{"id":1456,"date":"2014-04-05T12:28:05","date_gmt":"2014-04-05T17:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1456"},"modified":"2014-04-05T12:54:21","modified_gmt":"2014-04-05T17:54:21","slug":"poem-model-citizen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/05\/poem-model-citizen\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: Model Citizen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rowan was a model citizen<\/span>
\nOne-eighth scale<\/span>
\nPainstakingly posed<\/span>
\nWith animating make up<\/span>
\nAlmost lifelike<\/span><\/p>\n

This short poem, “Model Citizen,” is a reflection on the life-like which should only be mistaken for life at one’s own peril — or, in this poem’s case, at one’s community’s own peril.\u00a0 The status quo and the powers that be provide a straightforward framework, including incentives and disincentives, to behave in a certain way.\u00a0 This is a large part of what we call culture.\u00a0 Busy-ness and business are dominant aspects of modern Western civilization.\u00a0 Unfortunately, being busy, or just seeming busy, isn’t necessarily linked with human betterment or progress.\u00a0 Like Gandhi said, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”\u00a0 Surely, the capitalist business and consumer culture feeds the need for speed, ever-increasing “industriousness” to grow the economy and standard of living.\u00a0 Perhaps the best example of why this path is perilous is the reality that a “successful” growth of worldwide standard of material living requires an increasingly unsustainable exploitation and consumption of natural resources, and concomitant waste.\u00a0 If such growth is not to be a fatal planetary cancer, there needs to be wholesale changes in the way we do business, and busy-ness, as relates to the urgency of the situation.\u00a0 We cannot settle for life-light or lifelike.\u00a0 Such citizen posers may be the death of us all.<\/p>\n

This poem points to the role of good citizenship in creating, maintaining, and sustaining healthy communities and a healthy planet.\u00a0 In good citizenship, democracy is the process and the common good is the goal.\u00a0 Neither democracy nor the common good can reasonably be entrusted to elites, whether these elites are political, business, technocratic, or religious.\u00a0 It is precisely these elites which have an interest in selling us something other than the common good.\u00a0 The proprietary nature of modern existence, driven by the profit motive, has brought us to this place.\u00a0 The common good is anathema to profit as king.\u00a0 The unjust advantage held by elites is what keeps us on this perilous trajectory.\u00a0 Nominal democracy is a common tool used to fool average citizens into accepting something less than the common good.\u00a0 There is a great divide between elites, who are generally viewed as portraits of “success” — a mere fantasy for many — and the masses who would be greatly advantaged by securing the common good.\u00a0 Of course, in affluent societies, the “middle class” comprise most of the so-called “model citizens.”\u00a0 Their advantage in the larger scheme of things is sufficient to buy into the status quo, if not the powers that be.\u00a0 The amorphous common good of some possible life is bypassed for the reasonable access to the concrete benefits of living in a materially affluent society.\u00a0 Most simply put: if I’ve got mine, then risking that for something less certain seems like a bad bet.\u00a0 So we settle.\u00a0 In terms of democracy, made nominal, this appears as that oft-too-common choice of the lesser of two evils, choosing between two elites who have no real interest in the common good, other than to pacify the masses and maintain stability and predictability.\u00a0 Just note the language used with the utmost importance regarding financial interests and “markets” needing “certainty.”\u00a0 Predictability has many nice facets to it, but in this case, the greatest certainty is that the rich will grow richer and the poor will grow poorer.\u00a0 When this almost-cliche formula receives little complaint or resistance, it is a sure diagnostic that you are richer than poorer, or at least a committed wannabe richer.\u00a0 In the end, this poem is a call to the poorer masses to throw off the illusions brought by nominal democracy (in a plutocracy) and the modest temporary incentives to play it safe as a “model citizen” only one-eighth scale.\u00a0 Then, we can join together in a much truer democracy able to secure the common good for all — yes, even the richer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rowan was a model citizen One-eighth scale Painstakingly posed With animating make up Almost lifelike This short poem, “Model Citizen,” is a reflection on the life-like which should only be mistaken for life at one’s own peril — or, in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[512,397,675,606,382,607,331,170,516,385,272,116,108,392,154,614,359,418,548,379,594,522,658,94,17,107,110,114,585,568,601,31,496,106,260,53,290,406,113,470,515,85],"class_list":["post-1456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-business","tag-change","tag-citizens","tag-citizenship","tag-cliche","tag-common-good","tag-community","tag-consumption","tag-culture","tag-death","tag-democracy","tag-economy","tag-elite","tag-evil","tag-gandhi","tag-illusions","tag-life","tag-market","tag-modern","tag-nature","tag-play","tag-plutocracy","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-political","tag-poor","tag-power","tag-powers-that-be","tag-progress","tag-proprietary","tag-reality","tag-religious","tag-resistance","tag-rich","tag-risk","tag-short-poems","tag-society","tag-status","tag-status-quo","tag-success","tag-sustainable","tag-western-civilization"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: Model Citizen | Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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