Nous sommes dans le changement
Indeed we are. Tout les mond sommes dans le changement. Change comes sometimes fast, sometimes slow; but always, inexorably. Still and yet, some would deny, attempt to slow down or even stop change. Too few recognize it when they see it.
Throughout history, blood has flowed like rivers resultant efforts to slow down or stop change. Our own Civil War, ‘The Great War’, … . Then, they couldn’t, didn’t want to see the changes that were taking place. Today; Putin and Xi; Assad, Erdoğan, Myanmar’s Junta, and Khomeini; Evangelicals and Hasidics; The American Petroleum Institute and The Federalist Society; the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys; even Saints Mitch and Donald, as did Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist afore them, ride forth to slay the dragon Change that threatens the village that was.
Nothing they can do to stop change. Feudalism is long gone. So emperorism and csarism. Dictatorship is going. Theocracy is going. Capitalism and white supremacy are going and gone. Like the tides, like the floods that came to Pakistan when the glaciers melted, change cometh. Their is an exercise in futility. Much worse, their efforts to stop change will wreak suffering and death upon innocents. In the long run, in the face of change, there’s nothing we can do but change.
That said, there are times when we do need to stop the Putins, Xis, Assads, Erdoğans, Myanmar’s Juntas, Khomeinis, Evangelicals, Hasidics, The American Petroleum Institutes, The Federalist Societies, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, and the Saints Mitch and Donald from stopping change; from doing great harm.
Change threatens our beliefs. Beliefs are held tight, tell us what’s right or wrong; weren’t made for changing. Change means coming to terms with beliefs that are no longer, maybe never were, right. Changes trouble our beliefs. Change challenges us to think; thinking makes us uneasy.
Change is not always easy. Today, Climate Change threatens livelihoods, governments, life itself. No denying – nostra culpa. Climate Change is changing the world for the worse. Now, we must change; though it’ll not be easy, there is nothing we can do but.
Sometimes change is, or should be, easy. Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, will change the world for the better. Still and yet, some resist. Indeed, we are in change.
That said, there are times when we do need to stop the —– Xis —– from stopping change; from doing great harm.
[ Offensive nonsense; definitive prejudice and nothing more.
The disdain for and hatred of a 5,000 year old civilization of 1.4 billion thoroughly benign people is shocking and beyond saddening. This is what prejudice has wrought. ]
ltr:
I would not call the proud Chinese people benign. How many dynasties were there over the centuries? What was the method of transition of civilization and power between those dynasties?
I am not of the Chinese or an expert about them as you are. I have worked with them in China and from the US. They guided me and took good care of me during my trips.
Today; —– Xi; —– ride forth to slay the dragon Change that threatens the village that was.
Wildly offensive prejudice and no more. I am really shocked, but this is evidently where blinding prejudice has taken so many in the country. Shockingly incorrect and prejudiced.
When I was a kid in the 60’s, it seemed like everything was changing at lightening pace— race relations, the sexual revolution, feminism, labor relations, rock and roll, technology, medicine etc., etc., etc., Since then change has come in fits and spurts and the one thread is that the rich get richer and everyone else treads water. The backlash against tolerance has also been incredibly intense and I do not see the tide against change ebbing in my or my children’s lifetimes. Maybe my grandchildren’s if one of several existential threats do not occur. Sorry to be a pessimist but thinking that the reactionaries are losing is wishful thinking.
the moving hand writes, and having writ, moves ion. nor all your piety nor wit can chanbe a word of it.
mister, can you spare some change?
i was going to object to this, but i didn’t want to find myself in the same pot as qtr.
yeah we got change. thnnks for telling us yes, some people don’t like some of it and vice versa. who knew?
so we should all sit back and enjoy it? as long as it fits our most cherished sound bites? or plus ça change plus ça meme chose.
but as for those 5000 years of civilization, how many beheadings would that make?
near-miss quotes and typos are mine. been undergoing some changes myself lately.
ltr
an intelligent reply. full of instructive information. is my comment more monstrous than one beheading, or thousands?
you seem to mistake ejaulations of opinion as argument or even corrective explanation. Chinese history is neither more no less benign than any other nation;s history. calling everything that questions the thoroughly benign chinese people “prejudice” does not suggest that you are in touch with reality.
“but as for those 5000 years of civilization, how many ———- would that make?”
[ A monstrous comment. Stupid and monstrous. ]
ltr
you might want to start here [google heavenly kingdom]:
“Occupying much of imperial China’s Yangzi River heartland and costing more than twenty million lives, the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64) was no ordinary peasant revolt. What most distinguished this dramatic upheaval from earlier rebellions were the spiritual beliefs of the rebels. The core of the Taiping faith focused on the belief that Shangdi, the high God of classical China, had chosen the Taiping leader, Hong Xiuquan, to establish his Heavenly Kingdom on Earth.
How were the Taiping rebels, professing this new creed, able to mount their rebellion and recruit multitudes of followers in their sweep through the empire? Thomas Reilly argues that the Taiping faith, although kindled by Protestant sources, developed into a dynamic new Chinese religion whose conception of its sovereign deity challenged the legitimacy of the Chinese empire. The Taiping rebels denounced the divine pretensions of the imperial title and the sacred character of the imperial office as blasphemous usurpations of Shangdi’s title and position. In place of the imperial institution, the rebels called for restoration of the classical system of kingship. Previous rebellions had declared their contemporary dynasties corrupt and therefore in need of revival; the Taiping, by contrast, branded the entire imperial order blasphemous and in need of replacement.”
“but as for those 5000 years of civilization, how many ———- would that make?”
“you might want to start here [google heavenly kingdom]”
[ Enough. Dealing with such racism is beyond my ability. ]
In 1849, French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose “ – the more things change, the more they stay the same…
My son, who lives in France, tells me that he often hears ‘nous sommes dans le changement’ these days. Kinda got stuck in my brain.
« Back
« Back
There were 3 French revolutions between 1789 and 1848.
So, a lot of changes, but a constant state of revolution.
prbably where the plus ça change meme originated. or in English: “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”