The Horrors of Suburbia

Здравствулте!
(Hello!)

My archnemisis is suburbia. It is the enemy to my genious, bane of my existence. I plan to dedicate my efforts to its destruction through prudent urban planning. Let us look at how this abomination of Human civilization came to be.

Suburbia began in the 1920's when the rich sought to leave cities that were packed with polluting industries and the poor they attracted. This flight was assisted with the automobile, which made it easy to travel back and forth between the city and its outlying areas. In the 1930's and 1940's programs like Fanny Mae in the US, copied in many other Western states, facilitated a similar move for the middle class. The cheap cost of realestate and the equally cheap cost of getting mortgage loans (since Fanny Mae insured banks against default for mortgages, making bank loans for this purpose virtually risk free) attracted the middle class. An element of class division in the city also helped drive the wealthy and middle class out since there were fears of violence, mobs, and social impurity inside city cores. Over the succeeding decades, highways were built, more automobiles were produced, and more houses were constructed to facilitate the move of wealth from cities to the outer rim, in areas we now call urban sprawl.

Meanwhile, the 'community' of suburbia broke from traditional Human modes of interaction and trade. Strip malls, big-box stores, and housing subdivisions succeeded in ensuring that fewer people interacted on a daily basis than ever before, despite being so close. The anti-social behaviour created by suburbia has contributed to many ills, particularly amongst suburban children.

The result of this great movement was countless subdivisions sprawling from major urban centres in all directions. It's like the middle class vomited all over the landscape. No two houses are all that different, and their attenuating strip malls and highways have only served to further uglify the scene. Suburbia destroys the very thing it sets out to create: a spacious community away from urban ills in a natural and rural setting. The space becomes roads, highways, and lanes. The community becomes a bunch of hermits who only see each other when they mow the lawn or shovel snow. The urban ills are intensified by the diversion of property taxes to newly developed subdivisions. Large areas of nature are destroyed through development, pollution, and intrusive suburbanites. Take for example a subdivision named 'Deer Creek'. You'll never see a deer in the area again, and the creek was diverted to manage stormwater while being polluted by runoff from lawn fertilizers and pesticides. Funny that.

Suburbia both is a product, and encourages the consumption, of the automobile. The physical isolation of suburban developments separates living spaces from jobs and services. This is called zoning law. As a result, to do anything, buy anything, or work anywhere, you have to be both able and willing to drive out of your neighborhood to the desired location. Walking there? Forget about it. There are so many lots between you and the mall you might as well gnaw your legs off. You could ride your bike, but well, that doesn't work well in the winter. It's just too damn easy to just drive somewhere. Why? It's designed to be that way. This physical isolation also separates people. Even if they are right next door, they aren't that close. More than likely you and your neighbor's have nothing in common, if they aren't jerks. All of your friends are in other suburbs, and your fellow workers scattered all along the major arteries towards the city where all the jobs are. The result is that you have to drive to your friend's place, which can become tiresome if it's even close enough to begin with.

You also have to be able to drive. That automatically excludes those under 17, who don't have their license. Suburbia is a little club, and you have to be able to drive to participate in its benefits. If you have a license, you need to pay for car, insurance, gas, and increasingly, maintenance. The price of each seems only to increase. It's expensive, and getting worse. And need we remember that the automobile is the largest source of air, water, and land pollution?

Suburbanites, on average, travel at least 30 minutes in their cars to their place of work, and an equal amount back. That's on a good day. Sometimes accidents, congestion, or weather can take up more time. Over a long period of time, the amount of time spent in a vehicle for suburbanite commuters is ridiculous. The great commute also gets people up nice and early, depriving them of sleep, just so they can make it to work on time from their distant home.

Admittedly certain conditions within the city have not helped these conditions. The absurd price of realestate in the inner city would drive away any middle class worker. The close proximity to impoverished areas simultaneously engineers fear in the mind of the middle class family. Ok the counter argument: Realestate prices are set by the bank at speculative values. The presence of some public housing would cut down the price as well as mixing social classes. Which brings us to the second point. Crime has always been higher in the cities because - get this - there are more people in a city at any given time than a rural area. People commit crime because they need resources, or because there are no government programs to help these people, or because there is no opportunity. THE ONLY TRUE POVERTY IS THE POVERTY OF OPPORTUNITY! Well when the affluent leave and take their tax dollars to suburbia, the city loses those dollars and is no longer able to support programs for the alleviation of poverty. Public housing and the return of the middle class would solve both of these problems.

There is also an ideological basis for suburbia. Think of the pretty picture from the 1950's of the white two-story home with the white picket fence, the dog, and the 2.5 children beside the giant Buick. What mother wouldn't want to raise their children within the protection of this little neighborhood of equally loving parents, and the privacy of a fenced backyard? In reality, this environment is a farce, a lie. And its effects should be a crime to children. Crime and creeps are equally likely to roam suburban streets as in the city. Subdivisions have no history, and so cannot have a community. By seeking privacy within a home, the suburbanite seeks to separate himself from the world, ignore it and its people, and fortify himself against a much wider array of Humans.

Sure, there is a buttressing effect to individualism in suburbia. Every man's home is his castle. Well, castles were designed to isolate, keep out, and entrench. By following individualism to this conclusion, the suburbanite individualizes himself outside of the community, a sort of self-ostracization. It's easy to be free when you're alone.

As for children, sure a fenced backyard seems like a good idea to protect them from the horrors of the outside world. It's good for pets too. But the kids develop social problems because they don't encounter very many other kids their age to interact with. They grow up bored, which results in destructive, introverted, and/or disrespectful behavior. The child becomes dependent on the home for entertainment, all other forms being so physically far away. This results in further introversion. Television, video games, and computers only assist this process. Without social opportunities and environments, parents have brought their children up in an environment that is detrimental to their integration into the real world once they leave their insulated subdivision.

Economically, suburbia is a wasteland. It does not create jobs within itself for the youth that are forced to endure it. Any jobs in the area are likely to be minimum wage service jobs which subject the youth to a servile position to their vacuous suburbanite neighbours. There are no jobs for adults. The resources wasted in creating, sustaining, and traveling to and from suburbia are incomprehensible. No wonder North American roads are in such terrible shape. There are just too damn many to maintain, and suburbanites would rather their little streets repaired over inner city thoroughfares. The cost of infrastructure to sprawling suburban areas has diverted tax dollars to otherwise important programs. The savings for all would be enormous if the middle class returned to concentrated urban areas.

Environmental destruction. More and more cars, which seem to be getting bigger and bigger, making more trips all over the place. Lots of pollution. Sprawling subdivisions eat up fields and forests, pollute waterways, and encourage the use of cars. Roadways, made from tar-based asphalt, spread in all directions to facilitate the further use of cars and the extension of the suburban sprawl, as well as contributing chemical runoff, cutting up areas and preventing walking. The ease of using cars has contributed to individual travel, which increases vehicle use and discourages public transit which would be far more environmentally sound and sustainable.

While living in suburbia, people become isolated from one another, and from other classes of people. Suburbanites will hardly ever come across poor people, so they never have to feel sympathy for them. Suburbanites don't care about poor people and vote accordingly. The suburban attitude is one of 'me'. These people vote to keep poor people away, to spend tax dollars on more roads to suburbia, and become only concerned with the problems facing their little communities. They don't see other class groups, so they don't have to worry about them. By increasing exposure to other classes, people would once again become concerned and charitable.

Suburbia is not quiet. The constant drone of cars on nearby roads can get pretty loud. On some nights the highway can be heard from great distances. The jerk next door, ignorant of the science of noise diffusion, will have talkative family gatherings through the night. Meanwhile, some bored suburban kid will race up and down the street in his hotrod (because mom and dad provide room and board, so he can spend his McDonalds money on a car) blaring jarring music from the open windows.

Suburbia is a form of segregation. Remember the Civil Rights Movement in the 60's? It's an expression of the white values that created racial segregation. Suburbia seeks to set up a little fiefdom separate from other social classes. The institutions within this fiefdom reflect only the interests of those within it. This is expressed in the quality of the schools within the district. Wealthier districts are separated from poorer ones, and wealthier districts have better schools. Since the poorer kids get lower quality schools, they can never hope to advance in life.

On the line of segregation, guess what? Suburbia seems to be primarily composed of white people. Surprise surprise. It's their little preserve. Little white kids in suburbia will probably never meet someone from a different ethnic background, and will most likely end up considering them 'foreign' or 'other' and grow up thinking that separation from 'other' is appropriate.

Still not convinced? Wait! There's more! Suburbia is so visually unappealing that it makes baby Jesus cry. These cookie-cutter houses with vinyl siding all look the same to me. The little streets and total lack of trees and other landscaping look desolate, and sometimes quite like the streets of some third world city. The architecture is less than inspired and the layout looks like it was created by a rubber stamp. The materials used in construction were cheap and so no neighbourhood has succeeded in creating the illusion of an old-style Victorian community. The overall effect is somewhat depressing, especially in the winter.

What was there before? Probably a scenic field, or a majestic forest full of life. Maybe a traditional farm? Then in come the bulldozers followed by the ugly uniformed houses, SUVs, Wal Mart, strip malls, and spoiled children.

Since it's easier to drive everywhere, the appreciation of nature is lost. From the garage, a person can get into a car, drive to another garage, and enter his place of work. All without leaving the comfort of the indoors. Without being outside, one loses the appreciation of the natural world. Also, this constant driving, as opposed to walking or cycling, results in obesity since suburbanites tend to eat poorly and avoid exercise.

Suburbia has the effect of impoverishing older working communities in towns and cities. Our old glorious cities and small towns have been destroyed by converting them into thoroughfares for suburban automobiles. Cars are parked everywhere and the streets are dangerous to cross. Cars have taken precidence over Human beings. Old structures are destroyed to make way for parking lots and roads. We are slaves to our automobiles, just as we are slaves to oil. The cities have become associated with pollution because of all the suburbanites driving to and from it every day. Mass transit sucks because even if suburbanites use it once they get into the city, the tax base is only on city constituents. Suburbia does not pay for inner city transit. Since cities have become places of work, they do not have as large a role in living and entertainment as they once did. The people who work in the city do not spend much money in the city, so the city collects less taxes and generates less revenue, creating financial difficulties.

So, environmental, financial, urban, and social destruction. The dream proved to be a lie, and it has cost us billions of dollars. As a social experiment, suburbia has created three generations of spoiled, bored, underemployed kids who grow up with the same attitudes as their parents. More than likely the trend will continue for another 50 years before people catch on.

Suburbia will be the slums of the future, as oil prices rise and the cost of living outside of the centre of production skyrockets. Perhaps then we can dismantle our folley and reuse the building materials to construct a better model of living.

The North American Lifestyle - And its Unsustainability

問候!
(Greetings!)

Today we will have a special little talk about a special little corner of our world. In Canada and the United States, a common lifestyle has emerged for millions of people. Some lament it, others see it as a dream to achieve. Although this talk overlaps somewhat with my upcoming discussion of THE HORRORS OF SUBURBIA, I will attempt to fulfill each topic as best I can.

Let us create an example of the life of a typical North American family. Let's meet Janet. She's 43, married, and has 4 kids. She lives in a lovely suburban home with 2 floors and a nice big yard. In her driveway sits a Nissan Pathfinder and a Ford Escape. Hubby Jim is 44 and works for a software company in the city and communtes every day. He makes $70000 US a year and a nice Christmas bonus. Janet loves Jim, but since she doesn't work (due to taking care of 4 kids), she resents Jim's freedom and feels stressed over taking care of so many youngens. She relieves her stress by gazing longingly at the pool boy in the summer, and in the winter she takes to her soap operas on television.

Every day, Jim leaves home at 6:00 am to get to work on time (which starts at 9:00) because for some reason there's always traffic on the highway to the city. When he finally arrives at 8:30, he has to find a parking spot in one of the numerous, ugly multi-stack parking lots. He goes to his building, ascends in the elevator, and goes to his cubicle where he sits at a desk and stares at the screen as the computer boots up. He then goes to the lunch room for his fourth coffee (the third he got at a drive-through doughnut shop), which he seems to be addicted to. He stares at the screen for the next 8 hours, often wondering when all his 'horrible' work will end and he can retire to a life of luxury with full company pension. At 5 Jim shuts down his computer, happy that he has achieved a whole 15 minutes of real work between trips to the coffee maker and talking with Phil and Sally at the water cooler. He gets in his Nissan Pathfinder and tries to manoevre it out of the parking lot. It's a very big vehicle, and he has trouble with its dimensions. He backs into another car, an Olds Alero, and dents the rear fender. Luckily, his SUV doesn't have a scratch. He drives on, with few cares. He gets home at 7:00 after refilling the empty gas tank in his vehicle for another day. He is angry that over the past year the price of fuel has gone up 10%. He decides to vote for who ever offers to bring down the price. At home, he kisses Janet and eats a dinner prepared by her. The kids are loud and obtrusive, but Jim ignores them and scratches his balding head, then his growing belly. Afterwards, he goes to the 50" television, watches Fox news, then finishes his night with a good old network television sitcom. He goes to bed and waits for Janet to put the kids to sleep, who are full of energy of course. Janet returns, the kids still screaming for attention, and shuts the door. Jim tries to get some from Janet, but she's become a fridgid, rancid cunt from raising 4 kids and Jim's flabby stomach, hairless head, and on and off impotentcy.

Janet has also had a hard day. She got up at 5 with Jim. The kids woke up at 7 and immediately proceeded to be loud and uncontrollable. Janet wonders if some drugs might set them straight, since she's tired of trying. She lets them run wild around the house, unwilling to discipline them because she fears they may not like her for it, and that if she did, she would have to do it all day. Around lunch time, Janet realizes there is no bologny for the kid's sandwiches (they won't eat anything else) and has to go get some. She piles the kids into the Ford Escape and drives it to Wal-Mart, which has the lowest price for prepackaged processed bologny. It is about four blocks north, but there are 6 lights between her driveway and the store. She has to wait about 3 minutes at each of them. The kids are screaming in the back, but Janet just takes som advil and ignores them. She flips up the internal DVD system, and they all begin singing and swaying to the musical delights of Disney's Aladdin (which, by the way, is their 13th viewing of the film). Why bother paying attention to her kids when TV does it for her? Just outside the mammoth store parking lot there is a traffic jam. It seems that Wal Mart is a busy place today, and everyone is trying to get in and find a parking spot. The other vehicles, mostly SUVs and minivans, are difficult to see over and Janet has a hard time finding a parking spot. About 15 minutes later, she finds one and quickly siezes it, almost running over a pair of teenagers getting out of their car. She unloads the kids and herds them into the store, where they immediately run past the smiley greeter guy who gets paid $5 an hour to the toys section. Janet has to catch up to them, and when she tries to get them moving towards the bologny, they start screaming and crying for this or that toy. In a bid to get them to shut up, she lets them each buy a toy. They are a little expensive, but what does it matter. It's not like she's working for the money. She then gives up on the bologny since the kids are all riled up from their new toys, and takes them to McDonalds (which is conveniently placed inside the store). They each want a happy meal, and demand a specific toy. Of course, they get it even though Janet has to bitch at the teenager working behind the counter about how the customer is always right. As Janet consumes her big extra, she contemplates where that ring of chub around her waist came from and whether she should go to the gym. Instead she concludes in favour of this Atkins diet she's heard so much about, and orders an extra side of McNuggets in hopes that the protein she thinks she is getting out of them will build muscle and replace the fat. When the kids are done their meals - they too look like they need the Atkins diet - Janet herds them back into the Escape, which turns out to be quite the hike, because the mass of SUVs and minivans moving and parked obscure her vehicle. She blames the other shoppers for being so inconsiderate, and for corporate America for building six bigbox stores with only one communal parking lot. After finding her SUV, she navigates it out of the parking lot. In the lane exiting the lot, several other cars and SUVs are backed up waiting for the light to change so they can get on the road. She honks at them for being too slow, and knocks over her drink which she brought from McDonalds. She leans over to pick up the waxpaper cup. The light changes and everyone behind her is honking. She opens the window and yells at the people behind her to shut up. She then pulls out of the lane and onto the road, where she speeds past other drivers and cuts one off so she can make the turn into her subdivision. After she gets ahead of the other driver (without signalling) she slows down and crawls around the corner into her subdivision. Up one, left, and then right. Her street, and she parks in her driveway. Out the kids come with their new toys, and into the house. It's 1:30 now and she wants to relax after a stressful day at Wal Mart, and turns on the TV. The kids scream that they want to play video games on it, and she tells them to go play in the basement on the smaller TV. They disappear, and immediately two of them fight over the controller. On the couch beside Janet are the new toys she just bought for them, already discarded. She picks up a plastic car, and reads "made in China". The toy then breaks. When its owner comes upstars, he begins crying in lament for the broken toy. He demands another one, so it's off to Wal Mart. Packed back into the SUV with a new Disney DVD, the kids wait while Janet tries to start the engine. No luck. Several more times. No luck. One more time, and success. The fuel tank is dangerously low, so she decides to take the vehicle into the repair shop. The mechanic finds the problem to be some obscure part, and has to order it. The cost is $500. In the meantime, Janet has to rent a vehicle. Of course, she picks the Dodge Durango. The kids are packed into it and they go home, leaving one child sadly unsatisfied. Janet goes onto the computer and orders the toy online. She then finds her way onto other sites, where she buys a few more things. She starts cooking dinner around 6:30 and Jim returns just in time to eat a nice hot sloppy joe. Janet spends the rest of the night subduing the kids and wondering why Jim doesn't buy her a diamond neclace to show his appreciation. Just before going to bed, Jim and Janet talk about their finances. They have very little in savings, no investments save their home, and are heavily reliant on state and company pensions and health coverage. They conclude that they will find a way to pay for all of the kids' college expenses and that Jim will just retire later. Janet rejects Jim's conjugal advances and tries to fall asleep so she can face another day.

Consider this situation with a twist. Jim now makes $50000 a year, Janet is forced to get a job to pay the bills, and the kids are a little older. Janet now works for a phone company which is unionized. She was lucky to be hired, and she works inside the company's office. She enjoys working with other women and the conversations they have. She misses a few deadlines because of her talking, and the quality of her work is less because she's always worried about her kids. She often takes off half an our early, thinking the company doesn't notice. When her supervisor, another woman, asks her about this, she just says she is having a hard time at home and says she is working her hardest. Secretly she wishes her supervisor would get off her back and that she works hard enough already. She knows that even if she is an unproductive worker, the union will protect her. Jim has to put more time in at the office in the city to make some extra money. Meanwhile, the kids, in their early teens, do the usual rebellious teen things. Two of them already have jobs to support their lifestyles; jobs at the local Wal Mart and McDonalds. They've been looking for better jobs, but there seems to be nothing in town for them. One of them is applying to college. He can't afford to pay for it, and neither can mommy or daddy. He needs some financial assistance. But mommy and daddy just voted Republican so they can get a tax break and hopefully lower gas prices for their SUVs, so this situation is not likely to change.

If you can see ANY of the problems with this situation, you are a wise person. If you think this is the essence of the good life, try to think a little harder about what I have just exposed to you. My friends and I have all faced the above situations, having grown up in the epitome of Canadian suburbia. SUVs, cookie-cutter homes on big lots, and dependance on fuel and a total lack of savings are totally unsustainable. Environmentally, socially, and financially, all the situations faced by Jim and Janet, and thier four kids, cannot continue to exist in perpetuity. A stock market crash, depleting oil stocks, or a rise in interest rates would destroy this family. Their future looks bleak. More than likely Jim's company will reneg on his pension and benefits or they will turn out to be not enough. Janet will probably likely lose her sanity and end up addicted to something or other. They will become reliant on the state for a variety of programs - oh wait, they won't because conservative governments tend to cut programs and benefits. One thing is for sure, Jim and Janet's kids are screwed. If they don't end up undisciplined criminals, they will be unable to get a job because all through school they never had the application to get good grades, nor the money for college since the only jobs within a student's range are at Wal Mart and McDonalds.

The environment cannot sustain more suburbs or SUVs. Families cannot afford a heap of kids while balancing a house, college, retirement, and other debts. Companies cannot sustain pensions and benefits for lots of workers in perpetuity, especially if their workers turn out to be unproductive and unappreciative. Children need attention and discipline, so all parents out there, know that your presence and a firm hand cannot be replaced by toys and television. Without discipline, kids grow up disrespectful, spoiled brats. Keep in mind, these kids will have to fund the pensions and health care of their parents through their jobs. If the family produces unproductive brats, they won't get good jobs. Companies will move to areas of higher intellectual capital and thus impoverish society. If the kids do turn out ok, they will need help financially for higher education. Not all of us can work at daddy's firm for $20 an hour. By demanding products and services from absolute-bottom wage places like Wal Mart and McDonalds, we are ensuring that higher wage payers are being squeezed out and jobs will be reduced to the above locations for our children.

I encourage the old, the middle aged, and the young alike to visit an old city. Take in the sights, use mass transit, buy a nice meal from a non-chain restaurant (which may cost a little more but ultimately will be more fulfilling), and top it off by going to your bank and depositing your remaining money in a savings account for a rainy day. Society is driven by market forces. The more you demand of one product or service, the less is demanded of other or traditional equivalents. Cars and roads have taken money away from busses, trolleys, and trains. Wal Mart has taken money away from local grocery stores and farmer's markets, as well as small quaint shops. McDonalds has taken money away from creative and unique restaurants and even home cooking.

Start buying local goods, using local venues, and spending your money on public transit. Vote accordingly. If you have a little extra money, SAVE IT! You don't have to buy that extra chocolate bar. You may thank me one day when you have a financial emergency and there is that savings account, ready to help you. Savings are preferable to debt, no?

Walk, exercise, and appreciate nature. It may not be around much longer.

Humanity

¡Hola!

Today I give you the main thrust of my Notions. HUMANITY is the one thing that unites us all. After you shed all constructed and imposed identities, you are left with the identity of being a Human being. I would like you to think of it now the other way around. You are a Human first and all other identites are built onto that framework, reliant and dependant on it. These identities do not exist without the framework of being Human. To put identites in priority:

1: You are a Human being.
2: You are a citizen of the world.
3: You are a citizen of your nation, province/state, region, and town/city.
4: You have a name.
5: You have certain beliefs.

Race is not an identity. In reality, we are all part of the same race. Race based on colour or ethnic background is a social construct and exists within the Human world only, outside of nature. Racial distinction itself is a form of segregation and admission of difference. Religion, or 'creed' is also a social construct. It falls under beliefs. So do political and economic affiliation, sexual orientation, and gender. Class is not truely an identity, but rather a form of economic and political affiliation which can alter or exist on two different levels during one's life.

As a Human, you will inevitably interact with other humans who share the first three identites with you. However, they only start to differ on identity #4, and at that, it is only a name. Where Humans truely begin to make the distinction between Humanity and the INDIVIDUAL is in beliefs. Sometimes we forget that 'beliefs' is #5, and seek to make it #1 above all else, even to the extent of killing other Human beings. This is called conflict. Conflict exists in nature, but in the state of nature conflict only occurs over resources, since animals are unable to formulate ideas. Groups of Humans, however, use conflict to assert their claims over certain resources, as well as to impose their beliefs on other groups or individuals.

Where two Humans interact, there is often the exchange of beliefs and ideas. How one party reacts to this exchange is a measure of a host of different indicators. Sometimes we call it civility, maturity, open mindedness, or comprehension. Civility is how far each party has advanced beyond animal instincts. Maturity is the degree of wisdom and temperence each party has achieved. Open mindedness is the willingness of each party to accept or appreciate each other's point of view. Comprehension is the ability of each party to understand where the other is coming from. Those who get angry when they hear opinions contrary to their own we ball base or savage. Those who would ignore or despise others for thinking differently we call childish. Those who are bigoted and subborn we call closed-minded. Those who are unwilling or unable to understand other points of veiw we call ignorant or foolish. You see how those that react negatively to different or opposing opinions are thus less advanced than those willing to listen or accept such ideas.

When a difference in beliefs cannot be resolved through wisdom, understanding, or acceptance, Humans have historically attempted to resolve them through brute force, an animal instinct. Over millenia brute force has taken the form of clubs, swords, muskets, rifles, nuclear bombs, and so on. The result is death and coercive pursuasion. Neither of these things we would call civil. When individuals charge groups with the burden of conflict, it becomes WAR. War is a human invention because unlike animal conflict, war endures and produces longstanding animosity. War also involves individuals that were not associated with the initial conflict of beliefs. This is how a debate between two Humans, who were not advanced enough to handle different opinions, can result in the death of millions of Humans who were previously uninvolved. These wars of ideas, products of immaturity, baseness, closed-mindedness, and ignorance, often do not resolve anything. Sometimes it takes several wars of ideas to decide a dominant system of belief (I mean that in a non-religious sense).

Power and authority are both resources and ideas. This is why power is cited as the source of a great many wars. When one system of belief seeks to dominate another, it is called hegemony. This can be expressed in a religion, a nation, or an economic system. The hegemonic system can exist by coersion, or by consent. Sometimes consent can be manufactured by coersion, but it is still coersion. So basically, existing systems of belief are around us today because we allow them or because someone has forced them upon us. Sometimes a system is unwelcome, and the only way to remove it is through action. Inaction is a form of consent. Action usually begins with thought, then organization, then activity. The key to changing hegemonies is THOUGHT.

Conflict is such a huge part of the Human race. At any given time there are numerous wars being fought all over the world. I can think of eight right now off the top of my head. Conflict is the result of differences of belief in all but one of them, that instigated by the United States in 2003. Why is there so much conflict in an age of 'reason' when world leaders are supposed to be mature, open minded, intelligent, and civilized? It is because leaders are not these things. Nor are the majority of the Human race. Many have one or more defect in their ability to recognize the great many different ideas out there. Humans are flawed. If we look to our past, we will see that our civilization has evolved over time. In comparing the development of our civilization to the lifespan of a single Human being, our early 21st century civilization has achieved the maturity of a 10-year old child. Petty squabbles, bullying, and the extensive application of force attest to this. In fact, one of the few things that keep us in relative peace is the stability of the extensive capitalist order. Without the need to produce food and goods to survive, our race would tumble into chaos over disagreements.

Despite the pitfalls of our race, we are also the paragon of all animals. Accidents in nature and fate have supplied humans with the unique ability to adapt to and alter the environments they encounter. Through this process Humans have employed labour saving tools, agriculture, trade, society, and civilization. By developing these ideas, Humans were able to scatter to different environments and conquer each and every one on earth. No other species is so adaptable. With different social groups organizing in different climactic areas, they found a desire to traffic their surplus goods to areas where such goods were unavailable in exchange for goods unavailable in other areas. This concept of trade is also unknown in the animal world. Trade is produced and affects travel, which brought different Human groups into contact with each other. This resulted in the exchange of ideas as well as resources. Sometimes these interactions were beneficial, sometimes they resulted in conflict. From these very simple concepts arose Human language, commerce, invention, and construction. This is how we distinguish ourselves from other life forms on our planet.

Humans have succeeded in mastering nature. The conditions for agriculture, motion, electricity, and radio communications existed before Humans harnessed them. By manipulating what nature gives us, we have imagined and created things that rival the spectacle of nature itself. I am writing on a computer that was forged from resources that originated from all over the globe, on an international network built by Human imagination, through a complex system of code, wires, silicon, and plastic. All of this is the child of Human ingenuity. Never doubt what we can do.

Humans are capable of vision, imagination, and creativity. These are our greatest gifts. In using them, we have the ability to do anything, and we have used them to reach where we are today. Our race has the potential to create and solve problems of massive proportions. We owe it to ourselves that we seek to achieve our own greatness, to strive to maximize our potential. But first, we have to rise above petty conflict. We have to become citizens of the world, and realize that our Humanity needs be the only factor of unification, for after all, it is the greatest thing that we all have in common. THOUGHT, UNITY, and IMAGINATION are the key to a strong, limitless future for our race.

Do not fear anything. You are a Human, and you can achieve anything you can imagine. It just starts with THOUGHT.

Appendix to History Lessons

This appendix will include things that I had forgotten when I wrote my History Lessons.

I: The Ancient Era

II: The Medieval Era

III: The Pre-Modern Era

-The invention of the printing press supplied more and more people with literature. Since copying no longer had to be done by numerous monks who sometimes made mistakes or themselves could not read, it was so much easier to mass produce and distribute books, pamphlets, and newspapers. With more exposure to the written word, people began to learn how to read. Literacy shot up between 1450 and 1650, especially in Protestant countries which encouraged the self-interpretation of the bibile, the most printed book in history. When more people read more often, they began to think about what they were reading and were able to build and establish interpretive frameworks. The asked questions. They thought.

-The funny thing about the French Revolution is that it was a revolution in the old sense of the word. Like a circle, it ran around its course and ended up at the same point it started. In the modern definition of the word, it began as a model revolution and ended as a complete failure. In 1789 the need for change was obvious. By 1793 so many different factions were fighting for ownership of the spirit of the revolution. It was decided that the revolution belonged to a certain sect of white Cathlolic men and all other interpretations were barred by 1795. This sect was not quite sure what it meant to themselves and could not agree on any particular model. This opened legislation to other sects of white Cathloic men. The Terror of 1793 was a result of this indecision.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born a Corsican. Corsica was an Italian island captured earlier in the eighteenth century by France. Napoleon went to military schools in France and began his career of fame with the'whiff of grapeshot', basically firing a cannon full of musket balls at a group of food rioters. He rose through the military ranks and was appointed to run the campaign to spread the revolution to Italy, which he successfully concluded. Then, he went after Egypt to cut off Britain from India (Britain had declared war in 1793 when the French king Louis XVI was executed for trying to bring an Autrian army into France to restpre the monarchy). The Egyptian campaign was hampered by Admiral Horatio Nelson's destruction of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 and by Captain Sir Syndey Smith, who broke the siege of Acre. Napoleon fled back to France, leaving his army to the mercy of the Turks. Without a doubt, sea power had won the campaign for Britain.

Napoleon was not to be outdone. He continued to rise in France to the position of Dictator and in 1804 Emperor. Emperor Bonaparte quickly overturned much of the revolutionary legislation of the 1790's and returned France to a conservative regime. He was a backlash against radicalism and the answer to France's stability woes and foreign enemies (for revolution had created many). Napoleon renewed his threat against Britain in 1803 by constructing an invasion fleet. Admiral Nelson would have nothing to do with this, so on October 21, 1805 he led 28 British ships against 33 French and Spanish ships and defeated them soundly without a single loss of a ship. This was TRAFALGAR, the greatest and most important naval battle in history. Without warships, Napoleon's invasion fleet would be subject to the countless British ships patrolling the English channel. There was to be no invasion. So Napoleon's greatest adversary survived to finally defeat him in 1814 and 1815, through a superior economic system and a superior navy to protect it.

In 1815 Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and was summarily deported to the tiny Atlantic island of St. Helena, off the coast of south west Africa. A monarch was reinstalled in France and in all the countries France had conquered. Everything went back to normal. Except, of course, Britain's increased maritime and commercial might.

In 1848 France endured a new revolution, restoring some of the idealogical victories of the late 18th century. Since 1789 France has constructed 5 republics. They called themselves a bastion of democracy. Yet France was the second last nation to enfranchise women, ahead of Switzerland, in 1945.

IV: The Modern Era

-Stalin and Hitler were mass murderers. Hitler is responsible for the death of over 6 million Jews. Stalin is believed to have engineered the death of 20 million people inside the USSR. These deaths were the result of deaths from WWII as well as millions who died from starvation and displacement due to his 5-year state resturcturing program. 3 million alone died in Ukraine when they were forced off their farming land so a consolidated state farm could be built.

-Another reason for the plight of the working class is their own prolific breeding. The Baby Boom, in its capacity to create infinite problems to throw the world out of equilibrium, has managed to glut the labour market and render their services in oversupply, thus decreasing their value. With Generation X and the children of the Baby Boomers entering the labour market, the supply of labour further increases, contributing to lower wages. After WWII, there was an acute shortage of labour, which contributed to the high wages and increadible power of unions until the early 1980's.