All entries for Tuesday 06 December 2005

Catalyst

It was snowing outside. The snow on the ground would glitter with every step I made. There was a minor gap between me and another person sharing a three-seats bench on a tube train. A fit athlete would fit in just fine. We arrived at a busy station. Two Russian madams walked in carrying their thick crocodile leather bags, wrapped in furry shubas (coats) made of squirrels and minxes. All the money in the world wouldn’t buy them the one thing they really needed – a remotely womanly body that did not resemble a barrel. Nevertheless, one of the madams had the confidence to try and squeeze her grand body into what now seemed a rather tiny gap. She turned her gigantic furry arse (that should be respected just for the sizes of it) and started to bend her knees attempting to touch the seat with her bum. And she sat, firmly. And there was only one problem – she was squeezing me so hard I couldn’t breathe. And there I was, philosophising about the meaning of life and put face to face with the harsh reality of the beefy lady squeezing the very life out of me, together with all the meaning there was to it. She is the reason I still haven’t figured the meaning of it.

: 06 Dec 2005 20:16 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Capitalism and other kids’ stuff

Writing about web page http://www.worldsocialism.org

Paddy Joe Shannon is the author of the film Capitalism and other kids’ stuff. The film is about how capitalism is abolishable. And how people should 'think outside the frame of capitalism' and start considering alternative ways of living and making sense of human society and human coexistence. The end of the film looked very cocky and propaganda-ish and less educative or academic. But the arguments in the film didn’t sound entirely stupid and dream-like. But the truth is, it takes time for any kind of social change, let along abolishment of capitalism, starting with ‘imagine no possession’. And though Lennon may say ‘it isn’t hard to do’, I’m sure he was only referring to the act of imagining, not the act of actually building human society anew starting with abolishing the assets. Another thing that I found rather dubious was that the whole social ‘revolution’, although making sense and sounding good, was built on assumption that people weren’t greedy. And if humans can be trained into thinking that ‘enough is enough’, then it’d still take centuries for a change of ideology and adopting a totally new value system. The author claims that post-capitalism doesn’t have to be a step back and mark the end of civilization as we know it; that people can engage in active production by doing their constructive hobbies, i.e. what they like and are good at, and thus benefiting the society each in his/her own way; that the government doesn’t have to be centralised, and that politics is really quite easy and anyone, even Bush, can do it. So as I said, it all sounds right, they are all arguments that I find hard to argue, and yet there are so many more counter-arguments to make that dream sound obscure and unreachable.

: 06 Dec 2005 19:46 |  Tags: Reviews |  Comments (7) |  Close comments |  Report a problem