Alan Kline, sociologist, said, "you can subvert stereotypes by owning them." Well, what the fuck does that mean?
He says, "I call people G, cause I like the idea of a gangster. He walks with swagger and does what he wants. whys that a bad thing? you can be a gangster of anything you want, gangster of writing music, gangster of fighting pollution, gangster of saving the rainforest, gangster of curing cancer, gangster of good. People say "no! a gangster carries a tommy gun and white shoes powdered in cocaine! murderer!", they say. NO. thats the OLD meaning, thats the mid evil, middle ages, ancient meaning, like when Love came from Hades so it meant hate. thats not real but it could have been. The word "word" used to mean something different. Time makes it fluid. "Ganster", it is much different, like you can watch a sports player do something incredible and people say "thats gangster, he'a a gangster", or a music solo or a speech -anything well done, with passion, with style. And that's OWNING the stereotype and subverting it. Using the word in a diff way, in a more casual way, repurposing it to mean something good. So it takes on anew meaning, more positive, more innocent. It happens all the time."
It works in the other direction too. It's funny. Things that are good can develop a bad reputation. Saving the rainforest is an incredibly important and vital thing. "Save the rainforest" has become a tag line in every plot making fun of liberals, hippies and green people everywhere and has taken on a life of its own so that, for some reason, when someone walks into the room with a "save the rainforest" t shirt at least a few…. dozen people with laugh at him , scoff at him or avoid him. But then when the guy behind him walks in with an orangutang jacket on everyone drops their drinks on the floor, goes over and starts petting his fur in amazement, giving him high fives, hugs, laughs -one guy is suckin his dick, c'mon!
It's backwards.
In fact, you could loop all those words in there, "liberal, hippy, green" and people loop em all together, "lasso that dumb cow!" "na, lasso all three of em! at once" These words start to blend into one thing.
Just like 'corporation', 'capitalism', 'conservatives' 'republicans', all said with a nasty tone , are looped around one single tall pole inside a t-p of burning sticks.
These are all important words. Don't give us the "those words mean nothing to me, I'm floating around on a meditation/ yoga mat magic carpet, I'm one with outer space, love and light". no these are important words that we need to clarify and use to the best of their ability now, to help save the world, to turn it INTO a place of love and light.
See the truth in words.
Hippies, make their own stuff.
Green people, fight for the environment.
That shouldn't even have to require having a label. That should be automatic, understood. It'd be like if you saw a squirrels nest, you would expect them all to take really good care of it right? Like there wouldn't be a bunch of squirrels that just pop out of mom andimmediately start tearing the nest apart. And then two other ones show up to stop them and someone goes, "oh….those are the green squirrels. they're a different species. they're kinda….I duno. we'll just let it play out". No, they'd get thrown out. Even the rodents get it. Everyone is "green" whether they like it or not because "adam and eve" grew out of "HIS blessed land and heavenly sky" and plants and fish splurged outof our waters and evolved into bugs and birds and mammals and apes and then us, too. no matter which way you spin it, you're green, sorry. since when does there have to be a club and a label and a stigma just to keep your nest from imploding.
There are green liberals and green conservatives.
There are liberal capitalists, there are conservative capitalists.
These words have very specific meanings that are being cluttered with whats taboo at the time and jumbled into big grey assumptions.
Liberals are community based. Conservatives are individual based. They're generic philosophies. They're ought to be combined and cultivated, not instigated.
They both have their merits. The world should stop trying to jam certain aspects of life into one or the other like a child being pulled between angry parents. work together to see what each aspect of life calls for and which approach is more applicable where. Lets say some country is fucked up and twisted and killing innocent people based on its cinderella worship theories they can't read from 3 thousand years ago? Send in the conservatives and the military with strength and order. You don't want the liberals standing, singing blowing in the wind to a tank, trying to stop bullets with hoolla hoops. At the same time, you may want the liberal to handle the social relations and the reconstruction. Work together.
Corporations are not inherently BAD. just because some, and I know it's plenty, are corrupt and greedy, it does not mean that the whole model needs to be thrown out the window. Corporations can and do, do good.
Don't like 'them'? Make a totally green, earth saving, whale saving, rainforest planting, bamboo, leaves and solar panels, with hemp uniforms, naked, corporation. I'd be your first applicant.
Democracy is not inherently good or bad. Cant ya tell?! its only as good as the people occupying it and steering it. Capitalism is not inherently good or bad. If young independent people were able to start their own private businesses early and easily, with tools, help and resources from the state to guide them, we would see a much better, more focused, more positive youth. They wouldn't feel suffocated into going to college.
If they do goto school, they should't face debt that voids and eradicates their education and squeezes them into becoming a cow in the 'paying my debt back' milk plant. Conscious capitalism could save these things.
Money is not inherently evil, its a transfer of energy. If you work in construction you expend a certain amount of calories and energy each hour and you get a monetary value for that time. At the end of the week someone gives it back to you, at an agreed upon rate. Your paycheck is all that energy you expelled, all stored up in another form, a paper form and now it's potential energy. Do with it what you want.
If you're a billion dollar business man you probably have thousands of people and machines working under you and all their energies and yours are building up, storing up, collecting, combining and by the end of a whole year of that, you have a shit load of potential energy.
So, the "money is the root of all evil" people have been wounded and jaded and have reason to be, I believe that. Help them and respect their complaints but show them that they can use money, stored energy, to make the world more like they envision it. Money isn't the root of all evil, it was the root of a bunch of really evil things yes, but money is just stored energy. Like anything it can be used for destructive or constructive purposes.
Chose constructive purposes.
People spend so much time loving everything but themselves. Its like "exercise, diet, light, culture, community, hobbies, fun, happiness!? i can't afford that! i don't have time for that! i don't have the energy. I can't get in shape now." But then they turn around and afford dunkaroos, pay per view infomercial magic bullets, they make time for 12 different HBO TV series and they have the energy to wash their brand new truck up real nice and get down on their back and scrub and huff n puff n sweat and wax it and work it. And it's easy to start to thinks that's cool. its part of our culture. But if you're able to step away from it, after a while you're like "wait…what're we trying to achieve?…. We're trying to fulfill ourselves, make ourselves happy! Sweet!" and you go back under the truck and pick away at it, crank and crank and bang ur fingers. the next day, "wait, what was i trying to do?…. oh! happy!" crank n bang. crank and bang. it keeps going like that. finally one day you go. "if this is fixing me why do I have to keep coming back?…… OHhhhhhhhhh, trucks and TV and clothing and appliances and all these products can't make me happy. its the wrong tool! fuck, its not even in the same toolbox, or drawer, or same realm or wavelength or universe or anything! I gotta actually go in there and work on it. I cant bandaid it. I can't fix a leaky head gasket by adding oil in at every red light right?" So I wonder why people don't spend that time working on themselves, or at least the equal time. It sounds so obvious. But, I'll admit, it doesn't sound 'fun'. But then again, neither is scrubbing a fucking pick up truck, unless you really love that truck and have pride in it.
The word 'you', like in "universe' and 'unicorn' and 'universal joint" -scrub it, keep it oiled, good fuel, simple paint job, love it.