The lost tribe
Some years ago, I browsed through an outdated, and somewhat notorious German book about native American tribes. One of the tribes described there was considered mysterious by the author; he described that they were settled, living in pyramidal structures. Every family had to keep a flame alive in their home - the sun was considered holy. This tribe dominated the surrounding areas, inviting the describing person to join them on sight. There were described rituals of human sacrifice through strangulation, and the whole tribe had already vanished when the book (that was released 1870 or something) was written. A few years later, I tried to find the book or an article in the encyclopedia, but I couldn't find it - the information had vanished for me, just as the described tribe. The same is true for some Scandinavian war hero: A small thug who was imprisoned by the invading Nazis, escaped, fled to Britain, and was trained as a parachute hunter to be thrown out over his old country. There he did some underground fighting until he was eventually caught and imprisoned again. He escaped by jumping off a prison boat, swam away, and kept fighting on until the end of the war. He spent the rest of his life as a moonshiner, peaceful, except some minor financial penalties for drunken indecent behavior. I'm sure that I've read that. But maybe I dreamed it? A few weeks ago I told someone that it was common to censor smudgy fairy tales on the french court to tell them to children - Little Red Riding Hood came into it's current form over this way. Doing so was called "Editing for the Dolphin", but there are no further references available over this practice on the internet. Were these things true? I don't know. All that I can tell is that I'm sure that I read them or at least something like it - of course it is possible that my memory shifted a part or two. I'm however sure that the basic information is still out there, still around - if not on the clear web, then at least in some digital archive - and maybe it will be copied around and around. Someday, given that there will be humans in the future and that the archives somehow survive, archeologists will be able to mine through this digital debris down into the deep layers of the early digital age and the fragments of the time that somehow were transitioned into it. The debris is what is to stay of us, and it is ours to shape it. I often refrain from utilizing my possibilities, for various reasons - those that aren't practical are mostly moral; I believe this is true for big parts of the left political spectrum. And because we do refrain, our political opponents who do not know any refrains succeed. If those who have the correct idea how to deal with an issue don't use the means they have at the time to implement it, even more radical means will be needed in the future - if it isn't to late by then. This problem pervades our whole society, our whole world, and our whole history - and affects "moderate" or bourgeois left movements and coherently left movements alike; the social democrats could have hindered WW1, but wanted to keep the truce with the conservatives. Later they could have prevented Hitler, but refrained from cooperating with communists - they feared that they would be considered as enemies of the democracy, and thus didn't even complain when the "Freikorps" killed everybody who tried to make potent left politics. Salvador Allende - who I don't want to blame as a person - listened to his senate when they recommended to make Pinochet a general since he wanted to respect the democratic system. Right wing think-thanks edit the Wikipedia and don't meet much resistance, as our side refrains from media manipulation - let alone pooling resources to do it right. The US democrats refrain from using every available mean against the republicans that ignore every informal rule of their system, while the left wing elements of the US democrats don't force their candidates since they refrain from harming the party. Lenin warned about Stalin's greed for power, but didn't saw a fair way to hinder him. Everyday racism stays often unaddressed as most people refrain from hurting the offenders feelings. The fear of turning into the power one despises is legitimate; it is the other big trap for left movements. But as things are, there is hardly the risk for overdoing it. We must take the risk to be unloved; we mustn't evade the conflict with those who arranged with the status quo. The most important question is if the ends are right; the second most important question should be if the means are well adjusted. The unimportant question is, if we have any chance to begin with - we won't ever know, and we won't have one if we never attempt it. We must be willing to break some things if we want to create, and we'll need to be ready to differ from our ideals of action or even give support to those of our political direction whose approaches exceeds our own moral models when it is needed. If we don't do, we are at least partly responsible for the consequences of our failure to shape a better reality - and these might be dire and cruel. If we succeed, the debris that we leave will be the foundation of the worlds to come - if we fail, our page in the book might be forgotten someday.