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"Hope Against Hope", Part 2

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SFway	Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 9:42 pm
Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 567	My apologies...either I hit the wrong button in the right place or the right button in the wrong place. I meant for this thread to be in the "Your Union" section, and exiled myself to "The Lounge" instead. Without going through the entire introduction again (which is available in the foregoing), let me summarize the voice of "Hope"/Nadezhda, to date " Undivided power was, of course, something of which we were very afraid." "By his screams he asserts his right to live, sends a message to the outside world demanding help an calling for resistance.. If nothing else is left, one must scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity."
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SFway	Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:11 pm
Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 567	One issue we of UNCHARTED have all confronted it the apparent "apathy" of our members. We've spoken of it, berated ourselves for our inability to break down this particular barrier and occasionally - when frustrated - been critical of our brothers and sisters for their unwillingness to break out of their shells and get involved. There are, no doubt, material reasons for this situation. It is difficult to get "involved" when one is working two jobs (by neccessity, just to keep our heads above water), raising children, etc. These are understandable and common situations. A couple of points, however: first, it takes rather little time and energy to cast a ballot, especially by mail, for or against a contract or a candidate; second, greater "involvement" could mean better contracts and stronger unions which could, in part, mitigate the reality in which we are virtually compelled to work multiple jobs in order to get by. There are other aspects to the situation, some of which Nadezhda addresses from her own experience. " The loss of mutual trust is the first sign of the atomization of society...and this was just what our leaders wanted. .... There had been a time when, terrified of chaos, we had all perayed for a strong system, for a powerful hand that would stem the angry human river overflowing its banks. This fear of chaos is perhaps the most permanent of our feelings - we have still not recovered from it.... What we wanted was for the course of history to be made smooth, all the ruts and potholes removed, so there should never again be any unforeseen events and everything should flow along evenly and according to plan. This longing prepared us, psychologically, for the appearance of the Wise Leaders who would tell us where we were going. And once they were there, we no longer ventured to act without their guidance and looked to them for direct instructions and foolproof prescriptions. Since we could offer no better prescriptions of our oqwn, it was logical to accept the ones proposed from on high... In our blindness we ourselves struggled to impose unanimity - because in every disagreement, in every difference of opinion, we saw the beginnings of new anarchy and chaos. And either by silence or consent we ourselves helped the system to gain in strength..." To what degree does a similar psychology influence the behavior of our union brothers and sisters? We play "Fantasy Football" or somesuch for endless hours (and to what purpose??) while devoting little time and consideration to the basic realities we confront. The formula utilized by Imperial Rome, "bread and circuses", comes to mind here. "Our encounter with the irrational forces that so inescapably...ruled over us radically affected our minds...I maintain that all of us...were in a state close to a hypnotic trance....Propaganda...had deprived us of our will and the power to make our own judgements....It was the onset of a kind of numbness, the first symptoms of lethargy. What was there to talk about when everything had already been said, explained, signed and sealed?"
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SFway	Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 10:29 pm
Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 567	Nadezhda: "We were all the same: either sheep who went willingly to the slaughter, or respectful assistants to the executioners. Whichever role we played, we were uncannily submissive, stifling our human instincts. Why did we stand by meekly...What had we to lose?...It was something quite different: a paralyzing sense of one's own helplessness to which we were all prey...Our submissiveness only spurred on those who actively served the system. How can we escape the vicious circle?" How, indeed??
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SFway	Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 3:37 am
Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 567	Nadezhda: "Here people just tried to go on working, struggling to maintain themselves, hoping for salvation, and thinking only about their immediate concerns. In such times your daily round is like a drug. The more you have to do, the better. If you can immerse yourself in your work, the years fly by quickly, leaving only a gray blur in the memory." Lethargy - apathy...does this sound familiar??
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SFway	Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 3:29 pm
Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 567	Nadezhda: "People living under a dictatorship are soon filled with a sense of their helplessness, in which they find an excuse for their own passivity..."It's beyond my control. Who will listen to me?" Such things were said by the best of us...No wonder it was so easy for the Goliaths to destroy the last of the Davids. We all took the easy way out by keeping silent in the hope that not we but our neighbors would be killed."
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SFway	Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:18 pm
Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 567	Fantasy Football, Bread and Circuses...a line from Osip Mandelstam, the poet for whom Nadezhda fought: " The crowds come out dead, as though they have been chloroformed from the continuously overcrowded cinema"
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"Hope Against Hope", Part 2


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