Heard somewhere someone saying stuff to the effect of “the 1st step of violence is to change dreams”/imagination(?). ie, say there is a cultural dream of telling people not to say certain “rude” words, if I imagine/dream of a culture where such words/terms will not be censored, then by default am being violent towards the censoring folk. Reason being that I deny the propagation of their dream, am saying – there is a better/preferred dream, at least for me. In a sense, by dreaming/imagining differently, I might be violating the dream of others – even if its not yet out there on the streets because am questioning its legitimacy to be?
I like the idea because it emphasises the imagination, and how stuck we are within violence.. However, I am a bit hesitant because it seems to me that there are – could be – a few kinds here:
* the dream that denies yours. ie you are Not allowed to dream of censoring me.
* the dream that allows both of our dreams to evolve. ie my dream of an uncensoring culture is not because i want to deny your dream, but only its monopolistic element – and my dream isn’t denying that..
However.. We can say that the denial of monopolistic dreams is violent? I think this is a violent link, but not a whole.. I think religious people tend to feel it in the way of: “my freedom to be a religious killer is a straggle for equality!!” (eg the halal rules..)
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Maybe it is interesting to note that some – a fair few – people muse their minds with Questions along: what will I do if I had the Power?.. I wonder how life would have been had people wonder more stuff along: How will it be if NoOne had power? How would it be if power was abolished? How would I do then??