Staring into Buridan’s ass hole

Yesterday I met someone formally for the first time (we’d crossed paths a couple of weeks earlier).  And he told me some background about the person in charge of a current campaign that helped me see recent events in a new light.  Without getting into libelous details, suffice to say that sometimes people are using – consciously/unconsciously/whatever – popular discontent as a way of getting more attention – attention that they hope to turn into votes and a place at the ‘top’ table.

This will come as a giant shock to you, I am sure.

Anyway, it put me in mind of something I once saw outside a Friends Meeting House.  Now, I do like the Quakers (in principle more than practice perhaps?). One their favourite ‘why can’t we all just get along’ concepts, the one I saw,  goes like this.

Yeah, Buridan’s ass with a clone.

Anyhoos, it’s all nice “hold hands and sing kumbaya”, but what if one of the donkeys just will not – cannot – back down? And the other does?

What if ‘grass roots’ and ‘non-hierarchical’ groups/networks etc are harvested by narcissists who are simply not capable of (or interested in) the kind of patient ‘capacity building’ that is a necessary but not sufficient element of ‘movement-building’ (which every claims they are – proper empty signifier/motherhood-and-apple pie term that is these days).

What if? Well, look around you, mofos.  You are starring into the abyss, the hole left where civil society used to be. You are staring into Buridan’s ass hole.