How do you convince people that there needs to be radical institutional change?
How do you get people to rally against what is true and healthy in a time where there is no better time to be alive?
Let me ask you this -- would you rather be alive now? Or when your Grandparents were young? This question puts it into perspective of how far we have come as a species in how short a period of time.
But don't get me wrong, we are still young. There are still many complex questions we have yet to solve about getting along in large groups and working together for a better purpose.
The last two sentences were to get you to reflect on how far we have come in the last 120 years and the steps we have made to better our lives in as many ways possible; how we were making great leaps as a human consciousness to solve great problems for the betterment of humanity.
Then of course a small group of people were growing inside the bowels of America. Unhappy people, people that wanted to tear the system down and build it from the bottom up again. Obviously what we had currently was not working.
We needed radical change, and quickly.
But to me this made no sense.
None at all.
We were already making steps to change the world in record speed. The internet had changed everything for a lot of people, and soon afterwards the iPhone paved the way for changing the world for everyone.
Information was already being shared in ways only 20 years ago would not have been feasible -- how and why did there need to be any change at all when the world was changing so fast already?
This group grew of course. A small group that no-one really paid any notice to, suddenly became centre stage of the entire world.
They waved their flags proudly and anyone that dared to dissent against them were viciously stricken down by mass waves of people indirectly funded and spearheaded by the government.
We now know all this thanks to Elon musk.
Of course don't forget that trends are a very real and prominent element in human psychology and the need to follow the popular thing is very strong.
What was seemingly fringe psychosis at the time rapidly became popular and growing.
But what creates a self professed social justice warrior?
You know, someone that fights the good fight against prejudice and inequality. Something they believe is steeped in our culture and enriched by those at the top, and wants to tear the whole system down because of it.
Why? What? How?
Well, first you have to alter the perception of reality.
Not hugely at first of course, just a gentle nudge in an avenue that's wildly open to interpretation.
A good instance would be the term "white privilege" or "male privilege" -- to the untrained eye it might actually seem that white males have the upper hand in most upper echelons of western society.
We are overwhelmingly ruled and lead by white males - this is absolute fact. Governments and congress all over the western world displays that with shining example for all to see.
Of course that argument lacks any nuance whatsoever -- like what about the overwhelming amount of men in our infrastructure working very dangerous jobs, or the overwhelming amount of females in our health services working extremely high paid jobs.
But nuance and grey area do not matter in the fight for justice.
Which brings me to my second reality; once the seeds of illusions are set, then put in motion the beginning of the fight.
See all this white privilege and male privilege?
It's your job to stop it.
Of course there are many other injustices -- I doubt Europe will fall to the idiocy of skin pigmentation but it sure will when they touch on colonialism.
And it almost always must touch on something that can't be changed. Characteristics of race, gender, sex, and so on -- it's hard to fight against something you can't change.
You were never going to be able to change anything about it. It's something you will have to deal with for the rest of your life -- being white, or heterosexual, or whatever.
We are the general population and it's a way to silence us easily.
But heed this, the passion is strong in these fighters -- and it'll take a lot more than exposing government corruption for all to see.
You see, these people were coddled from a very young age; the most ardent fighters forged from families that don't give a shit, or absent dads, alcoholic parents, you name it.
For it is not a movement borne from abundant love, but extreme grievance.
It is easier to blame all men for something when you have not had a loving dad around to make whatever you are being told nonsensical; it seems right, all men are bastards!
Whether that's through family or an unhealthy partner, it doesn't matter -- it is easier to blame outwardly than it is to look inwardly and find fault with our own choices and actions that set our path in motion.
How do we tackle that behemoth?
I remember thinking in my head once -- how do you tackle a movement that thinks you are a cancer and all they want to do is delete me, when the reality is that all you want to do is to live in peace and not hurt anyone?
My first thought was that we must fight. We must stand up to them and resist at every chance we get -- but then that only spawns more fighters on both sides, and more often than not we tend to become that which we stand against.
Hate just breeds more hate.
So the answer is to love. That's it.
Love yourself.
Love yourself enough to not engage. To just walk away from arguments that take hours of your time when you could be off building something amazing.
If all of us loved ourselves enough to not care then the only people they would be fighting with is themselves -- and eventually they would zero sum their arguments out. They would get bored; they would want to check out what were were doing over there.
And then we would be like oh, hey! Come see what we are doing -- it's amazing. Because we would welcome them with open arms.
Because that is how love destroys hate!
Through peaceful, non-violent rebellion.
A great quote from the 1983 movie Wargames.