Monday, May 28, 2012

Contradictions: There seems to be a lot of those, lately

 Over the course of a year since my last update, I began noticing more of the world around me and the contradictions of others.  I've noticed politicians on both sides of the aisle speaking about how they should come together to fix our debt problem for weeks and yet no one could decide on which plan they should go with. I've seen students within a class that I once attended talk of free speech and the exchange of ideas (This was back when I still lived in Maryland, by the way).


Yet for everyone who says this, they then turn around and try to silence those who think differently. I've even seen  people within certain positions of authority saying how they would help out this person and that person, if they are elected. Only to find out that they are either helping themselves or the people with special interests and not their constituents.


It's not surprising but it is telling how there are so many people willing to say one thing. Then, turn around and do or say something completely different.  It's happening in the political arena and just about everywhere else, including schools.


I'm sure you remember the days when you went to college. You could express your ideas and what you have to say without worrying about whether what you said was politically incorrect.  You could also exchange viewpoints and agree to disagree in the course of having an honest and open debate.


Now (in some to most cases), it seems like you can't even say what you mean or even what you feel without wondering whether you'll be shouted down and demonstrated against or thrown out of a job. It's now gotten to the point where if you are even a student who questions teachers on certain things or offers different solutions to problems (Especially if you are a student that looks at things from both sides), you are also treated as though you have committed a serious crime and will or should be punished for it because what you said was not in line with what most people think.


(For the record, I understand not wanting to hurt other people's feelings and the importance of monitoring what is said and how it's being said, but sometimes, it can go too far).




I've also noticed something else that's as much of a contradiction in and of itself. Certain people within social and political circles who go out of their way to let people know their disdain for certain problems such as tuition fees and the like through protest groups and movements.


These groups start out peaceful and let their grievances be known in a calm, and civilized manner as did the protests they made. It was all well thought-out, calculated, and organized for a lot of movements at first but then, these protests go from being something of a need to advocate against injustices in the world to becoming little more than just organized ways of mass screaming and shouting coupled with copious amounts of property damage (and possibly barricading entrances and exits that people can use).


Coincidentally, these once peaceful protests didn't always go in that direction and the few extreme incidents that did take place were few and far between.  Starting as far back as the 1960s, there was a huge problem with racism and inequality that many felt needed to be addressed. It started with simple means such as sit-ins and boycotts of places and services in which people of color were either not allowed to enter, had to enter from a separate point of entry or if they did, they had to sit or stand in places where it had signs that read: "For Colored Only".


Eventually,  these simple forms of protests grew from small proceedings to full-scale protests and marches that stretched from across multiple states and eventually led to the nation's capital. The provisions of "separate-but-equal" were eventually overturned and equality was achieved(for the most part, anyway).


This was then followed by many other social movements of that era. Protests followed with them too and it often lead to varying degrees of success. These were also thought-out, calculated, and organized. Yet all of these protests evolved from something that actually helped out and gave people chances to explore new horizons and opportunities to becoming something that just gives those who are angry an excuse to yell and scream while holding signs for causes that people can get overly emotional for (Sometimes it's justified, and sometimes not).


It's one of many examples to me that I see as a contradiction and part of the reason that I just don't bother with protest groups even if they did have certain causes and moral stances that are worth supporting.  There are some protests that do resemble what the ones of the '60s were. But, a good majority of protests in today's world have become little more than ways to inconvenience other people and be unpleasant to anyone who has a differing viewpoint if the Occupy Wall Street protests are anything to go by.


In fact, some have taken the benefits of the mid-to-late 1960s and '70s protests to use them as a means to get attention and stage similar protest movements that have the aesthetic of the early ones but with different intentions and outcomes that have nothing to do with what the original intent of the protest was meant to be. Said outcomes for these protests stand to benefit (almost) no one except for the person or small group which started it instead of the larger group that joined in for what was thought to be a noble cause.

Of course, this is all based on what I can see and most of what I'm saying could all just be observations from my own perspective.


Contradictions are funny things, aren't they?


Just so you know, I'm not saying that all protests are like this or that everyone behaves this way.

But in times like these, when you see such things happening, the phrase that will most likely pop up in your head goes will inevitably be: "The more things change, the more things stay the same."

It does make you wonder sometimes, doesn't it?