From Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms:
The Italian Priest (first voice) talking with the American who is an officer in the Italian army:
"There are people who would make war. In this country there are many like that. There are other people who would not make war."
"But the first ones make them do it."
"Yes."
"And I help them."
"You are a foreigner. You are a patriot."
"And the ones who would not make war? Can they stop it?"
"I do not know."
He looked out the window again. I watched his face.
"Have they ever been able to stop it?"
"They are not organized to stop things and when they get organized their leaders sell them out."
"Then it's hopeless?"
"It is never hopeless. But sometimes I cannot hope. I try always to hope but sometimes I cannot."
"Maybe the war will be over."
"I hope so."
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I love this entry. I do feel like the one who has lost hope. Hope for peace, hope for saving our environment, hope for a country that takes care of its people . . . Sigh.
ReplyDeletePaulo Friere eventually developed the idea of a utopian pedagogy where all teaching is toward a better world. Romantics, dreamers, idealists, artists, activists, poets: we are utopians.
ReplyDeleteBut achieving this goal may not be what can be done in a lifetime. Marx called it a struggle, as in that which is unfinished, in process. Maybe that is a good thing, because if it was a fulfilled product, some corporation would hijack it, like what happened to the peace&love 60's, and use it to sell Miller Lite or Pepsi.
Consumers of the world, unite. Utopians of the world, write.