(no subject)

[wispfox]

I'm not really finding words for what's in my head, but Indigo Girls' "Philosophy of Loss" is running around in my head. So I share the words, and perhaps manage to find some of my own in the process.


welcome to why the church has died
and the heart of the exile and the kingdom of hate
who owns the land and keeps the commands
and marries itself to the state
modern scribes write in jesus christ
everyone is free
and the doors open wide to all straight men and women
but they are not open to me

who is teaching kids to be soldiers
to be marked by a plain white cross
and we kill just a little to save a lot more
the philosophy of loss

now there are a few who would be true
out of love and love is hard
and don't think that our hands haven't shoveled the dirt
over their central american graveyards
doctors and witch hunters stripped you bare
left you nothing for your earthly sins
yeah but who made this noise just a bunch of boys
and the one with the most toys wins

and who is teaching kids to be gamblers
life is a coin toss
and of course what you give up is what you gain
the philosophy of loss

whatever has happened to anyone else
could happen to you and to me
and the end of my youth was the possible truth
that it all happens randomly

so who is teaching kids to be leaders
and the way that it is is meant to be
the philosophy of loss


Who decides what's 'meant to be'. And who says that they are right?

And why is killing, except for survival reasons (food, self-defense...), reasonable?

One's gain does not have to be another's loss. And I've never understood how anyone believes otherwise. Then again, I've never understood the ability to _not_ see lots of different sides to things...

*shakes head* Can't find words for what's in my head. Giving up for now. :)

Comments

[opalmirror.livejournal.com]

I've been paying special notice lately to the human tendency to find justification for past misdeeds. This goes by the name apologizer, whitewashing, defensiveness. It also is associated with choosing words that do not identify guilt or responsibility in oneself, or avoid association with the misdeeds. Probably the most familiar recent example is the cautious word choices made by certain government heads... the lack of apologies; the refusal to accept that as a group of people we are on the wrong track and need a major reset, the sort of responses that attempt to smear others.

I think that the philosophy of loss, the zero-sum game, is maybe a trick played by people who resist change, feel they have too much to lose, and who refuse to abandon bad directions for better ones, and admit mistakes. It's a philosophy of the small of mind, the scared, or the overburdened.

As much as I love to complain about the government, I also try to temper it with compassion. Yet, I am sad that the leaders we have are the most able to wrench conventional powers to their will, or potentially the most electable, rather than the ones with the vision and the the bravery to backtrack on the false leads we've followed to take us on a more imaginative and more sensical human course.