I honestly wouldn't. Not because I disagree with the concept, but because more on-point escapist media would just ensure that people will get their revolutionary fix without ever leaving the couch. We don't need that. We need people to be angry, to be fed up, to have no other escape than to fight for it.
Capitalism has done wonders at keeping us sedated by selling us our fantasies of change and better days. It's time we stopped taking those meds.
Oh, no doubt! This mess is perfect for somebody's business! Money has been and will continue to be more powerful and more important than politics in this, our Capitalist hellscape. Hiding in plain sight.
Divide Et Impera will never not be an effective control method. Keep the Basics arguing amongst themselves, and they'll never have the time to pay attention to the ones pulling the strings in the background.
Edit: this is not to say that the heinous shit espoused by some people is in any way excusable. We may be pitted against each other in this Left/Right divide, but one side is clearly more monstrous than the other, even when accounting for extremists on both.
I'm sorry to say, but I disagree. I remember older people having been more respectful ever since I became aware of the world around me, even those only slightly older than myself.
I used to hang out with the "older kids" during high-school, Seniors and beyond, and these groups have been calmer and more polite, even when out drinking and doing stupid things.
On the flipside, the generations immediately after mine started behaving like... well, like animals early on... I still remember entering a 6th grade class while I was in the 8th and witnessing one of the students being hit in the head with a chair. I knew most of my generational peers and can tell you with absolute certainty that no such thing ever happened for as long as I was in school with them.
This extended throughout University as well, as the dorm in which I was staying got a lot (I mean, a LOT) noisier and more chaotic, to the point where the surroinding neighbours started calling the police pretty much regularly, because the freshmen were throwing mattresses and fridges out the window (literally). Edit to add: the worst we ever did during the three years I spent there (I'm talking my generation and those above us) was play the guitar a bit too loudly while hanging around in the hallway, sharing cheap beer.
And it goes for what I've said about neighbourhoods, too, the only people pumping music and constantly yelling at all hours are usually teenagers, students, or people my age. Most 40s and above can barely be heard after 10PM. I've never heard as much noise in the neighbourhoods in which I've lived throughout my life (I moved around a lot) until about 6-7 years ago. Everything got WAY worse starting with the tail end of the Lockdowns, too...
Honestly, and surprisingly, it's the older people who have the most decency nowadays, from what I've seen
... A lot of people around my age (30-ish) and many, many younger than me seem to be exhibiting something akin to sociopathic tendencies.
I'm not talking about politics or other such grand scale stuff, I'm talking day-to-day interactions. More and more new neighbors are demonstrating a complete lack of respect for others in their neighborhoods, playing loud music at ungodly hours, parading around in their overrevved cars with the bass thumping directly into your brain stem, younger people (30-40 and below) are far more impatient in traffic, far more self-absorbed, self-concerned, and egotistic. Of course, the older people aren't all good, with outdated and regressive mentalities still flourishing among their ranks, but in terms of habitual decency, they're in the lead...
These are all purely personal observations, of course, but I genuinely think an innate sense of respecting other people's existence has been diminishing, if not entirely lost generation to generation.
These can, of course, all be tracked all the way back to the voracious consumerism engendered by Capitalism. The main symptoms are not clustered around older people, though.
Pretty much! I remember attending Sunday services several times at the behest of my grandmother, and half the time they consisted of mean gossip and fear-mongering.
Edit: of course, I'm not saying all Orthodox priests follow this script, but the Orthodox dogma in general seems to be VERY conducive to it...
Eh, Christian Orthodox traditions frown upon any sort of black magic and such, as Jesus's divinity is held as THE factor for his performing miracles. Anything which isn't Jesus-related is considered to stem from Lucifer.
Didn't go into so much detail with most people of faith I've met, but I know for a fact mum read both the Old and New Testaments and decided she didn't* (still getting used to it...) want to have anything to do with the Church's interpretations, because they focused on essentially anything other than empathy and being human.
On the other hand, grandma wasn't that big on the Bible, but went to church weekly (for as long as she could). She was also domineering, aggressive, two-faced, and manipulative. Also loved to visit the village witch (no, I'm not joking), which was... kinda' contradictory if one asks me, but nobody did, so that's that...
So, we'll get to buy a doll which'll need to be hooked up to a couple of car batteries to have it spew nonsense at our kids?
Edit: or will they go with the less nonsensical but even creepier method of just making the dolls a sender/receiver which talks to a central server? Wouldn't it be cool to know that your child's every word may be recorded (and most certainly used) by a huge Corp?❤️
I still picture dinosaurs as the old designs in my head, purely by choice. I fully accept they are inaccurate, and will always say "yes, dinosaurs had feathers" if asked, but... like... I mean... how am I supposed to take Gigantochicken seriously? If I'd be sent to the past and end up being chased by one of the Woody Woodpecker lookin' ones, I'd die laughing my ass off.
Exactly! Thank you! Yes, I realised I've focused too much on Pessimism (guess I'd make for a good defence lawyer! or a poor one, food for thought...) and not the big picture.
Yes! It's about reasonably establishing the risks and actually setting safeguards in place, whereas optimism should be allowed to roam free and dream stuff up! One tempers/uplifts the other!
Warning for crummy poetics: and in the synnergy of the two, Reality is born!:)))
Well, hey, fully valid that I may be biased in a similar way, but in reverse, having been surrounded mostly by people who refuse to see The Darkness even if it's actively slapping them... In either case, I agree with you, it takes a balance between them, as always!
You've actually expressed my point way better than I have, so I guess that bias is at least present in the direction from which I approach expressing the idea:-?
I honestly wouldn't. Not because I disagree with the concept, but because more on-point escapist media would just ensure that people will get their revolutionary fix without ever leaving the couch. We don't need that. We need people to be angry, to be fed up, to have no other escape than to fight for it.
Capitalism has done wonders at keeping us sedated by selling us our fantasies of change and better days. It's time we stopped taking those meds.