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Our Philosophy
The rights and priviledges afforded us today are a result of the efforts of the individuals and organizations, past and present, that worked towards improving the quality of life for all oppressed, disenfranchised and marginalized groups of people. We consider ourselves to be apart of this greater enterprise of proactive social engineers, whom we study and pay homage, and in doing so draw indispensible knowledge from their methodologies, philosophies and equality-loving spirits. It is our mission to apply this knowledge as we work to solve problems of the Twenty First Century. Hence, the name, Knowledge of the Proactive Enterprise (K.O.P.E.).
K.O.P.E. believes that the world suffers from the Five Greatest Social Ills:
1. Nihilism- (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is a philosophical position which argues that existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.
In his book, Race Matters, Dr. Cornel West explicates the effects of nihilism, particularly in the African-American community (but pertinent to society at large), as being a sweeping sense of hoplessness shaping the pysche of the individual, causing the person to have a profound and entrenched negative view of him/herself and the world. He posits that nihilism is “the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness.” West goes on to describe the cultural infrastructure needed to thwart the threat of nihilism on whole communities and hypothesizes that "nihilistic buffers"- love, service, hope, faith, etc.- must be re-established in communities in order to combat wide-scale oppression and social, political and economic ghettoization. From this angle, K.O.P.E. has made one of its chief aims cultural revitalization, by serving as the epicenter for hope and community reconstruction. Our programs and intiatives are principled in the nihilistic buffers Dr. West describes and presribes for individual and communal empowerment.
2. Anti-Intellectualism- opposing or hostile to intellectuals or an intellectual view or approach.
There is a pervading attitude in American society that either passively or actively shuns academic achievement, critical analysis or question-begging. Conventional wisdom holds that this is especially true in areas of high poverty and low performing schools. However, history tells us that those who have been agitators in the name of justice and raising consciousness among the masses have been at the mercy of the power structures which deliberately withhold information from the masses of the oppressed.
3. Classism- prejudice or discrimination based on class.
The War on Poverty in America was a lofty campaign to close the widening gap between upper class and working class Americans. These efforts in the 1960s, however, were trumped by America's political preoccupation with the War in Vietnam. The zeal with which the United States government began this campaign has since been squelched and effectively removed from national dialogue.
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