Dex on "Negative Identification" →
I refer to this phenomenon as oppositionism. Imagine if I told you I had a new website that was “nothing like Digg”. Well, you would assume it was very much like Digg. Saying what you are not does not tell me what you are.
You can see this phenomenon in effect wherever our generation expresses themselves. The best example is Che Guevara T-shirts. The wearers think, “I am nothing like the Bush administration,” but fail to define what they are. So they try to name the opposite, but they don’t really understand politics/economics, so they choose some scrappy revolutionary — the kind of guy who would stand up and FIGHT!!!
The fact that he believes your body and mind do not belong to you (communism) is irrelevant — the point is that he FIGHTS!
It’s like any story where “the rebels” are rebelling, but it’s never really clear what the plan is after the empire is destroyed (Star Wars). I hate the dominant paradigms, too… but I’m the guy asking, what would we build next?
Maybe we should figure that out before we load our guns.
Reminds me of a book, Made to Stick which is a very good guide on building a way to communicate ideas.
