| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper" |
|---|
John Brown 2012 |
| | Would he stand for every human rights cause one could stand for in this multifaceted, infinitely more complicated world than the one he inhabited? Would he be Malcolm X, Eleanor Roosevelt and Cesar Chavez all rolled into one? |
|
<
< | Ultimately, I'm wondering whether John Brown could live in America today at all. He could subsist on food made locally and clothes sewn in America, but what about his tax payments which fund private militias in the Middle East which have slaughtered thousands of innocent civilians? What about the ground John walks on, stolen first during the genocide of Native Americans and second from the poor via eminent domain? |
>
> | Ultimately, I'm wondering whether John Brown could live in America today at all.
He could subsist on food made locally and clothes sewn in America, but what about his tax payments which fund private militias in the Middle East which have slaughtered thousands of innocent civilians? What about the ground John walks on, stolen first during the genocide of Native Americans and second from the poor via eminent domain? |
| | He needs a computer to hash out his plans, but the titanium in the computer was purchased from warlords and malevolent mining corporations in Africa. He sits at a desk made of wood from the Amazon, cut by timber companies that are displacing thousands of villages in Latin America and causing the extinction of millions of species. |
|
<
< | I want to find John Brown today, but I don't know that he can exist at all. |
>
> | How much would John Brown give up? |
| | My Modern Reinterpretation of John Brown |
| | Maybe the purity and absolutism with which John Brown fought for freedom isn't something a single person can replicate in today's infinitely complicated world, but rather an identity a community or even a nation could aspire to attain, together. |
|
<
< | Or maybe I'm bullshitting. Maybe John Brown would sequester himself from all of this and fight the good fight. It could be that I'm simply rationalizing because I don't have the fortitude to give up my life - so I blame the world around me. Maybe John Brown wouldn't put on that shirt and those pants in the morning. Maybe he wouldn't pick up a coffee on the way to class. |
>
> | Or maybe I'm bullshitting. Maybe John Brown would sequester himself from all of this and fight the good fight. It could very well be that I'm simply rationalizing because I don't have the fortitude to give up my life, so I blame the world around me. Maybe John Brown wouldn't put on that shirt and those pants in the morning. Maybe he wouldn't pick up a coffee on the way to class.
I'd like to think I would've been by his side in the 1850s, willing to give up my life. I want to live like I'm by his side in the world we inhabit today. I can't even answer the question as to whether I have the courage to live the life of John Brown, because I don't know what it would be in the first place. But I hope I'm always striving towards it.
I'm not talking about the actual man so much as what he represents, at least to me. To me, John Brown represents a person who stood for the right thing well beyond what was culturally acceptable or convenient. He stood for true moral convictions, absent any regard for the line we're not supposed to cross - the line where NGO meets radicalism. John Brown was well past the line where convictions became "uncivilized" or "radical". He was questioning the unquestioned. He was hanged for that.
I'm wondering how many questions he would be asking in today's world. As the questions grow in both size and quantity, so too does the sacrifice.
I suppose I'm not wondering about John Brown at all. I want to know where my line is and how far it deviates from society's line - how far I'm willing to deviate. I want to know how many questions I'm willing to ask, even when it's less than convenient. Can I stand against criticism, opprobrium; the figurative or literal threat of the noose? That's what I want to learn of myself through my career. |
| | |
|
<
< | But I'm not willing to give up on finding my John Brown just because I'm not willing to give up my life. The John Brown in me is a person willing to learn to align his life closer to his convictions. I'm not the man John Brown was. I can't say what I would've done if I were around in the 1850s. |
>
> | "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." Martin Luther King Jr. |
| | |
|
<
< | I'd like to think I would've been by his side, and I want to live like I'm by his side in the world we inhabit today. I can't even answer the question as to whether I have the courage to live the life of John Brown, because I don't know what it would be in the first place. But I hope I'm always striving towards it. |
>
> | Where will I stand? |