Reply To: Key Takeaways

[Rebecca_Dobkin]

These readings were both incredibly inspiring, but also brought up a lot of really personal stuff for me. The first reading reminded me of my anarchist days as a teenager. Aging sort of made me feel like I was naive back then and unrealistic. And maybe I was. But the older I get, the more aware I am of how capitalism is just a total disaster. It’s kind of like the government structure that upholds white supremacy and the patriarchy. I’m not going to get into detail about ways of governing, but I will say that the idea to “create conditions that enable everyone to thrive,” makes a lot of sense. The role of government should absolutely be “ensuring every individual has the resources and conditions to reach their highest human potential and on creating a society based on mutual accountability, passionate reciprocity, and collective liberation.” But how do we get there? This brings me to the second reading.
The second reading really made me question myself. If I’m being honest, it reminded me of my failings. Reading about all these amazing people doing so much amazing work was so exciting. It made me think of all the really cool jobs I see posted on Idealist.org that I never apply for because I don’t think I can support myself and my child on the listed salaries. And that made me think of my own complacency in the system of white supremacy that I clearly benefit from at the expense of other people. And, again, how fucked up capitalism is. I’m still in the process of, well, processing actual words to describe what’s going on in my head after reading this article. It’s going to take some time and a whole lot more reflection.