Scenario
Setting: A high school classroom somewhere in a peaceful, quiet, middle-American suburb. Some time last Thursday.
The bell rings and class begins session. The shuffling of desks, chairs and papers amid a busy hum of background conversation decrescendos. A tall, slender man dressed in casual attire approaches the blackboard at the front of the room and addresses the class.
TEACHER: "Good morning all."
STUDENTS: "..."
TEACHER: "I see that you've made it here on time today and I am delighted to tell you that the week turn-over for exams is still in effect. So you will be receiving your graded exams back on Tuesday. However, today we will be addressing some more abstract material."
With a taut smile, he turns to face the blackboard with his back to the class. After a brief pause...
"Can anyone here tell me what today is?"
STUDENT1: "...Thursday."
STUDENT2: "The twenty-fifth?"
TEACHER: "Correct. But beyond that..."
The students give a muddled look of confusion, struggle for a moment with the question and give up.
"Today is just another day. Really, anything can happen. I mean, when you think of it logically... really... anything can happen. Certain restrictions are abound, sure, but within these parameters, and obeying these certain physical laws, life exists, and anything you can dream of is pretty much a possibility. I don't mean to be preachy, so forgive me if that is how you are perceiving this. What I mean to say simply... is that you could be swimming, hiking, traveling, reading a good book, watching a bad movie, writing, sleeping in Prague, dreaming in a field in Ireland, eating in a cafe in Paris, running along the Great Wall of China, etcetera. But, you're not. You're sitting here, in this class room."
The students have become very quiet and seem perplexed. They have not for the last few moments been able to understand just what the teacher is getting at. There seems to be an awkward tension building in the air.
"How impersonal. How degrading it all is when I look at it from afar. Forcing your compliance to sit here and listen to what whoever wrote this shit wants to stick into your head. Hell, it's practically brainwash. Winners write the goddamn history books, right? But who decides what we teach you and why its taught?"
The Teacher throws his hands up and loosens his tie a little. His eyes are beginning to shift slightly erratically and his demeanor is changing in the same direction. However, the students seem intrigued.
"Shit, I'm even starting to feel a little guilt. Look at you pathetic things. You sit here laughing and giggling, not knowing that every... single... day you're being taught to submit to the illusion that someone else has "power" or "authority" over you. That's really all it is. No one has the right to tell you what you can and cannot do if its not violating any of their individual rights. And I'm sure as shit that there's no individual right to control another individual. It kind of makes me nauseas now that I think about it- how pathetic a state your feeble little minds must be in. Worker bees. Shit... that's all you're being groomed to be."
The students listen more carefully, some with hesitation and others with excitement. It is clear that the teacher is getting very excited himself.
"Well... sure, you'll live your ignorant little shit of a life walking about in some half-sleep, rushing from point A to point B because you "have to." Never stopping once to consider the alternatives, and even if so, probably too scared to take a risk. And that's exactly what they want. They don't want a revolutionary if it's not for their revolution! They don't want a visionary if it's not for their vision! They want a worker drone to stimulate the economy- a worker bee to perpetuate and enlongate their reign of mental imprisonment! And by "they" I mean those who have power over your life and who seek to have even more. Look at you. You sit there laughing and giggling, letting each precious moment pass you by and go to waste. What concerns you? Is it the television you're going to be glued to for an average of about 4 hours between today and tonight? Watching what? Some pop idol be worshipped in the holy name of validation? Some professional athlete be what you have the power to become, but aren't because your fat ass is glued to a seat in the suspense of something so mind-numbingly trivial as a GAME. What experiencial value does that contain? Worker bees! Hell, you're so isolated from each other and the rest of the world because of this gigantic rat race to make money. And then what? Well we figure, there's got to be a good reason to want to make money... maybe it's the car that I'm saving up to buy that'll fill this void. Or maybe whenever the Bowflex is delivered, or that new bathing suit I ordered gets here. Waiting perpetually for the happiness that is seemingly just around the corner. And leading back to what? Trying to make more money to buy the things you think, but ultimately won't, buy you true happiness. All the while, war is being waged and your friends, families and strangers pay the price of losing a loved one at the cost of someone elses fight. Shit, what about the destruction of the planet? Goddamn, if this isn't a time of disaster then when was? What, because we have ipods, means we've evolved so much? I mean has anyone ever heard of the sacred Om?!"
STUDENTS: "..."
TEACHER: "Of course not. Imagine this, if you can: over 5,000 years ago in the Indus River Valley, the people there believed in the sacred Om. The Om to them translates the belief that vibration is the essence of all life, which is why they vibrate their vocal chords to make the sound "Om." Modern science took this long to tell us that all matter consists merely of condensed light energy, vibrating at very low speeds. So from the primordial nothing, came something... and it was a vibration. Over 5,000 years ago people knew this, but communicated it differently and we now call them "primitive." You're telling me we've evolved? You're telling me about how far science has come when 50% of its efforts in debate and arguments are to displace and supplant religion? I've got news for ya- I dunno if you've realized, but pretty much ALL of society up to this point has had its foundation in thousands of years of religious tradition... and they want to throw that away? And what about religion? These people have been fighting for thousands of years and they'll fight for thousands more! Cancer, car accidents, drugs, domestic abuse... these aren't the lead causes of death. Religion is. And we've evolved? What about the battery found in Baghdad dating back to around 2,000 years ago? A large clay pot with an asphault stopper. There's an iron rod through the middle of the jar, surrounded by a layer of copper. When filled with any electrolytic substance, like grape juice, this thing conducts electricity! Shit, I bet you knew nothing of that. Damn right, 'cause in America education is the enemy. Keep their minds closed otherwise they may just wise up and become aware of the great accomplishments that have paved the way for humankind. We might just be inspired by finding that the absolute truth is that men have risen well above their potential and have held the flaming sword of truth, justice, love, life and progress, lighting the way for absolutely any possibility to become a reality. It's time to raise that sword again and stick it deep into the belly of opression, fear, injustice, mental slavery, educational monopoly, ignorance, greed and most of all APATHY. Get up off your asses! Voltaire said it best: "Every man is guilty of the good he does not do!" This moment is all you have, so don't squander it. As humans in this generation, there are many things that are currently larger than us. But it is in our power to rise to such enormous proportions, so that nothing is greater than our accomplishments. And if you don't like my message and think that I'm wrong in standing by my opinion... then don't listen. This world was forged on the ideas of great men. Without ideas we have no identity, without opinions we are nothing. It has not been the mindless, the apathetic, the "live and let live/go about your business" type who have made changes. It has been those who had an idea and acted upon it. It has been those who claim the lost for their side, before the tyrannical can chain them to the earth, who ultimately enlighten the lives of others. And there has scarce been a time when change was so absolutely imperative as right NOW. Class dismissed."
Leave the cave.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery
http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/aa022200.htm
The bell rings and class begins session. The shuffling of desks, chairs and papers amid a busy hum of background conversation decrescendos. A tall, slender man dressed in casual attire approaches the blackboard at the front of the room and addresses the class.
With a taut smile, he turns to face the blackboard with his back to the class. After a brief pause...
"Can anyone here tell me what today is?"
The students give a muddled look of confusion, struggle for a moment with the question and give up.
"Today is just another day. Really, anything can happen. I mean, when you think of it logically... really... anything can happen. Certain restrictions are abound, sure, but within these parameters, and obeying these certain physical laws, life exists, and anything you can dream of is pretty much a possibility. I don't mean to be preachy, so forgive me if that is how you are perceiving this. What I mean to say simply... is that you could be swimming, hiking, traveling, reading a good book, watching a bad movie, writing, sleeping in Prague, dreaming in a field in Ireland, eating in a cafe in Paris, running along the Great Wall of China, etcetera. But, you're not. You're sitting here, in this class room."
The students have become very quiet and seem perplexed. They have not for the last few moments been able to understand just what the teacher is getting at. There seems to be an awkward tension building in the air.
"How impersonal. How degrading it all is when I look at it from afar. Forcing your compliance to sit here and listen to what whoever wrote this shit wants to stick into your head. Hell, it's practically brainwash. Winners write the goddamn history books, right? But who decides what we teach you and why its taught?"
The Teacher throws his hands up and loosens his tie a little. His eyes are beginning to shift slightly erratically and his demeanor is changing in the same direction. However, the students seem intrigued.
"Shit, I'm even starting to feel a little guilt. Look at you pathetic things. You sit here laughing and giggling, not knowing that every... single... day you're being taught to submit to the illusion that someone else has "power" or "authority" over you. That's really all it is. No one has the right to tell you what you can and cannot do if its not violating any of their individual rights. And I'm sure as shit that there's no individual right to control another individual. It kind of makes me nauseas now that I think about it- how pathetic a state your feeble little minds must be in. Worker bees. Shit... that's all you're being groomed to be."
The students listen more carefully, some with hesitation and others with excitement. It is clear that the teacher is getting very excited himself.
"Well... sure, you'll live your ignorant little shit of a life walking about in some half-sleep, rushing from point A to point B because you "have to." Never stopping once to consider the alternatives, and even if so, probably too scared to take a risk. And that's exactly what they want. They don't want a revolutionary if it's not for their revolution! They don't want a visionary if it's not for their vision! They want a worker drone to stimulate the economy- a worker bee to perpetuate and enlongate their reign of mental imprisonment! And by "they" I mean those who have power over your life and who seek to have even more. Look at you. You sit there laughing and giggling, letting each precious moment pass you by and go to waste. What concerns you? Is it the television you're going to be glued to for an average of about 4 hours between today and tonight? Watching what? Some pop idol be worshipped in the holy name of validation? Some professional athlete be what you have the power to become, but aren't because your fat ass is glued to a seat in the suspense of something so mind-numbingly trivial as a GAME. What experiencial value does that contain? Worker bees! Hell, you're so isolated from each other and the rest of the world because of this gigantic rat race to make money. And then what? Well we figure, there's got to be a good reason to want to make money... maybe it's the car that I'm saving up to buy that'll fill this void. Or maybe whenever the Bowflex is delivered, or that new bathing suit I ordered gets here. Waiting perpetually for the happiness that is seemingly just around the corner. And leading back to what? Trying to make more money to buy the things you think, but ultimately won't, buy you true happiness. All the while, war is being waged and your friends, families and strangers pay the price of losing a loved one at the cost of someone elses fight. Shit, what about the destruction of the planet? Goddamn, if this isn't a time of disaster then when was? What, because we have ipods, means we've evolved so much? I mean has anyone ever heard of the sacred Om?!"
Leave the cave.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery
http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/aa022200.htm
posted by Peter at 9:28 PM
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