Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to You missed the elitist background of the lyrics...

re: You missed the elitist background of the lyrics...
ER — (archived)

Brilliant analysis! You have indeed mastered the dialectic. Tell me more.

I must confess I once also reached similar conclusions, and feeling no desire or inclination to be a rebel or revolutionary and wishing instead to exploit what I felt was my understanding of this dynamic that you refer to, decided instead to rely on that understanding to "work within the system" and exploit it for my own security and self-actualization. Unfortunately, my understanding was instinctive but undisciplined, and was insufficient to insulate myself from the consequences of committment to the institutions I so foolishly thought I had successfully infiltrated. I found myself instead dependent on my connections to the metropole while psychologically incapable of embracing completely the ethos necesssary to fully integrate with it. The more idealistic companions of my youth, in the meantime, now marginalized and isolated into the role of desperate mutineers, had little choice but to batter their way onto the bridge, only to find that there was nobody at the helm when they got there.

I think you understand this, perhaps you can help me. I have tried to rationalize my dilemma by postulating that this entity I call "the metropole" has achieved such a level of complexity and interconnectedness that it has evoved a consciousness of its own, that it processes information and acts on its environment without the intervention of the human agents that form its body. As far as we are concerned, it is now out of our control. However, we have no guarantee that it is capable of self-perpetuation or even survival. Am I just deluding myself in order to rationalize my inability to come to terms with my own personal failures, or am I glimpsing some underlying symmetry here which can lead to the understanding I seek?

Help me, Obi-wan.....

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