Who: Sif and Apollon Enjolras When: March 2, 2013 Where: Via Instant Messages! What: Arguing and reaching conclusions. Rating: All Ages, but P for Politics. Status: Complete.
LadySifofAsgard: Been wondering. LadySifofAsgard: For all your talk of revolution. What then? Would you try to set up, say, people's councils? Collective farms? How would your utopia be governed? Who'd get to decide who had what rights?
Demosthenes: It goes beyond here. I realized that last night Demosthenes: So the question of the united states is difficult but it's not where the most need IS Demosthenes: that's what I came to the realization of
LadySifofAsgard: What are you saying?
Demosthenes: well that I don't think I'm staying here long term.
LadySifofAsgard: ... If you are seriously insinuating that you and your white male privilege should go somewhere and try to impart your brand of revolution on a society you think needs you? I will have you committed, so help me God.
Demosthenes: I'm insinuating that I'm needed somewhere else, yes. Not to impart, but to speak
LadySifofAsgard: ... Have you gone COMPLETELY INSANE?
Demosthenes: There's my views and there's the truth. The truth is what matters and I need to be there FOR the truth. Demosthenes: I need to see it and commit it and get it out there Demosthenes: It's not about me screaming everything I think is best anymore. It's about me finding out what's best for whoever it is and making sure that their views are presented
LadySifofAsgard: .... that's really surprisingly not insane. I take it back.
Demosthenes: I got sidetracked by the dreams but I'm on track now.
LadySifofAsgard: I want to change the world as much as you do, is the simplest way I can put it. What scared me and still does was your method. I mean ... the point of changing the world is to improve it for the people living in it. Apollon, please, listen to me ... you talk like they're pieces on a chess table. Or you did. I don't know. LadySifofAsgard: I wouldn't trust you with anything but a book of Rousseau until you learn to see what people are and how wonderful they are. Not just pawns in your supremacy game. You may be a leader, but you'd make the worst statesman who ever lived.
Demosthenes: This is why I don't intend to be a statesman Demosthenes: I propose we get one of us into office but Combeferre, not me Demosthenes: I'm Demosthenes in this thing.
LadySifofAsgard: When did you become so disconnected? You honest to God remind me of Vladimir Lenin, Apollon. You have his fire and his burning contempt for the old order. You have his gifts of oratory, of getting people to listen to you. But you don't have the gift of seeing a person for anything but a voter or a body at a barricade. Lenin saw his populations not as allies, but as tools.
Demosthenes: There is nothing but contempt that some orders deserve Demosthenes: At home, the real home Demosthenes: there was nothing worth saving Demosthenes: not of the structures. the people yes Demosthenes: but there was nothing of those bastards that should have stayed
LadySifofAsgard: I understand that. But that's how Lenin started, too. A glorious revolution to put the people in power. To give all the power to the downtrodden and take it from the fat cats who'd oppressed them for centuries. Surely I don't have to tell you how that turned out.
Demosthenes: Of course not. And the terror went far too, admittedly, but the terror was needed Demosthenes: The last couple of days have been finding a priority in THIS world that is workable Demosthenes: and it's here and different but it's one that I can handle
LadySifofAsgard: Do not make me sit you down and tell you about all the lives the Red Terror ruined, Apollon Enjolras. I'll do it. But lives don't matter to you, do they?
Demosthenes: At any rate it has to fit the circumstances. Of course lives matter. But lives are for later. Demosthenes: And here, in this world, in this context, it's not going to come to anything like that
LadySifofAsgard: That's what scares me most of all, Apollon. I wonder sometimes. LadySifofAsgard: I really do.
Demosthenes: I don't have the skills for it. There, I knew what I was doing, knew the revolution Demosthenes: Here, I have the eye and the turn of phrase and the determination but it's different. Demosthenes: I wish that I could die for Patria again. But i need to live for the world. And here and now...it's a different context
LadySifofAsgard: Apollon, I will say this as simply and concisely as I know how to say it. I think you have amazing gifts, and I truly believe you could make some headway on whatever insane plans you have in that tortured brain of yours. But maybe seeing what truth means in other places would be good for you, because right now, the thought of you 'making headway' terrifies me. You have a brain and guts and a heart. But I think somewhere along the way? You lost your soul. Maybe Grantaire is holding it for you.
Demosthenes: If anyone holds my soul, it's Combeferre. Demosthenes: otherwise, yes exactly Demosthenes: my duty is to find and constrain myself to the truth. that's exactly how things are going to change
LadySifofAsgard: I hope you find it again.
Demosthenes: The major thing at this point is to get the stories out there. What I want and feel and think is for the blog but it means very little
LadySifofAsgard: You have the right to express what you think, though; why not use it? Despite your belief to the contrary, you are a human being and do get tired and emotional. I think.
Demosthenes: The major things are going to come about through helping to empower others, through being the words on the page. Demosthenes: I still intend to write my own things, but I also know that they aren't what's going to matter Demosthenes: It's still important to get it out there, share it, but the only way I'm going to help anyone is by telling THEIR stories. Demosthenes: by asking them to entrust me with it and being authentic and real Demosthenes: Real for them
LadySifofAsgard: You have a rare gift as a writer. I don't know. But that's neither here nor there. LadySifofAsgard: ... You don't need my approval or my anything, but I'm ... really proud of you.
Demosthenes: I understand my own views aren't exactly in place here so. The only things to do now are to retain my focus where it used to be, to try making sense of the new contexts I'm getting, and to keep on doing the other work we're doing here. *half smile* Demosthenes: But I know now that it can be done
LadySifofAsgard: I'm sorry, you know. For hammering at you like that. I only do it because I really think you have incredible talent, but talent used badly can ruin the world as much as talent used right can make it better.
Demosthenes: it helps.
LadySifofAsgard: It helps?
Demosthenes: to see how things look. This is why we have copy editors
LadySifofAsgard: I'll take that. I don't know. Think of me as R, but slightly less drunk and slightly more learned in Russian politics?
Demosthenes: Heh. Fair enough
LadySifofAsgard: I'd definitely rather be with you than against you. Just, unlike your adoring acolytes, hehe, I will tell you if I think you're full of crap.