SMOKE AND MIRRORS
The concepts that confuse us.
I have written this because many people I speak with
reveal that they blame themselves
for problems created by the structuring of our society.
There are concepts, simple concepts that stand like granite leviathans
in the vast flattened plane of critical thinking and challenging ideas.
As we gaze at them, we realise they are related,
being part of the same insane human story.
As with all knowledge, being able to name a thing
gives one some power over it,
or at least the ability to see it exists.
These following seven concepts stand amongst the leviathans
as warnings against living an unquestioned life
whilst unconsciously accepting being oppressed:
unfreedom
austerity
precarity
soulless materialism
false consciousness
cultural canon
one dimensional man
Following are brief descriptions.
The first, UNFREEDOM, is a socially constructed condition
in which the people’s liberty and freedom*
are restricted by the decisions and use of those decisions as social policy
by no more that 10% of the population.
This 10% consists of all those involved in controlling society:
politicians, the whole of the legal system, the security services,
the entire bureaucratic offices of the state, the military, the social services, etc.
They wish to control us in order to extract as much wealth as possible from us
with as little cost as possible to the bankers, CEO’s, investors, etc.
UNFREEDOM is seemingly invisible,
it is a state of something not happening,
it is something that has been normalized by being born into it,
it is something un-named and unrecognised taught in schools,
insisted upon by parents who have thoughtlessly accepted it as normal
and pass it on as a duty:
“you must behave”,
“be normal”,
“don’t rock the boat”,
“be good, do as you are told.”
In part this necessitates their imposition on us of AUSTERITY,
a political/cultural and economic programme
and key tool in their financial attack upon us –
an attack which aims to transfer as much wealth as possible
from the people to the oligarchs.
This is why we see how the financial wellbeing of the working and middle classes
has dwindled as the very rich get richer**.
This means freezing wages in relation to cost of living increases,
and even in relation to increased production efficiency.
This means price gouging: increasing the cost of food, clothing, housing and heating
to increase corporate profits beyond increased expenses to them.
They create inflation which makes us relatively poorer.
AUSTERITY costs us more but we receive less,
as their politicians close our schools, hospitals, libraries, youth clubs, food banks;
as they reduce street cleaning, caring for cemeteries,
repairing schools and roads;
as they cut benefits and the care for those whom they have made homeless;
and as they cut benefits for those who are ill, unemployed, alone, helpless.
It means higher taxes and more new taxes (as VAT) on working people.
AUSTERITY is unnecessary and cruel.
It is as barbaric as the Victorian’s indentured servants,
poor houses and debtor’s prisons were.
All of the above lead to emotional and financial insecurity
which the oligarchs have given the name PRECARITY
defined as “a precarious existence, lacking in predictability, job security,
material or psychological welfare.
The social class defined by this condition has been termed the precariat.”
Wikipedia
Yes, they have invented a name for it
and Alan Greenspan, ex head of the American Treasury
said to the Senate, that given all his accomplishment
he was most proud of spreading PRECARITY to the American workers.
A significant part of the emotional insecurity
arises from the HOLLOW MATERIALISM
the oligarchs have surrounded us with through education,
their popular culture and their news.
They have replaced critical thinking in schools with banal facts,
especially within the teaching of history.
In their popular culture
they continually picture the undereducated victims of their education systems
as inchoate, silly, demeaned idiots.
They celebrate militarism, nationalism, often religion (meaning Christianity)
but picture freedom fighters around the world as terrorists.
They celebrate gaining riches as the only happy making goal in life.
They demean intellectuals who, in films, are often in the role of the bad guys.
On TV game shows and soaps
the depiction of the ‘lower classes’ falls into greedy stupidity
Is it any wonder that our young grow up depressed, hopeless and spiritually lost?
All of this fosters FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS,
the state of being in which we are led to believe
that which is bad for us is good and natural.
The endless manipulation of our understanding of the world
leads us to believe for moments
that what our leaders and the media say is true and beneficial,
but they never are.
The institutions of government, industry, and the financial markets
(credit cards, bank accounts, mortgages, insurance)
combined with the way in which their intentions are to lead us to PRECARITY
generation after generation,
makes certain most of us will prefer to flow with the crowd,
to be anonymous,
to be conventional
and to not be aware of the need to stand back and look at one’s own condition
to recognise it is in fact similar to one’s friends and family,
and that the problems are social not personal.
FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS encourages a sense of inevitability,
that the status quo is the best we can expect
and that any attempt to bring change is useless
and that one can only have little hope.
This is all vicious towards the people
and reveals how the depth of greed drives the wealthy.
The control of education and culture is in part carefully managed.
Historically it has been proven that of the three ways to control a society:
1 under the threat of arrest, torture and the bayonet,
2 by buying off 10% of the population with honours, position, power
and a modicum of wealth,
3 or by ideologically convincing the mass of the population
that what they have is the present normal.
The oligrachs know the last one is the cheapest.
The American humourist and author, Mark Twain wrote:
“if you don’t read the newspaper in the morning
(or these days, listen to the news)
you are uninformed;
if you do read it, you are misinformed”
Whilst much of this is carefully and consciously controlled
there is a CULTURAL CANON to which the 10% of people
who perform the duties to maintain the status quo,
consciously or not adhere to.
What this means is that
a teacher or police officer or bureaucrat
will follow unstated but implied norms,
attitudes, behaviour
and in so doing will guide
or when necessary compel the rest of us to do likewise
or be penalised (to pay a ticket, a fine, a demand)
or to be isolated,
barred from the media, the club, the housing list etc.
In the end, once we have been exposed to all the above
we become, what Herbert Marcuse called the ONE DIMENSIONAL MAN [sic: person).
He outlined the rise of new forms of social repression.
He wrote that "advanced industrial society created false needs
which increased people’s individual consumption.
These needs seduced individuals into the existing system
of production and consumption
through their use of the mass media, advertising, industrial management,
and standard ways of thinking.”
This results in a "one-dimensional" universe of ideas and behavior,
in which aptitude and critical thought disappear.
The concept of ONE DIMENSIONAL MAN
implies other dimensions of human experience existed
but have been eliminated.
He also wrote that technological rationality,
had diminished other aspects of contemporary life,
and continue to serve the oppressive interests of the ruling class.
Marcuse understood that consumerism is a form of social control.
Although the system we live in claims to be democratic,
it is actually authoritarian because a tiny minority of wealthy individuals
dictate our understanding of freedom
by only allowing us choices to buy for happiness.
In this state of "UNFREEDOM",’ consumers act irrationally,
working more than they are required to gain actual basic needs,
ignoring the negative psychologically effects of the long hours,
ignoring the waste and environmental damage excess consumption causes,
and through the lens of HOLLOW MATERIALISM.
they search in vain for answers.
You see, all of these conditions are linked
and have been linked purposely
to accommodate those few people who own the world.
Next week I will write an essay which outlines the writers
who have helped me to understand these things.
NOTES
Perspective, clarity, order. Thank you, Robert.