One of the other conversations I had at the church retreat this weekend was about the nature of power. Pops and I were talking about the quality of dissent, which is something that is of vital interest to me. The specific example I used to initiate the discussion was over the example of Mountbatten vs Churchill in the matter of India. Indeed I'm reading Hitchens on Jefferson and while there are interesting enough things to discover about Jefferson himself, the conflicts over directions of the early republic are even more fascinating to me. I suspect that I'll come to understand more about the Federalists vs Anti-Federalists in due time.
Pops' provocation was that power is going to do what it does. At a certain point, he argued, principled dissent becomes meaningless.
It is an interesting question. To what extent can it be said that dissent becomes meaningless in the context of Western capitalism? Do the winners change the system so much that those they opposed never get a chance to have their way? Is the West a winner-take-all construct?
I ask this because I am thinking about the limits of human power and human civilization. That is to say at any particular moment in history, the power available to any group of people is more or less fixed. When one encounters various criticisms of things the West has done, what can be said in most every case is that there was some dissent - some individual or group in power who thought better of the inevitable mistake. We know this through a thorough reading of history, often with multiple perspectives on that history. The very act of recording such decisions for posterity and of our study is a central premise of our civilization. We try to get better, we reform, we are informed by principled dissent. And yet at the same time we will not undo the wars against Native Americans or give back Oklahoma. It is fair to judge us on that basis, but it is not fair to characterize us as if it was indeed manifest destiny that Western Civilization from its design and inception would perpetrate atrocities such as those exemplified by its deepest critics. We would still be the West even if we hadn't won the Wild West. The Enlightenment and other principles of the West would still be had serious moral lapses not taken place.
It seems to me as a black American, that it is the responsibility of the dissenter to remain engaged and effect reform. To walk away from Jim Crow would be to assert that it was the very nature of America and of the West, and that it was inevitable. Only by embodying the hope of overcoming and changing America for the better did those who suffered the indignities of Jim Crow triumph. They did what was required - the established the political will and maintained the broad coalitions necessary to change the nation for the better. This stands as an important example for all of us, which is to be mindful of the majority because without their support, reform is impossible.
Since the time of Public Enemy's days of greatness, I was struck by their rebellion's popularity. While they were saying "fight the powers that be", I always wanted to "be the power that fights". I think this is the proper ambition for those who are emergent in society. You cannot forget where you come from, but to use a family analogy, if you parents beat you it is upon you not to beat your own children. Yet some are so devastated that they refuse to bear children at all. They are the defeated. But the principled dissent comes from those who willingly take the risk and raise their own family properly. And thus it is our burden to rise to the positions of power and Do the Right Thing, instead of cursing power.
The only thing that power respects is power, and rightfully so. And it is only through the pursuit of power that emergent dissenters can come to recognize its corruptions and promise. Those who would narrow their arguments and determine themselves always to be a despised minority will never reach the point at which their principled dissent will matter. It is therefore the responsibility of those in the system to assure the integrity of it, by keeping fast to their own integrity and remaining a vital part of the system. To abandon the system is to abandon it to its worst corruptions. We who dissent, must snatch the flag from usurpers, not burn it in disgust.
To take the flag into one's own hands is patriotic. It is what we should be.
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