Going to Class

So, here's the story.

I sat down about an hour ago to write a post, because I felt like I should write something. So as I usually do, I began brainstorming ideas for topics. My thought processes when I do this generally run something like this:

"Hmmm.... blog post. Blog post, blog post, blog post.... 'blog' is such a stupid word. It doesn't even mean anything. You know what else doesn't mean anything? Election promises. Those wacky politicians, am I right? Maybe I should write about them, and their election promises, and how McCain's campaign has been going completely batshit insane.

Oh, right. Then I would be pretty much the mainstream media. Only without money or credibility.

Friggin' media. Seriously, what'd they ever do for us, anyways? It's just commercials and exploitation and capitalism and sadism and decadence. There's no real content or intelligent debate or examination of actual issues anywhere in the whole dreary nihilistic morass of it.

Hehehe. Boobies.

Okay, so maybe I could write about feminism and stuff, because the media is basically why modern feminism sucks, but I keep doing that. Then again, isn't that basically the point? You gotta keep saying stuff, gotta let the message free, because if you don't say it loudly and often, how will anyone ever take notice? Do you really expect to change the world by being silent?

Do I really expect to change the world at all?"

It was at this point that I made a realization. I do expect to change the world. I do, against all reason, against all better judgment and all prior experience, expect to be important. Expect to mean something.

So I asked myself the obvious question: why? What possible reason could I have for this ridiculous assumption?

And the answer quickly came to me: it's a class thing.

You see, as long as there have been civilizations, there has been a certain kind of person who knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they will be important, that the world balances on the tips of their fingers. Kings, aristocrats, oil barons, priests: all of these people have known, many for as long as they have been alive, just how important they are.

But I am none of these things. Though I live a life of shocking and frequently appalling privelege compared to the vast majority of human beings on this terrifying planet, I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, upper class. I have no power, nor any particular prospect of power. And yet, I believe in it anyways.

Witness, my friends, the triumph of the modern world. Call it the American Dream, if you like, call it the historical dialectic and the principle of Communism, call it the triumph of rationalism and man transcendant... call it what you will, we are achieving it. For the first time in history, ordinary people can legitimately believe themselves to be special. Important. Valuable. Everyone can believe themselves to be the kind of person who is destined for greatness. And belief is the first step on the road to truth.

It won't happen tomorrow, and it may not happen for hundreds or thousands of years - it may not happen at all; after all, far too often we seem to slide backwards, to lose the progress we have made. But on the whole, the road we are travelling is a good one. Someday, I think, we will be free.