On Counterculture and Politics

I don't generally consider myself part of mainstream popular culture. For the most part, I don't listen to top 40 on the Billboard charts (with Country music being the exception). I don't really watch a lot of TV, and most of the movies I watch are slowly becoming documentaries/indie films/foreign films that you can only rent on Netflix. The books I read are an amalgamation of musicology, history/historiography, philosophy, feminist/queer theory, and popcorn historical mystery/thrillers (or some not-so-popcorn versions like Name of the Rose). I'm trying to learn more "apocalypse skills;" skills like knitting, baking, cooking, woodworking, and gardening (i.e. skills that would be useful in an apocalypse). I bike to school or take the bus. I'm an unapologetic geek about what I do, and I'm openly gay. I am, for the most part, counterculture.

Now about a year ago, I moved to Oregon, to a city that seems to embody counterculture. Meaning that counterculture here IS mainstream pop culture. I am surrounded by people who are far more radical and "out there" politically and socially, and that's fine with me. I can't, however, stand the pot-shots people here take from the "counterculture" sidelines.

Here's the deal: If there's something in the world you believe is wrong, you don't get to complain and take pot-shots at the activists trying to fix it unless you are actively trying to make the change you wish to see. Period.

This means that joining a "cause" on facebook isn't enough. It means that if you're fed up with politics, or social policy, or the lack of care people tend to show towards their fellow human beings then you've got to try and fix it.

I've learned, living way out on the west coast away from most of the communities I've belonged to, that community building and political activism are two human imperatives for which everyone is responsible.

However, as Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."