One of the major points I've learned this past year is that it's important not to divorce my art from my politics. Previously these were (at least I thought) separate areas of my life, and by no longer thinking of them as separate unrelated things, I feel like I've strengthened them both. I suppose it's not just art though. When I stopped thinking of being "political" as something qualitivly (spell check tells me this isn't a real word, fuck spell check) different than what I normally do, it gave me new insight into my life, and a better understanding of the world around me.
I've learned that the phrase "this is what's wrong with me" is MUCH more effective than "this is what's wrong with you." It's more honest. It works as an indictment of society as well, because I am a part of the society and thus guilty of its faults. This is the idea I'm trying to work with right now in my own work, finding out what things I do that maintain the aspects of our society I'm opposed to, and seeing what I can do to change them. I like this approach because it's real and it's immediate. Also I'm not the only one that has these habits that I want to change, and by writing something about my own life, it becomes relevant to others.
I've been thinking a lot about the concept of finding new ways to talk about old problems, because the words that have described them, and by association the problems themselves have become boring. It's not just the language that needs to change, the methods of resistance themselves can become boring or obsolete. The situation we find ourselves in as citizens in this country isn't the same as it was 100 years ago. We have new tools at our disposal, and so does the government. Why do people still use rhetoric from so long ago? It didn't work then, and it's less relevant now. We do need new words, and new practices. More importantly we need new ideas, new ways to address old problems. The old methods haven't solved our social problems, and are now less effective than they once were, so we need new ones. Better ones. I don't know what these are, or might look like, but it's something that needs to be explored.
Teaching is hard when you don't give a shit about facts, but there are more important things than facts. I guess what I think we should be trying to impart is a thirst for knowledge. Maybe not really a thirst for knowledge, but an empowerment. A feeling of "hey, I can improve myself and my understanding of the world," is really what I'm going for. Imparting the skills and confidence to go out and learn about things that might be relevant to a person's life is probably the best thing we can teach. Learning facts is not necessarily a worthwhile thing to do, if the desire and the interest aren't there. I can safely say there are a lot of things I don't give a shit about. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. What the guy on TV says about UFOs in the bible (this is an actual TV show) doesn't matter to me, because it's not relevant.
Politically, I know that I don't know all of the answers, and that's why it's hard for me to come up with what exactly I think a perfect society would be. I suppose that's why I'd like a world where people didn't force their wills on others. A world that's dynamic. Not out of preference but necessity. As humans we're constantly changing, not only personally but as a society. We need to be able to say "hey, using petroleum is a bad idea, we should stop doing it," and actually stop. Ideally, we would be free of the ingrained power structures that prevent us from making the change to alternative energy sources, among other things. I want a world where people would ask the question "why are we killing people in Iraq?" and then stop doing it. I don't have a clear vision of utopia. But I've got a rough idea, which is enough to take some action in that direction. I feel like it could be a good thing to not have all the answers. Or at least to acknowledge that I don't have all the answers. It's a good thing to accept the possibility that your full of shit, even though you need to go on the assumption that your not, just because then you can honestly consider opposing views. Anyway, we're not as stupid as our culture tells us we are. We have the power to take action, and it's important that we help more people realize this.