Nine Concepts:
Politics
Communism
Capitalism
Socialism
Marxism
Liberalism
Dictatorship
Totalitarianism
Democracy
Sit down, get some water or coffee, or candy or whatever is your poison and pay attention, if you can afford to.
Politics
It's social relations involving authority or power. In other words, it's monkeys yapping away to whoever is listening about how good they'd be in a position of power, their dreams, their hopes, their qualifications, their penis size. Yada yada yada.
Just remember, people have killed for less. They could have a big say on what happens on a MAJOR part of the planet and influence a couple million people's lives and they don't even have to kill their family for it? Of course they'll lie if it gets them ahead. It's a classic Homer Simpson D'oh! moment. Why wouldn't they? It's freaking easier than killing that's for sure.
Communism
It's red. It's big. It's a hammer to bash heads in and a sickle to slit throats. It's the natural counterconcept to capitalism. You give a few people power and money, pretty soon, the underlings will become jealous and, yes you guessed it, attack your villa at night armed with whatever they can get their hands on, namely, hammers and sickles.
It was a good idea. Power and goods to the community. It makes sense right? Until of course the leader of your little hammer 'n sickle armed revolution decides he'd also like to have a taste of what the previous owner of the villa felt.
Capitalism
This one is easy. FREE FOR ALL! Murder, torture, crush, pulverize, manipulate everything is allowed. Just WIN! It doesn't matter how. Be the king of the hill and respect will come shortly thereafter.
Aside from the glaring problem that you all can see, is that it's too efficient, especially when capitalism was 100% free for all ie: no regulation whatsoever on anything. In this epic battle of epic proportions to be king of the hill, everything develops so fast, that this super engine burns itself out and runs out of fuel. (Supply and Demand) We then have the great depression and the rise of the emos.
Socialism
The middle ground between capitalism and socialism. Diluted capitalism/democratic communism. Hey, it's the best of both worlds right? So it's gotta work right? Sorry to break it to ya, but no. The middle ground is the worst freaking ground to be on. It's no-man's land between two front lines. It's littered with barbed-wire, littered with bodies, mined, bombed, covered by snipers. For those who don't understand the metaphor, what I'm saying is, who decides which part of capitalism/communism do we adopt and which do we discard? One wrong move, and you're back to an extreme, and another body is added to the pile in no-man's land, taken down by another sniper, from one side or the other.
Take the hint: no-man's land. No Man may own that land. Corpses and cockroaches do.
Marxism
Karl Marx was a guy who stepped aside one day from the infernal mess, sucked his thumb, scratched his head, pulled on his beard, took a dump, and went:
"Hey, I see a pattern here."
Too bad he didn't go all the way and think it through. He got to the part where poor working class revolts. What happens after that? Victory and then an sunset and happily ever after? Too idealistic, buddy.
If he were in the reform or the IB, he'd be failing just about now.
Anyways, Marxism is the foundation of communism. Power to the community because the community was working but not getting anything.
Liberalism
Woohoo! FREEDOM! FREEDOM of expression, thought, and every other fucking conceivable thing! Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you. You're gay! Your religion sucks! I hate the color of your turban! Your country stinks! I want to do this and I will! I want to run buck naked in the street! I want to fornicate on this park bench! Etc, etc.
This is one of the concepts I have less of a problem with. Who doesn't like freedom right? We're animals. We've roamed the wide green grassy plains, ate grass, and felt the breeze blow through our hair. We've smelled the fresh air. Free. We've looked to that horizon, to the deep blue sky, the ever-twinkling stars, the bright round moon, and we've enjoyed the vastness and the feeling freedom it offered us. Free. We've reveled in the feeling of carelessness. Free. We've chased the shadows of clouds on the meadows. We've drunk from crystal clear streams. Being free is a nice feeling. It was no constraints, no responsibilities, no worries for as far as the eye can see. No more. No more.
Dictatorship
Finally, things are getting done. Perhaps not according to your will,but according to the will and humor of a bearded Cuban smoking a cigar, but the system does have deadly efficiency. "Deadly" is in bold because that term is to be taken literally as well.
Dictatorship. DICTATE. I shall dictate what to do, and you shall do it. Comprende? Bueno.
Dictatorship and dictator's aren't all bad. Some did manage to get CERTAIN things done. Some, either in a moment of intoxication, orgasm, or just general good mood, decided that he'll give his people something nice too. You know, because we all feel the occasional need to be nice for no particular reason.
Totalitarianism
Totalitarian. Total. Still don't get it? Control freaks! Does that ring a bell? These guys, they want to control everything down to when and where you breathe, eat, defecate, fornicate. If they could, they'd probably also want to control how fast your toenails grow.
Democracy
Another good idea in theory. Let everybody speak out, and the majority wins so at least the majority of the people are happy. Very quickly though, these asshole optimists found that a few hundred thousand, let alone a few million of people take up space and shout like they're on fire. So now, we have representatives. Which brings us back to politics. More and more yapping and less and less doing. By the time opinions and requests get passed and put into practice, either it's too late and doesn't matter or it's been so twisted it doesn't even resemble the original idea. There was a reason why you played telephone at school, and this is it. (Funny how 'Mary had a little lamb' could turn into 'Mary had three breasts and a penis' twenty people down the line eh?)
So, by now, you're either depressed, have committed suicide, or shouting and pointing at your computer screen and spraying it with saliva as you condemn what I've written.
You see, the thing is, all these ideas are truly brilliant. But each and every one of them has a fucking major flaw and that's US. HUMANS. EVOLVED MONKEYS.
We are what we are. Mother Nature failed if you look at it this way. In making us adepts at survival on this planet, we've also become shallow, greedy, power-hungry, at times irrational, and generally, pretty fucked up and unable to live in large societies in peace.
It's just the way it is. If we weren't like this, we wouldn't of made it past the stone age. There always will be alpha-males and alpha-females that will take the lead in a group. Then there will be corruption, there will be revolts and wars, and then some peace, but pretty soon, greed takes over again, and the whole thing repeats again and again until the end of the world.
And hey guess what? Education could be the answer. Of course, assuming you can educate everybody on earth to adopt peaceful and "enlightened" and "modern" ways of thought, which by the way, would make you a dictator and totalitarian, we may just arrive at a point where we might be able to live in a world-wide society in peace. But ironically, you can bet that's when Armageddon occurs or aliens pay us a visit and enslave us all. That'll also be when Mother Nature *facepalms*.
So really, you've read this long piece of article, and now you're sitting there going What The Fuck am I going to do with the rest of my life?
Here's what you are going to do.
YOU ARE GOING TO LIVE IT AS YOU SEE FIT.
Either go apeshit, put on pointy white hats, protest, start a cult and stir up a revolution. OR don't go apeshit, but work around the obstacles in the present system and adapt to it. Make it work in your favor. Live your life. You've got but one. You won't be able to change anything this big, ie: the nine above concepts, in the rest of your life. But you can decide how you are going to live your life despite these.
And I leave you with a nice song:
Have A Nice Day - Bon Jovi
