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Friday, June 11, 2021

Charles Bukowski on "Groupism"

It is a time of groups demanding their dignity and place under the smoggy sun. Often their demands reveal their weaknesses and cruelties, but the blinkers are on and they only see straight ahead--for themselves. Groupism can be an Al Capone gang or a ballet company. Groupism can be the Catholic Church or the men's track team at Stanford. Groupism means "win" and "win for us." Groupism means "I want mine and by God you better give it to me or else." Groupism is a demand for love through threat. Groupism will not work. Groupism will only create counter-groupism. Groupism, in a sense, isolates more than it frees. [If Mr. Bukowski were alive today even he, the cynic, would be shocked at how right he was about the effects of "Groupism."]

Charles Bukowski, "Ah, Liberation, Liberty, Lilies on the Moon!" 1971 in Charles Bukowski: Absence of the Hero, 2010

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