Since day one, La Pampa\u00b4s Critical Mass has been flooded with questions on which was its origins, backgrounds, ideologies and what did it have to say about this and that.<\/em> The bike started to protrude in several conversations and, within the process of inserting the bike in the urban life, new kinds of debate appear.<\/p>\n Trying to postulate it as an apolitical movement generates uncertainty or takes out some of its credibility, and some people end up taking it as something with no purpose at all. The most constructive criticism they made us, was saying that the Critical Mass was non-party, not representing any political party in particular, but indeed representing a lot of things with a high political content.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n And it is true; from some point of view, whatever we do today in a social level is permeated by politics\u2026 This is why I wanted to give some credit to these opinions, as well as shedding some light over my humble non-political view.<\/p>\n A great friend of mine (and one of Ploff.net\u2019s colaborators), Agust\u00edn Dar\u00edo Estala, International Relations Graduate, was always true when making any type of objective and constructive criticism when we were debating. A strong duo we made\u2026 and we talked about politics, economy and the environment from a utopic, positive, and, why not, possible long term vision.<\/p>\n \u00a8Since first year I had a subject on Political Sciences\u2026\u00a8 -Agustin wrote to me a few months ago- \u00a8I kept a definition in mind, which, although vague, was the best and made me defend the concept and feel happy every time people made politics and obviously made me feel I was in the right place:<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a8Politics is the <\/em>art of what is <\/em>possible\u00a8<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n It is with this definition in which I stand when I speak and enjoy politics; and it is much wider but it would have nothing to do with anything\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n Politics is from where I believe you can transform thing and that light me up on fire. Either through the State, NGO\u00b4s, associations, from work, class, etc., because politics covers ALL, precisely because we live in society.\u00a8<\/em><\/p>\n He always said to me: what you are doing, without even realizing, is a political speech.<\/em> And I could not conceive it; I always try to be politically neutral, but in his defence, when someone starts defragmenting the system to make it more intricate and intertwined to Gaia, one cannot avoid stumbling upon bureaucratic obstacles and politicians (extremely antique and narrow minded). Hence, we end up falling into politics in order to make us be heard<\/span>. This crossroad must be passed by all those who want to change something big in world. Anthony Giddens, sociologist, expresses it very well:<\/p>\n \u201cMust the sociologists actively defend and take forward public actions in favour of practical reforming programmes or social change? There are those who defend that sociology can preserve its objectivity only if those who practice it are carefully neutral in moral and political controversies, but there is no reason at all to think that those who study and stay aside of the actual debates are necessarily more impartial than others in their examination of sociological matters. An unbreakable bond exists between the study of sociology and the social consciousness exigencies. No one with sociological knowledge can be unconscious about the inequities existing in the world today, the lack of social justice in many social situations o the privations suffered by millions of people<\/span>. It would be weird for sociologists not to take sides over practical manners, and it would be as illogic as unpractical to try and ban them from using their sociological knowledge when doing so.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I was stunned when I read those lines for the first time. The fragment I underlined for you simply told me that when someone gains awareness, when someone comes to realize what is going on in the world, he is compelled to activate himself\u2026 he is willing to be part of change, he can no longer stay quiet in front of the TV. And it is then when you fall on politics. In this sense, assisting the Critical Mass can be loaded with political content. Because the cause and effect logical relationships end up on politics\u2026<\/p>\n Bikers rolling down the streets, flowing like a river, people observing, stunned, conversations taken forward afterwards, the evidence of a system crying out for a replacement, and the consecutive political decisions which must follow in order to make a daily reality emerge from a biking coincidence: a society which wants to transport itself in a sustainable way.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n My need to denominate the Critical Mass as apolitical comes from a more simplistic perspective, which tries to see it as it is, in its pure essence, avoiding labels<\/em>. In essence, what we want is to change the world, no matter how utopic it may seem.<\/strong> To re-establish the good vibes among our planet, ourselves and the entire biosphere.<\/p>\n Debating and opinion exchanging will always be important for us to make ourselves be heard seriously. But I want us to use the lack of capacity of language<\/em> when trying to transmit emotions and deep thoughts from our unconscious in our favour. We cannot explain everything with words, and the ecological paradigm shift transcends politics, the world of finance and our implanted belief systems.<\/p>\n![\"BA](\"https:\/\/ploff.net\/beta\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/BA-98-EL-PODER-DEL-PEDAL.jpg\")
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