophy, no coherent vision to guide change into a brave new world., a utopia of oppression overcome and supplanted by any implementation of any actions that have tangibly affected anyone's lifestyle and livelihood.  We are waiting for the world to change and we are getting impatient.  Stomp feet and cry.  Pay attention to me!

What strikes me most about both the OWS temper tantrum and the lame efforts by intellectual elites to impose and insinuate themselves into the opportunity the OWS publicity has provided, is what is says about the educational system.  

In the 40 years since Woodstock, we have apparently leanrt nothing.  The best we can teach our youth in schools and at universities is:

• criticize
• protest
• raise awareness, if not with the public, then at least with the media
• make the story about you, not what you are protesting
• don't worry about any solutions
• repeat: reuse, recycle, and regurgitate the dogma we have fed you
• wait for the world to change

And we will test you on this, using multiple choice questions.  Occasionally, we will prescribe an essay, not in any useful structure or format, but one that reinforces the archaic monopoly on ideas that benefits us, the self-same academy feeding you the intellectual hypocrisy that says criticism is both sufficient and necessary for change. Your grade will be entirely dependent upon your ability to re-use, recycle and re-invigorate the journal articles we have written applauding our own "insightful" social criticism.    We will have then trained you to be perfectly ineffectual, except for the purposes of protest and self-aggrandizement, and we will legitimize those acts by labeling them "politics". It is all so shallow and devoid of integrity.


Well not this puppy.  No abstract theories, no hiding behind academic pretensions and intellectual deceits.  

Think. Cleanse your mind of dogma.  Replace axiomatic constructs with concept attainment that liberates, engages and creates.  Implement.  Be the change you want the world to see.

You want the world to change?  Take the money you were going to spend on graduate school and buy a one way ticket to any developing country.  Go apply your skills and energies in the service of a village and facilitate their engagement in sustaining change that tangibly improves their lifestyle and landscape.


Act.  Help one person in your own community improve their daily condition.  Read to someone.  Spend time with a senior and listen to their stories from their life.  Be a Big Brother or Sister.  

Start a business: find a good or service people in your community lack, need or want.  Fill the void.  Create, rather than criticize.


Stop thinking that every answer has to be government.  Liberate yourself from tyranny first.