Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
The current mayhem going on in the US is of course, nothing new—but for citizens, it’s more of a blinders off situation, where the pathology is clear to all who remotely open their eyes. The ongoing struggle for humanity can be simply distilled to a few clear dilemmas. The overarching issue with a clear subgroup of individuals is that they view all matter present in the world as a commodity, including fellow humans, and simply cannot fathom a world of reciprocity or any kind of decency obligation. Instead, they only understand the dynamics of domination and subjugation, a worldview not linked to happiness in any way shape or form. This, of course, is integral to their plunge into even deeper personal madness with others as collateral damage. Sadly, we haven’t come up with a successful way to curb the influence of these, the worst of our kind. In fact, being bloodthirsty and without empathy has been more of a path to material success and power than behaving with kindness and decency. Those individuals are the poison pills of society.
A connected pathology is the overarching need to control others. The hoarders and manipulators tell a tale; they say that they believe in personal freedom, when in fact the only freedom they believe in is their own ability to control and own others in the form acceptable to their times. If slavery is legal, they opt for that, if wage control and limiting others through economic hardship is the current paradigm, then they come up with systems that enhance this kind of society. If times allow for religion to be the most effective means of mass control, then you see the church as the dominant factor in corralling human potential. Currently we see an amalgam of retrograde religiosity paired with a plan for a sterile AI dominated technological future, both of which view the vast majority of actual human emotional needs as relatively insignificant. It is all part of the broad push towards something that only benefits those holding the levers of power.
The founders of the US put in some protections against situations that they felt might rear up and bite their own asses in the future. They spelled out that there was to be religious freedom and freedom of speech (which doesn’t seem to be holding, of course). This was paired with the glaring anachronism of slavery and the continued subjugation of half the population. The pursuit of happiness wasn’t ever meant to include all of us, and we continue today with oligarchs of the same basic nature. The world is meant to advance the pursuit of their own happiness, which I think we’ve established is a non-starter because happiness cannot be found via domination and subjugation. They simply want more as they gorge themselves on money and power. They avoid the reality that once they die they will be drops in the same ocean of humanity we all are a part of. And they avoid the truth that they are in fact a part of that same ocean of humanity while living as well. Their sense of disconnectedness is an ego-trip, making them feel superior and above the vagaries of life. It is a false notion, and their refusal to accept the connectedness is the reason they will never be satisfied. But we can’t continue to be trapped by their soulless limitations.
As I’ve written before, we are trapped in a nightmare created by these others. Most of us, deep down, just want connection, love and security. The thing is, we have been steeped in a culture that allows pretty much none of that to be a given. We get hints of the loveliness that life can contain, but insecurity is baked into the mix. The foundational level panic we all own from being born and raised in this culture can lead many of us to an arrested development. Scores of individuals cede to authoritarian and abusive daddy figures for some semblance of perceived safety. These are enormous problems of culture and society and they are simply coming to an ugly unavoidable head at this time.
So what are the core components that bring about happiness and how do we use these to combat the shackles they have us in? Of course, having needs met such as shelter and food is the base need. We are now in a situation where previous safety nets (even with their enormous holes) are disappearing. They want us terrified; they want us subservient. One way forward through this is commitment to mutual aid on a more local level. Dog killing, western-version apparatchiks want to get rid of basic decent entities such as FEMA. No, they don’t want to overhaul it to make it more useful and kind–it’s to presumably get rid of one basic aspect of a functional government that isn’t privatized. It’s telling how everything is terrible to them that isn’t privatized, with the major exception being the huge fiscal and life sinkhole that is our US military. That is just fine to have as a communal resource but nothing else works like that. Convenient worldview when you are a warmongering POS, right? Libraries don’t work!!! Socialism! Enormous, bloated military? Yummy! Getting rid of FEMA during a time of unprecedented climate change risks in a setting of escalating poverty is uniquely unhinged and evil. In this environment, we can’t simply wait for problems to occur and then discuss the lack of support. We need to begin creating webs of influence locally to care about and support each other. As much as is humanly possible, we need to remove ourselves from the sociopaths who would own us. I am hopeful the chaos will allow for areas of the nation to begin to unchain themselves from the center and become more community minded. They would have us send riches to them while receiving nothing in return, a true subjugated population.
I’m going to divert wildly now to discuss the basic need we all have to be free and I don’t mean free to exploit others. It might be freedom in terms of waking up in the morning to the sun, not an alarm. It might be the “freedom” to rest and stay in bed when you are sick instead of being forced to go make wild profits for others while ill. It might be the freedom to actually enjoy your life and spend most of it with those you love rather than spend more of that time in artificial conglomerations at the workplace. We give them so much of our time and life just for them to hoard resources.
The slicing of life into two realms, that of work and that of life isn’t going unnoticed by mass media and entertainment. Look at the wild success of a show like Severance-this beautifully done series explores the concepts of creepy corporatism, cult like behavior and the consideration that employees are basically livestock. It looks at the current corporate notion that employees only matter if they are fulfilling a greater purpose which conveniently is that of advancing the corporate entity. The show explores the logical end sci-fi actions that one could imagine a company would perform to achieve their goals. In this series, that includes a procedure to allow for a work personality severed from the off-hours personality. In a related strain, I’m sure it’s fine that Neuralink is a real thing—this is all just science fiction, right? It’s not like science fiction has shown itself to be really, really good at predictive modeling…..oh right. Sorry Octavia Butler.
You can tell a lot about a culture or time period by the stories that take hold and capture the wider imagination. Well, here’s one for you. There was a dog named Scrim in New Orleans who gained national attention for being….well, ungovernable. He was a rescue dog that simply could not be captured. He was seen on home security camera footage flying out a 2ndstory window while at a foster type home. He hit the ground running, evading capture multiple times. I urge you to look that one up and watch, it defies description how he was not injured seriously. If I recall correctly, his ultimate downfall after months of attempted captures, was a trap loaded with Popeye’s chicken (who hasn’t been there, right?). But the saga of his adventures kept a city and then the nation (when New York times took up his tale) enthralled. You might even consider that many were living somewhat vicariously through his exploits, rooting on his refusal to be contained. Yes, the little guy most likely had some PTSD issues, but the point is– the narrative caught fire because deep down we all have a bit of an urge to be ungovernable. We fantasize about escapes from the corporate world, from overloaded assignments and untenable numbers of patients in healthcare—from escaping mind-numbing “bullshit” jobs as David Graeber would put it. The fact that the story of Scrim and his escapades, of him avoiding capture for as long as he did, kept so many fascinated, says a lot more about the wants and desires of the population than it really did about the story of a skilled escape artist dog.
I’ve covered some broad territory, now it’s time to tie it all together. The foremost point I’m trying to make is that we all want and deserve a measure of freedom and respect, whether you, me, or Scrim. We are not commodities, and we deserve our time back. It is simply bad enough as it is; we cannot allow the situation to become worse. The only way we can even imagine a measure of success on those grounds will require us to support and assist each other and contribute to the zeitgeist that this push to further dehumanize us is not okay. And if we all must take the lead from a dog, that is to say become “ungovernable” then so be it. It’s time to claw our way out of that nightmare created by the oligarchs.
