blog time: I’m that person that always speaks out and even when I try to muzzle myself … it doesn’t work.
On my patio, a beautiful day, finally. It was beginning to feel like winter was coming on, but it passed, hopefully. A nasty wasp is vying for my attention, but I have a flyswatter, and he will get my full attention if he doesn’t get lost soon!
I did not write this but I’m passing this on because this explains my need to always speak out… it’s that simple. Finally, an explanation put into context that everyone can understand … yes, even me! I want to print this and put it on my wall, WE MATTER, if you see something say something. Finally an explanation for the way I am, thank you to whoever wrote this and shared it.
This is such an important warning, well past due:
cut/paste from Grace Panther:
“I remember hearing about this, it fucking rocked me. So very relevant to our world right now. Please read.
In 1974, Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović created one of the most disturbing works in modern art.
It was called Rhythm 0.
Rhythm 0 took place at Studio Morra in Naples and lasted six hours. Abramović stood motionless beside a table containing 72 objects. The audience was told they could use any of them on her and that she would accept full responsibility.
Some objects were harmless: a rose, a feather, honey and flowers. Others could wound or kill: scissors, razor blades, knives, a whip, a gun and a single bullet.
At first, people treated her gently. They gave her flowers, kissed her and carefully moved her body.
Then the atmosphere changed.
Once the audience understood that Abramović would not resist, speak or defend herself, some people began testing how far they could go. Her clothes were cut away. Her skin was cut with a razor. Rose thorns were pressed into her body. She was exposed, humiliated and treated not as a human being, but as an object available for public use.
At one point, someone placed the loaded gun against her neck. Another audience member intervened. By then, the crowd had divided between those willing to harm her, those trying to protect her and those who simply stood nearby and watched.
That third group matters.
The lesson of Rhythm 0 is not only that some people will become cruel when they are given power and believe there will be no consequences. It is also that cruelty depends on spectators.
Abuse rarely survives through the actions of one person alone. It survives because others remain silent, look away, avoid taking sides or convince themselves that what is happening is not their responsibility.
The people watching Abramović were not all as culpable as those cutting and threatening her. But their passivity helped create the environment in which the abuse could continue. Silence did not make them neutral. It made them part of the conditions that allowed it.
When the six hours ended, Abramović began moving and walked towards the audience.
The relationship changed instantly. She was no longer a silent object. She was a person looking directly at those who had touched her, cut her, threatened her or watched it happen.
According to Abramović, many could not face her. They avoided her gaze or left the room rather than confront what they had done—or what they had allowed others to do.
That is why Rhythm 0 remains relevant.
The world is full of people who insist they are “not political,” “do not take sides” or prefer to stay out of conflict. But when people are being abused, persecuted, exploited or dehumanised, refusing to take a position is itself a position. It protects the status quo and leaves the victim to face the aggressor alone.
You do not need to be perfect, powerful or heroic. You do not need to devote every waking moment to activism. But every person has some capacity to object, intervene, speak, organize, vote, support victims, challenge lies or refuse to cooperate with cruelty.
Those who use that capacity to harm others deserve condemnation.
Those who have the power to resist and repeatedly choose silence should not congratulate themselves for being neutral. They should ask why their comfort mattered more than another person’s suffering.
A better world is not created by private decency alone. It is created when people are willing to make their values visible, oppose those doing harm and accept some personal cost for standing beside those with less power.
Rhythm 0 was not only a warning about what bad people may do.
It was a warning about what everyone else may allow.”
August 16th 20206