Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Materialism Will Not Save You from the Concrete Jungle

I was bored out of my mind in a three hour education class last night so I decided to slip out for a few minutes and grab a drink. On my way to the store I ran into Alyson Kennedy, the 2008 Vice Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party, and had a twenty minute conversation with her at the student union center at Florida International University. Oddly enough, Rudy Giuliani was on campus at the same time, but I figured if I was able to ask him any real substantial questions, such as why he helped represent a Spanish company regarding the Trans-American Highway, I might end up like that other guy . . . (“Don’t tase me bro!”)

So I was walking past the Socialist table and one of the large, short-haired ladies sees me eyeing the table and she pounces. She asked me if I would like to meet the Vice Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. She seemed so eager and earnest. Maybe it was my dark, unkempt beard. After all, my Cuban grandmother-in-law did once ask, “Is he growing a beard like Fidel?”

Alyson Kennedy was well-spoken and articulate, even seemingly reasonable at first. I proceeded to tell her that socialism in America would never succeed due to the stigma attached to the name and that if their group ever wanted to get any kind of popular support in the States they would have to change their name and image like Britney changes wigs. I also told her that ultimately governments that end up taking too much power become oppressors rather than liberators. At this she smiled at me sweetly and told me that this isn’t true, that we have a perfectly good example of the beauties of a socialist system at work today.

Cuba she tells me. Cuba is a utopian paradise.

So all those students of mine who have relatives who have been tortured and imprisoned for speaking out against the government, what about them I ask her? Did they just make these phantom relatives up because the U.S. government told them to make Castro look bad?

No, they are enemies of the revolution and were rightly imprisoned she tells me.

Right . . .

At this point she realizes I’m not the second coming of Che Guevara and abruptly ends our conversation to attempt to proselytize someone a little more open to her message.

When I was talking to Kennedy, I thought about how she reminded me of so many other intelligent, earnest people I’ve met in my life who are searching for a reason for being. Many of them believe that all our answers lie in political systems. Well, this week in my English class we’ve been listening to the song Concrete Jungle by Bob Marley and I’ve been helping my students to analyze the lyrics.

I think Marley and his fellow Rastas had it right. When you buy into any material paradigm as your means for liberation, whether it’s capitalism or communism, you will ultimately become its slave. I sympathize with the dreads when they say to reject Babylon, but I just can’t bring myself to give up beer.

All the great teachers from Socrates to the Gauatama tell us to look for the answers inside ourselves. I know all these things on an intellectual level yet I still search other places. I don’t know that I will ever be anything other than a Babylonian at heart though.

No chains around my feet,
But I’m not free!

3 comments:

Ruxton Schuh said...

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Zach Wallmark said...

This is an incisive post. Kennedy certainly chose an odd location to be openly espousing pro-Castro sentiment - you can get your ass kicked for those sorts of political sympathies in this town.

It's amazing how passionately people cling to the systems that bring them their stuff, be it capitalism, communism, or kleptocracy. Basing one's identity on economic exchange principles is precarious at best and potentially ruinous at worst. Identifying so strongly with a material principle has the effect of reducing the individual to nothing but a consumer (in America) or a Worker (in the Cuba).

I do wonder, however, if alternative cultural forces that are used to solidify identity and give purpose and meaning are much different. Look at nationalism and organized religion, for instance. Identifying too zealously with one's state or one's God has resulted in bondage just as severe as any material system. Whenever anyone is too identity-bound to an in-group/out-group sort of tribal mentality, they are bound to feel the rub of the concrete jungle.

Ruxton Schuh said...

The question I have is whether people inherited their outward need for identity or if it's just a part of who we are? Is it a manifestation of society becoming so used to hand-outs from "higher" organizations, or is this a trait that, if reproduced in laboratory circumstances (sans observer effect), would still be present in people? Fact is, dependency on organizations is quite profitable for a select few.