I often bemoan patriarchy, government, capitalism and the socially unjust status quo, yet here I sit doing absolutely nothing to counteract any of them or any of the above, hierarchically speaking. Worse yet, I’m all too anxious to criticize anyone who is trying to counteract them. One group’s not organized enough, another is too restrictive or rigid, others are at the mercy of their imperialist funders, many of them can’t work together, and some of them don’t even want to. I guess you could say I’m protesting the protesters, or you would if you were me. You might actually say something quite different, such as: I’ve grown complacent in my comfortable status quo existence; I’ve been absorbed into the economic order; I have a vested interest in the ‘system.’ You’d be right: to counteract any of the above at this point amounts to self-destruction. I’ve taken my place as a cog, and cogs don’t counteract anything. Sometimes however, things counteract cogs.
