The Arrival of Socialism by Bicycle

Socialism can only arrive by bicycle. 

Jose Antonio Viera Gallo

One of the fundamental problems of western society is its readiness to outsource its own energy to a machine and to be taken in by the seductive sell. Whether brain or body, this readiness to outsource for the sake of 'convenience', is verging on a pandemic. The result of this 'outsorcery' is a gradual loss of self, as naturalness gives way to artifice, and the individual becomes more 'convened' to a hyper-mechanized and hyper-technologized way of being-in-the-world. This gradual loss of self itself signifies one's estrangement not just from one's own inner core, but from that which surrounds us and breathes life into us, our environment.

Our innate capacities for navigation, orientation, calculation, and worlding, have all been compromised by this outsorcery and convenience. A convenience that seeks to make us 'better' people but which in the long run, and quite paradoxically, makes us all worse off.

Socialism can only arrive by bicycle....  (Capitalism arrives by juggernaut!)

In other words, living together peacefully can only come about when we question convenience, when we start standing up to those who try to hijack our own energy, and with it, any possibility of synergetic enterprise with our world. The energetic component of the individual is not only essential to our understanding of world but to our understanding of self. In-sourcing the bodymind's own power (and what better tool than the bicycle for this?) is vital to our ability to world (as a verb), and not simply see the world as a static noun which is an object separate from a subject. 'World' is a reciprocal process, and the bicycle the great educator on the path to liberation....

'Process not progress' will be the mantra of the new utopia, and cycle paths not motorways will form its arteries.

When our governments start cycling to work (because they want to and not for advertisement), when the bicycle becomes the standard for travelling, when city mayors, and kings and queens are not afraid of a little sweat and exercise, when solidarity emerges from the great energy pool we are all immersed in, then we shall be one step closer to liberty and peace for all.

The car (whether metaphorically as being transported and screened from the outside, or literally as the great gas guzzler, polluter, and merchant of speed), we must bear in mind, is the (often concealed) catalyst behind many of the world's current crises and conflicts. The car is in effect the harbinger of war and suffering. The internal combustible engine is not something 'out there' with four wheels and a price tag, but, emphatically, 'in there', price-less, and with more horsepower, if you can learn to harness it, than you can shake a stick at.

Socialism can only arrive by bicycle...