coyote theories of satyagraha
May. 14th, 2009 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brushwolfIn Satyagraha in South Africa, Gandhi says something along the lines of how asatya, untruth, is also unreality, and because of this it cannot persist. I haven't actually read Satyagraha in South Africa, by the way; this shows up in my copy of the Upanishads.
Anyway.
So I'm reading TV Tropes' page about ethnic stereotypes, and remembered something I've run into before - whenever you've got opposition, you've got ridicule. Humor fits into politics and social change.
For every group out there asking society to change, there's someone getting mileage out of what are usually pretty stale stereotypes... because change is absurd at first. And absurdity makes for good material. You know the sort of thing, right? "Women wearing pants? Goodness, the next thing you know they'll want the right to vote, and equal wages, and... it's quite droll." It's a laugh riot if you're a Victorian male. If you're a Victorian woman, maybe not so much.
Where this plays into Gandhi; bumper stickers and the like (always fonts of deep societal truth,eh?) have mentioned that reality has a well-known liberal bias. Ultimately, the people pushing for social change can be absurd, but they've got nothing on the establishment. I mean... keeping people as property? Saying that having separate washrooms, seating, rules for voting, athletic teams, army units, and so on is equality? Saying that half the adult population simply isn't suited to vote? Suggesting that the best way you can protect kids' innocence is to push them towards unsafe sex, unwanted parenthood, abusive marriages, and back-alley abortions? Suggesting that perfectly decent adults who love each other can't get married because somehow it really upsets a deity? This is all seriously absurd stuff.
Ultimately, truth prevails because untruth is pretty ridiculous. Social change is pretty much inevitable, like the nice ascetic guy said. 'Course, the flip side is, you've got all the people who've lived and sometimes died with a really untenable situation, while waiting for social change to win out...
Anyway.
So I'm reading TV Tropes' page about ethnic stereotypes, and remembered something I've run into before - whenever you've got opposition, you've got ridicule. Humor fits into politics and social change.
For every group out there asking society to change, there's someone getting mileage out of what are usually pretty stale stereotypes... because change is absurd at first. And absurdity makes for good material. You know the sort of thing, right? "Women wearing pants? Goodness, the next thing you know they'll want the right to vote, and equal wages, and... it's quite droll." It's a laugh riot if you're a Victorian male. If you're a Victorian woman, maybe not so much.
Where this plays into Gandhi; bumper stickers and the like (always fonts of deep societal truth,eh?) have mentioned that reality has a well-known liberal bias. Ultimately, the people pushing for social change can be absurd, but they've got nothing on the establishment. I mean... keeping people as property? Saying that having separate washrooms, seating, rules for voting, athletic teams, army units, and so on is equality? Saying that half the adult population simply isn't suited to vote? Suggesting that the best way you can protect kids' innocence is to push them towards unsafe sex, unwanted parenthood, abusive marriages, and back-alley abortions? Suggesting that perfectly decent adults who love each other can't get married because somehow it really upsets a deity? This is all seriously absurd stuff.
Ultimately, truth prevails because untruth is pretty ridiculous. Social change is pretty much inevitable, like the nice ascetic guy said. 'Course, the flip side is, you've got all the people who've lived and sometimes died with a really untenable situation, while waiting for social change to win out...
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-16 01:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-21 05:29 am (UTC)