Mark
7 September 2008
At my high school every graduating senior got a half-page to themselves. It was kind of cool: filled with 4-6 pictures, a quote, and your name, it sure made you feel important and stuff. My sister submitted her quote to the yearbook staff as the following:
There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all! - Mario Savio, 1964.
The yearbook chair (a faculty member) rejected it and chose a quote for her. I suppose it came across as too antiestablishment or something. Not surprising, really. After all, we went to a uniforms required "elite" private high school in Utah that in many ways is the embodiment of the establishment.
So I pose a question to my fellow Mormons, who seem to be engulfed in a church culture that believes the only righteous revolution was the American revolution: At what point does the operation of the machine become so odious that we just can't take part?
7 comments:
Mark,
What a relief to read your post. This question hounds me every day of my life. Why is it that the big ideas--ideas about justice and equality--are either sidelined or, if successful, immediately institutionalized to ensure that they cannot be repeated. The conversations around me are so rarely about what is actually just or right but, rather, about which ideas have gotten the imprimature of the inside and which have not. That puts reformers in the ugly predicament of saying sane things to an insane society that has sealed itself inside of a belief in its own sanity.
Your sister sounds wonderful. I hope the yearbook is the only tired institution that will try to censor her perfectly sane ideas. Unfortunately, I doubt that will be the case.
Funny that your anecdote is a metaphor for the way democracy works in general: freedom of speech until you cross the holy line of public opinion.
Yeah, revolutionaries and reformers are rarely treated kindly in their time. Plato, Galileo, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Goddard, Joseph Smith, even Christ come to mind (what a weird list. It's late). And it's tempting to feel that usually only after their lives lay beaten and even destroyed in the mass grave of martyrdom does the inside finally grant that institutionalized imprimatur. It's discouraging, frustrating...
My sister (the same one) once asked in response to something I wrote, "Why should people be expected to sacrifice pleasure and happiness in this life? Shouldn't truth, light and love be self reinforcing and not a lonely and difficult process?"
It should, even for - especially for - revolutionaries and reformers. Maybe the reinforcement just manifests itself differently than how we, in our lack of wisdom, would like it to.
I need to think on this.
A good friend once told me that 'nothing is worth living for if it isn't worth dying for.' It's unfortunate that most things that make a difference in the world have to be fought for, but to some extent that's the point. See, after spending two dark, cold, and miserable winters in Finland, I learned to appreciate the sun more than I ever had before. Applying that analogy to this conversation, and acting somewhat the adversary on this topic, doesn't there need to pain, oppression, and suffering in the world to understand light and truth? How would we grow and progress if we had nothing to fight against?
On another note, and in response to the first paragraph of Mark's comment, how do we really qualify revolutionaries and martyrs? Again, playing somewhat of an adversary, isn't a revolution merely a successful civil war? Conversely, isn't a failed revolution merely a civil disturbance? I bring this up only to say that yes, men and women of a positive, yet radical nature are generally not immediately trusted and accepted with open arms, but to some extent I think it's necessary. If we immediately accepted everyone who fought against the system, how would we feel about Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and others? The only way, in my opinion, that we can adequately and appropriately distinguish who should be glorified and who should be vilified, is having them face the test of time and severe scrutiny.
This may sound harsh, but I feel it is the only safeguard against those that would jump on the radical bandwagon, as it were. The only thing that I fear more than failing to act on necessary social change is being swept up in misplaced and incorrect public fervor. Above all, I hope we can find, support, and achieve those things that both fulfil societal needs and further the kingdom of God.
Although you guys know how I have responded to Mark's original question, both in regard to the political machine and the religious machine, I just want to comment that I think you have been sold a lousy bill of goods if you feel as though your only option is to sacrifice yourself to the 'mass grave of martyrdom'.
I'm not necessarily suggesting that you should extract yourself from the struggle, I'm just suggesting that there are viable options that should be self reinforcing. Really though, I recognize that we can't all move to New Zealand.
In response to the idea that a 'failed revolution is merely a civil disturbance' I think that revolutions embody a kind of groping towards the true humanly, valuable concepts of justice: decency, love, kindness, sympathy. Concepts which I think are real and the practice of them attainable. The social revolution that I might be trying to achieve is in the ends of justice, is in the ends of realising fundamental human needs, not merely in the ends of putting some other group into power, not a civil war at all really.
I've been waiting since my senior year of high school for a debate like this. haha. Did I tell you that the yearbook staff replaced my Mario Savio quote with a quote from the bible? I should really figure out what it was - I think that it would make an interesting juxtaposition to place them side by side.
Anyway, at the risk of sounding incredibly pretentious, Ashsan - have you read "Human Nature: Justice versus Power. Noam Chomsky debates with Michel Foucault - 1971"? Or Krishnamurti? These three people really devote a lot of thought to the idea that, "it is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" and help make good people feel a little more sane.
Well, to be clear, I don't feel that I've bought a bill of goods or anything like it. I'm in constant negotiation and bartering for what I will or will not ideologically/morally/spiritually "buy." And certainly I do not feel that my single option in this process of navigating life is the mass grave of martyrdom. I was merely using the phrase to express my despondence over the tendency for the most powerful reformers to be ultimately consigned to that fate.
There has got to be a hopeful outlook - and a joyous life - for those that see the urgent need to reform self and society every day of their lives; even if history would set them aside in a special category and say that their hope and faith and sacrifice cost them too much individually.
I'm not saying I've got it figured out, I just know how horrible life is when you feel you're alone and suffering at the callousness of the hearts that surround you until you feel (mistaken or not) that your only recourse is to become hard and calloused yourself, or worse.
There has to be hope and joy in the process, for both the sake of the individual and his/her revolution. Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't say, "I have a nightmare."
...scattered thoughts...
The word martyr in Greek means "witness," but not a dead witness. This definition has changed over time to our current conception of martyrdom, which implies death, usually by murder. Of course, when martyrs or "witnesses" are outspoken and pose a threat to society's structures, the consequences can lead to death, but that is not what they seek for. Martyrs can have a joyous life when society is prepared for "truth" and accepting of it; however, often times society is hesitant to acknowledge its weaknesses, especially when they threaten the status quo.
Martyrs, such as Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Joseph Smith, sought to bear witness or testify of what they believed was true for humanity's sake. They genuinely empathized with those who suffered under the brutality of colonization, segregation, and oppression. Indeed, they could have chosen a life of wealth, security, and stability; but they didn't, because they could not deny the truth in their soul and the reality of inequity, injustice, and marginalization of a group of people persecuted by those in power. Amazingly, their common language to their accusers was divine love.
Are we martyrs? Do we speak according to the dictates of our own conscience on behalf of those marginalized in society? It is difficult to believe in someone who speaks without authenticity, without real experience, and without empathy for those marginalized. I fear no one, but my own conscience.
...The gospel is true...
At the risk of sounding ignorant, I just want to throw out there that I think it is actually quite simple when a revolution is justified; When the fundamental rights of a human being are violated—whether that is yourself or someone else—we are not only justified to rebel against the source of that abuse, but we have an undeniable obligation to do so.
I guess that the problem comes in when we try and answer the question: Who has the authority to deem this right and that wrong?
On a spiritual note, and in response to the question posed above, two things: First, as Latter-day Saints, we believe that all of us of the human family have brought with us to this earth an inherent understanding of what is right and what is wrong (the Light of Christ). Further, if we are worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost, it is possible to determine in EVERY situation how to act correctly. Therefore, it should never be vague as to what is right and what is wrong. I’m not saying that the only ones “who have authority” to deem what is right and what is wrong are Mormons, but I am saying that within our individual spheres of influence, we can be an influence for good. That sphere is expanded as far as we are willing to take it, and that influence is determined directly by our desire to help.
Secondly, in connection with our ability to know good from evil, and returning to the obligation thought, President Gordon B. Hinckley said the following:
“Within your sphere of responsibility you have as serious an obligation as do I within my sphere of responsibility. … We have had placed upon us a great, all-encompassing mandate from which we cannot shrink nor turn aside. …In standing for the right, we must not be fearful of the consequences. We must never be afraid. … We can stand for truth and goodness…” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “An Ensign to the Nations, a Light to the World,” Liahona, Nov 2003, 82–85)
Know what is right, and never hesitate to stand up and yell in the face of a failing “machine” that it must stop.
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