The Language of Violence

I read the other day a piece about how hiphop culture (as a whole, not including outliers) is actually very conservative. It embraces not only misogyny and heterosexism, but also the corporatist money culture. The aspirations of hiphop culture are not to change the power structure of our society, but rather to become a part of it.

I have read that there are two paradigms of power, power-over and power-with. The first kind, power-over, is the system we live with today. Very wealthy people and corporations basically run our lives, sometimes extra-legally, but usually quite legally, since the government is in their control. Very few politicians, Democrat or Republican, resist their corporate overlords, and most protest movements, e.g. the tea party, are actually made of corporate shills and dupes, and are designed to blow the steam of an abused citizenry while actually further entrenching the power structure already in place.

Power-with on the other hand is a system of consciously shared power, based on an ethic of concern. Power-with means that I see that it is to my benefit that you also have all the things you need to live, whether food, clothing and shelter, as well as safe schools, safe streets, and a culture that affirms your unique worth as an individual. It is a melding of the communitarian with the diginity of the individual. We used to dream of bringing about a culture of power-with in our society. Those dreams have fallen.

We will be stuck with power-over until such time as sufficient numbers of individuals outgrow the desire to have that structure in place. In the meantime, only individuals can truly make a difference, first in themselves, then in their communities.

In the meantime, I'd like to share an old video of one of the earliest outliers in hiphop, an anti-bullying hiphop song from 1992, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy performing "The Language of Violence":

The Decline and Fall

This morning, I noticed that the little screens in the elevators in my office building were displaying the same 5 pieces of trivia they'd been displaying for all of last week. They used to change the trivia, not to mention weather reports, stock reports, etc., every hour at least. I turned to a co-worker and said, "This is what the decline and fall of an empire looks like. The little things at the edges crumble to dust first."

This decline and fall has been going on since not long after I was born. The economic elites were so frightened at the prospect of the disadvantaged in our country gaining more power and influence that they decided they would rather see the country crumble to ruins. And why not? If they themselves get to keep their wealth and power, why not let the country slide toward decay (if not actively push it along). So infrastructure, education, democratic engagement are all failing at an increasing level, and we cannot expect the economic elites to step up and lead us out of the mess.

Frankly, I do not know what to do. If there is one thing I've learned in life, it is not to count on the good sense of my fellow human beings. We seem to have a knack for aiming for the low side of mediocrity. The continued decline of the US empire will take years, I suspect. Still, if I get an opportunity to leave and go someplace better (and take Manu with me) I think I'd take it.