WHERE IS THE GOOD LIFE
Part 2 of 2
CONFRONTING THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
I wrote in Part 1:
As I am working with and interviewing young people
for the documentary I’m currently making,
and also speaking with and sometimes interviewing older people,
I have come to recognize several distressing common conditions.
CREATION OF WAGE SLAVERY
After education, for many,
jobs offer poor pay, little security and oppressive conditions
in which the financially indebted ex-student, now low-rung employee
must again be subservient/obedient to a thoughtless and remote hierarchy.
Too often, jobs are menial, isolating and fragmenting to their personalities,
with seemingly little purpose,
or they are jobs directly or indirectly supportive of morally dubious activities
as in the tobacco, financial, banking, munitions industries.
Further, those first years of wage slavery reveal that one’s youthful dreams
are probably just that, youthful dreams which need to be reengaged with,
or put to rest until re-revealed in a middle-aged crisis.
‘WE’ BECOMES ‘ME’
And then, reality dawns that we exist in a society
preoccupied with moment-by-moment experiences of little value to the soul.
That it is an aimless/hollow society
in which individuals have been led to be self-consumed, self-preoccupied,
and in which so little of their dreams and precious inner lives seem to be of value.
Whatever shards of self-esteem may have lived within the person,
little within their social and work life can nurture the needs of their souls.
This is the thunderous deconstruction into a single dimensional existence;
thus is a society in which politicians and media have continually lowered the moral bar;
thus is a society suspicious of complex ideas, of intellectualism, of arts and beauty.
And, thus is a society which has at its centre a well of ignorance and lies
about the values or community and personal existence,
and a pit of class, racial and sexual prejudices
which poisons everything we believe.
It is so, precisely because Neoliberalism purposely destroys
the sinews of sociability, collaboration and solidarity in society.
By planting into common knowledge and in the subtexts of popular culture
the idea that communality is a meaningless indulgence for ‘losers’ and ‘do-gooders’,
and for those too limited to make it on their own -
where ‘making it’ means making money,
becoming a celebrity,
consuming the ‘in’ products,
wearing the latest logos,
attending the right places
and all the other superficial banalities of a decadent society,
people lose a critical sense of themselves
because they have little of merit to measure themselves against.
WHERE ARE THE WISE VOICES?
There are few heroes,
virtually no leadership offering an inspiring programme,
and virtually no movements offering a focus for one’s better self.
The media editors, film producers, gallery curators, publishers
stand as guards at the gates of all the institutions of culture and media
(with few exceptions)
creating an intellectual and emotional vacuum –
perhaps it is also a psychic vacuum,
leaving the public manly exposed to the xenophobes, racists, anti-intellectuals
and other destructive social predators
offering hate filled, simplistic pie-in-the-sky solutions for a troubled society.
LOWERING THE INTELLECTUAL BAR
The humanist artists of the Renaissance displaced God from the centre of our world,
by celebrating the primacy of human consciousness.
This has been distorted by the Neoliberal’s suspicion and dislike of complex ideas,
combined with their selling to society
the value of material consumption and financial wealth -
which are their key determinants in valuing us and others.
They have cleverly disabused the beauty and the splendour of consciousness
so creatively revealed by the Renaissance.
The Neoliberals have shredded our belief in reason
so carefully constructed by the thinkers of the Enlightenment.
When people cry out that ‘this makes no sense’
and that ‘nothing they say is ever true’ -
(‘this’ and ‘they’ being bureaucrat’s demands,
corporation’s promises, politician’s proclamations).
this happens because rationality and truth are early victims
of a system which relies on un-truths to rule.
BEHIND THE SMOKE AND MIRRORS
If the super wealthy and their Establishment were to tell us
that their true wish is to extract as much wealth as possible from us
through maintaining low wages and taxes higher than those paid by themselves,
to seduce us into constant debt
and to leave us feeling disenfranchised,
powerless and without hope, as wage slaves, in a gigantic, globalised world,
all of which is the harsh reality.
To exclaim their truthful wishes,
they would face constant resistance if not revolution.
Given the above,
in which people do not have the moral guidance of the church
(with these words written by a person who has little trust in any property owning church corporation)
nor the sense of being embraced by a loving god,
nor a higher duty to perform either for a society wishing for our contribution,
nor to get one’s ticket punched for heaven,
and surrounded by an infantilised, hollow culture,
many of the young, especially the young,
are attracted to personal concerns,
or towards suicide,
or towards nihilism.
NOTHINGNESS OVER BEING
For the Neoliberals our nihilism is their victory.
It is the ultimate capitulation to their hollow world of materialism.
Our acceptance of the supposed meaninglessness of life
disassociates us for others,
it atomizes society and turns us away from loving and therefore loved ones,
it isolates us from our neighbours and co-workers
because we come to believe that they give us no sustenance,
no dreams nor hope.
Satisfaction emerges from serving ourselves or through destroying others;
but our imagined enemies
are all too often not the real enemy who have carefully worked for 42 years
to destroy communal feelings,
fraternal relations, and cooperative efforts to build anew.
LET CULTURE AND THE ARTS BECOME OUR CENTRE
There are antidotes to all of this, as witnessed by many of us
in the generosity and goodwill of our communities during Brexit.
(see my free set of downloadable essays here)
Amongst our opportunities are
•joining together in creating and recreating our community’s culture,
•instilling in children the desire to question,
•encouraging them to be curious and creative,
•providing them the freedom and safety to explore their shared universe,
•and encouraging their parents to join in.
We need to offer the pleasure of learning and creativity,
the joy of seeing loved ones progressing and developing,
and to involve the whole community
though exhibitions, theatre and music presentations,
festivals and dances,
cookery workshops,
sharing gardening for our common food and beautiful flowers,
sharing informal get-togethers, dances, films, readings, feasts,
and discussions.
These can be led by artists, performers,
musicians, students, graduates with no jobs,
and by anyone with the personality to offer leadership and skills
to involve others.
WITHIN OUR GRASP
Naturally these events and discussion lead to the art of living a good life –
a life better than the self-concerned atomised one so heartily created for us by the Neoliberal system,
and that may lead to the art of and calls for self-governing,
and finally to us asking ‘how do we rid ourselves of these monsters who so abuse us?
Who distort the good life?
Who have turned us into wage slaves of bad fortune
living in permanent ignorance and un-freedom?
Pipe dreams? They don’t have to be.
If those readers who have got to the bottom of this text
want a more detailed answer to the last paragraph,
please let me know by leaving a comment below. Thanks.