Action and Change

There's a quote from Sartre which I like. I found it in a novel by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, a marvelous Mexican writer. The novel is An Easy Thing, and it's a tough guy detective story which asks, what really happened to Emiliano Zapata? Who murdered the Mexican Revolution? This is the quote from Sartre, roughly: "The only hope is in action."

I agree with this. In the end, there is no certain hope. We can only act.

My problem is that I'm an intellectual, more likely to hit a computer keyboard than to hit the bricks. I would far rather stay home and write.

I need a justification for what I do. It is as follows: (a) thinking and writing are a form of action, and (b) a good analysis is necessary if action is going to be effective. You have to have at least some idea of what the problem is, who the enemy is and what you want to achieve. The better the analysis is, the more effective the action is likely to be.

Our visions of the future help us act toward creating the future. Gene Roddenberry did something important when he gave us the universe of Star Trek. It is flawed in many ways, but it is also in many ways humane.

This is why I so much hate the famous Thatcher line, "There is no alterative." It is a vicious lie, which tells us that action is futile and change is impossible.

And this is why I love science fiction. It always says that change in inevitable. The future will be different. It is up to us to make the difference a good one.