Jesse Phillipe
 

   TYLER:   Dude, write a manifesto.   Make a list of your beliefs, so I can read them and know what they are.  

   JESSE: No dude.   That would take too much time.   I have too much homework, and besides, with all the discussions we have, you could probably write a manifesto of my beliefs.   God knows you don't have any beliefs of your own to distract you from mine.

   TYLER: Ha!   Yeah.   Nihilism rocks.   Being a hippie for a week was fun, but...

   JESSE: But you couldn't actually bring yourself to believe in anything, much less peace and love.

   TYLER: True.   But dude, you need to write a list of your beliefs... or, how 'bout this:   What do you want to work for or achieve in your life, like with your writing or something?

   JESSE:   Uh... well I want to work for social and political change for the betterment of society, and I want to resist oppression with my writing.   I want my writing to help people understand what oppression really is and the conclusions I, as well as others, have come to in the pursuit of truth.

   TYLER:   So then you believe in absolute truth.

   JESSE:   Well, I believe that through a lot of open-mindedness and analyzing and thinking critically, people can come to truths.   I don't believe in the knowledge of absolute truth in the same way that organized religion does, that the organized religion's interpretation of its holy book is absolute truth, and that people are given this truth without coming to the truth themselves.

   TYLER:   That's cool.   I don't have any beliefs at all, much less religious beliefs, and therefore do not believe in absolute truth.   But tell me, what kinds of things have you written about that have to do with social change or the understanding of truth, so that I can know what kinds of subjects your are talking about.

   JESSE:   I started writing about these kinds of subjects in my Resistance Writing class last semester.   At first I didn't know what I was doing, but I had some fairly good ideas, like my papers on what I called parent-child oppression.   They were about how parents influence their children to adhere to oppressive dominant social structures, whether the children grow up to be the oppressors or the oppressed.   I wrote another paper on how teachers and their assignments, especially writing assignments, influence how students write their papers, whether positively or negatively.   I used the second semester research paper assignment as my example, pointing out the problems with the assignment and how they negatively affected student papers.   I wrote another paper on the problems with organized religion and why people shouldn't necessarily ridicule the religion itself or its holy book but should understand that the problems stem from the organized religion and its interpretation of its holy book.   And finally, I wrote a paper on how the legalization of marijuana is the legalization of the way in which many people make their living and that in conjunction with a worldwide no-credit lending system, the legalization of marijuana could help eliminate gang violence.

   TYLER:   Those are some interesting ideas, but do you think people are going to agree with them?   How are you going to get your ideas to the public?

   JESSE:   Well, I am a journalism student.   So I could write for a newspaper.   Maybe one day I could get my own opinion column.   I have been writing opinion articles for the campus newspaper in light of the upcoming election: one article on the characteristics of conservatism and liberalism and another on exercising our right not to vote and reasons why one might decide not to.   But a career in journalism isn't the only path I can take to get my views to the public.   I could work for a publishing company and write my essays on the side.   Then I would have connections to publish a book of my essays.

   TYLER:   OK, so those two ways of getting your ideas to the public could work.   But newspaper readership isn't very high, and it is hard to get a job at a paper that has a high readership, and book readership is probably even lower.   The chances of you reaching a lot of people are slim.   And even then, if you present your ideas as only your opinion, as in the case of the newspaper opinion column, people are likely to disagree.

   JESSE:   That is precisely why I do and will present my ideas as conclusions and will show how I came to those conclusions, not largely uninformed opinions.   But I do have one more idea as to how I can get my ideas to the public.

   TYLER:   Pray tell, what is this idea?   What other venue do you have?

   JESSE:   I take my inspiration from Moby on this one.   You like Moby, right?

   TYLER:   Hell yeah!   Moby's cool!   You have one of his CD's, right?   Put it on.

   JESSE:   ( putting CD in CD player and pulling out CD booklet ) Look at the CD booklet.   It has essays on social change instead of lyrics.   This is what I want to do.   I want to make a music CD and put my essays in the CD booklet.   This is my dream for getting my ideas to the public, and I thank Moby greatly for the idea.

   TYLER:   Wait; you want to use our industrial band, with my nihilistic lyrics to get your ideals to the public?

   JESSE:   Not necessarily.   I could make my own CD.   But what do you care?   You're a nihilist; you couldn't care less about whether I write idealistic essays in our CD booklet.

   TYLER:   True.   I can't argue with you there.  

   JESSE:   Anyway, music is something that a lot of people care about.   Often times, people care about music more than politics or society, like you, Tyler.   This is a way to get my ideas to those people.

   TYLER:   But what right do you have to say that you know the truth?   It is really only your opinion.

   JESSE:   I don't know, with absolute certainty that I know the truth on any given subject, but at least I try not to have a strong opinion and don't assume that I know the truth concerning subjects about which I am not well informed.   It really has to do with your version of reality.   If you don't assume that you know what reality is already and you try to see the world and society the way it really is, then you will recognize oppression and other problems that need to be changed.   This recognition of oppression produces a conviction in me when I come to one of my conclusions, and I feel deep down in my soul that it is a truth.   This is philosophy, dude.   And philosophy needs rhetoric to get its point across.   In this case, I use rhetoric to get my radical ideals to the public.

   TYLER:   What do you mean by radical?

   JESSE:   I've told you this before.   It means the support of and activism for radical social change for freedom and equality and the betterment of society.   But that is a subject for another discussion.   Let's go make some crazy industrial music.

   TYLER:   Cool, dude!   Let's go.