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Are you sick of injustice, poverty, and war? Do you want to do something to change the world for the better? So do we, but how?
These questions deserve serious discussion, and that is why we started Conquering the Divide. We are an open group of critical thinkers dedicated to social justice through practical action. The free exchange of ideas is vital, as we can learn so much from each other. People can ask questions here without fear of being shouted down. Our board’s atmosphere is both friendly and challenging.
One of our founding principles is the idea that a discussion board should be dedicated to learning and growth. Too many dysfunctional boards are mired in personal attacks and grudges. When rivals clash like intellectual gladiators, the first casualty is the opportunity to learn anything. We are not a high school debate team. No one here is keeping score. Conquering the Divide is a resource for education--a place to share knowledge, or to ask the questions that we need to ask.
Another founding principle is that progressives can and must be united in action, despite differences in theory. We must find principled ways to work together, in order to stop the needless suffering and death in the world. Conquering the Divide can be a resource for activism--a place to post meeting information, or to discuss tactics with local and international supporters.
We are always looking for people who know something is wrong in the world, and are determined to do something about it. Critical thinkers, progressive activists, or even people just seeking some answers are welcome to join us. We are uniting for social justice. We are Conquering the Divide.
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"Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing along with the forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. When the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests on the southern slopes, so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry in their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of water for the greater part of the year, and making it possible for them to pour still more furious torrents on the plains during the rainy seasons. Those who spread the potato in Europe were not aware that with these farinaceous tubers they were at the same time spreading scrofula. Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly." -- Engels, Dialectics of Nature
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