#OpenWorld: Dance Like Everyone is Watching

"Soon, many Afrikaners were calling themselves Doppers, after the little metal caps with which they snuffed out candles.  They called themselves doppers because they were deliberately and consciously extinguishing the light of the Enlightenment, so that they could do what they had to do in darkness."

      - Rian Malan, My Traitor's Heart

If you haven't seen the death of Eric Garner yet, watch it.  In particular, note the end where the officials start to get really defensive and are pushing people back.

 

It's like they realized they'd gone over the top and now wanted to be sure to avoid scrutiny. 

 

Which, in our day and age, is silly.  The worst thing you can do is try to shut down the signal - that only encourages people to sneak pics even more.

 

Think Ferguson.  Think Trayvon Martin.  Think Sammy Yatim.  The list goes on and on.  Whatever the context is, people are getting a big picture that isn't pretty.  More to the point, any extremist with a hate-on for the West gains immediate fodder for their "the West is evil" message, plus more justification for their own misdeeds.

 

Yet it comes down to individuals doing what they feel they need or want to do in a given moment.  It's Objectivisim.  And it doesn't work.

 

Today, there is no action that exists in a silo.  The walls have come down, except within our perception.

 

The world is watching what we do, as individuals, and making generalizations about all of us based on what they see.

 

Something to be conscious of.