The Worse, the Better
That is a quote from Lenin. The idea behind it is that the harsher the conditions get for an oppressed people, the more likely they are to get fed up and strike back. I can see that. The idea can be extended to say that you can provoke an oppressor into helping you mobilize the people you wish to liberate, for in the short term, you bring great hardship and suffering upon them, but in the long run, you will forge the desire to be free in them that would not be there if they are pacified and in relative comfort. Stunning. I should have been a political scientist. I am doing my reading for my POL 300 class, and it just got me thinking. Ah well. Back to the books.
posted by Jahan at 1:20 PM
1 Comments:
Tell me why you disagree. I think it is a prescient insight into human nature. We tend (at least some of us) to not spring into action until it is almost too late. Like the way we approach our research papers, people are procrastinating not with a grade in a course, but with their freedom and their lives, and the lives of future generations. Think of when Black people (since it is Black history month!) get riled up. Rodney King, Bensonhurst, that dragging incident in Texas... they get jolted into action by a travesty, then go back to their relative lethargy while hundreds of subtle injustices pile up every day.
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