The
technologies that inflicted upon the world the ongoing tragedies in
both the Gulf of Mexico and Japan serve a dangerous addiction, an
addiction to blind optimism, a habituation of mind that allows us to
dwell within provisional comfort zones but renders vast spaces of the
world into
deathrealms.
After each catastrophe, there ensues a
scramble to contain the damage leveled, as, concurrently, the apologist
of the present system explain the anomalous nature of the event.
Yet, this much should be obvious: Attempting to clean up the mess,
after it occurs, as oppose to altering the way of life that incurs the
damage, is analogous to an addict believing a few days in detox will
serve as a solution to his addiction.
In the same way drug
dealers are reliant on an addict's unwillingness to reflect on the
carnage created in his life, as well as, the havoc reaped in the lives
of those near him, engendered by his addiction, the small group of
hyper-wealthy elites who benefit from the current system rely on
collective cognitive dissidence (or, as it has been termed, the fear of
fear itself) to dissuade the public at large from peering deeply into
the pernicious situation.
One of an addict's biggest obstacles
is his optimism i.e., he is convinced he can figure out somehow, someway
to use his drug of choice in a less destructive way; and, by reflex,
rebels against the deepening sorrow that he must change.
When large, powerful corporations create messes beyond their
ability to control the damage wrought by their institutional cupidity,
those in charge spare no expense aggressively confronting the
problem; that is, of course, by means of public relations blitzes aimed
at the general public, while tsunami-sized waves of campaign
contributions flood the coffers of elected officials.
Apropos, a
school of thought has developed in which framing the perception of a
catastrophe supersedes all other considerations. An after the fact
casuistry, possessed of crackpot optimism, similar to the following, is
affected: Dated technologies were at fault in that particular mishap,
but, not to worry, in the near future, new innovations will safeguard
against similar calamities.
Sure thing: The future will be
bathed in the benign light of new technological wonders; our dread will
be washed away by sparkling clean coal. Magical technological
innovations will soon render nuclear power so safe that the only danger
to the general public will be posed by the risk of being smothered by
its profoundly huggable properties.
Such are the free market
capitalist's versions of End Time belief systems, a variation of the
type of magical thinking that induces an individual to scan the empty
sky, waiting for Jesus to float earthward and redeem the ceaseless folly
perpetrated by mankind.
If we are willing to accept being
lulled back into our comfort zones by such fantasies (that are as craven
as they are preposterous) we might as well wait around for hazmat crews
of leprechauns riding flying unicorns to arrive on the scene and clean
up the messes that corporate capitalist greedheads inflict on our
increasingly besieged planet.
In a manner similar to how the
indefatigable salesmen of the consumer state sell optimism, but, in
reality, deliver anomie, the propagandist of the
neo--liberal paradigm promise peace and prosperity -- yet their shock
troops, comprised of the political and media elite, instead level class
warfare at home and perpetual war abroad that renders landscapes
blighted and mindscapes shell shocked.
Among their most
pernicious contrivances has been to convince the passengers seated
aboard the runaway train of the corporate state that the blur of
landscape out the train's windows is caused by their own poor vision and
the impending crash will be due to their negative thoughts. The
implicit message imparted is: "If only you would have thought more
optimistically and worked harder, you'd have been one of life's winners
and you would have been cruising above the impending carnage in your
private jet. How sad for you, loser. And, by the way," they lie, "did
you know socialists are manning the controls of the doomed train?"
While these practitioners of the art of weasel word wizardry insist they
sell hope, in reality, they sell shame.
Growing up in the deep
south, being raised, as we say there -- not brought up, but raised--like
corn, hogs (or Lazarus or zombies from the grave) and socialized there,
shame is a subject with which I'm well acquainted; it has taken me a
lifetime (and it remains an ongoing process) to sort through and shake
out the shame-based sensibility acquired there.
"If you think
that I am dumb, There is another universe of stupidity that I can show
you!" -- comment posted on my FaceBook page when a stubborn,
inconsiderate fact would not yield to his rightist umbrage.
What is the origin of such an outlandish, inadvertently self-satirizing statement?
Shame
(its flip side being southern pride) arises, descends, converges and
intermingles from manifold influences and multiple traumas: The
bizarre-as-a-talking-serpent concept of sin passed down through
Calvinistic belief systems; the legacy of
degradations inflicted from being on the losing (and morally wrong)
side of the Civil War; as well as, the degraded social milieu that
circumscribes the lives and fates of large numbers of the permanent
white underclass residing in the region.
Shame stains southern sensibilities like red clay on Sunday whites.
A
large number of the blustering, willfully ignorant, southern men that I
grew up around, whether they are khaki clad, country club smoothies or
leather jacket-donning punk rock belligerents, were twisted inside out,
kicked and stomped insensate by shaming authority figures before they
shed their baby teeth. If one listens closely, one can detect the voice
of shame-bearing demons hissing in their every utterance.
Yet
the knowledge of the origin and source of their suffering remains buried
deep within these men. To acknowledge shame (even to oneself) is
considered a tacit admission of having something to be ashamed of i.e.,
"If you ain't got nothing to be ashamed of, you miserable peckerwood,
then you wouldn't have no need to feel it." So, more or less, the line
of thinking, rather train wreck of pathology, passing for thought, goes.
Accordingly, a strong impulse arises to explain it all away --
to claim the entire episode is a misunderstanding, or to dismiss their
feelings as being trivial, or merely an indulgence of weak-willed, thin
wrist losers, or impugn the motives of those who find grievance in the
situation. This mode of mind has made multi-millionaires of the black
magicians of rightwing talk shows, experts at performing emotional
sleight of hand tricks that displace the shame of their listeners on a
host of targets.
The cordiality of my fellow southerners is as
facile as it is fragile. In southern culture, a great deal of psychic
energy goes into distancing oneself from shame. Brooding beneath
southern culture's superficial charm and gentility is
the unspoken threat: "Be nice, now" that often translates to, "ya'll do
as I say -- and there won't be any trouble."
More often than
not, it is all made personal. Affronts are long remembered and
resentments cultivated, and being confronted with information outside of
one's realm of experience and field of reference is regarded as
condescension.
Being made to feel "less than," by insults, real
or imagined, can bring on a noxious cascade of shame and its concomitant
host of desperate evasions and violent displacements to mitigate the
feelings of unease engendered.
This is how it was explained to
me on FaceBook recently by a feller named Frank who was addressing the
issue of his loathing of liberal/socialist tyranny: "My facts are
correct. The far left is nothing more than the new set of communists
looking to take over. Just a call me a southern god fearing commie
killer who cannot wait to put more notches on his weapon if the day
ever arises again. I did enjoy killing them so. Your sheep I will never
be. That's a fact. [R]eal Americans have better things to do that
listen to your drivel. I'm out of here."
Just what kind of
demented cultural circus produces these crack-brained battalions of
killer clowns for Liberty? A culture with a brutal and rigidly enforced
(but furiously denied) class structure that inflicts constant
humiliation, yet, because of its nebulous structure, remains hidden from
view.
Therein exists the allure and tenacity of neo-confederate
hagiographic nonsense. Pride is held near, and clutched closely to
oneself, because the corporate state has left the white underclass
bereft of little else. It is painful to admit to being powerless and
devoid of a means to change the trajectory of one's fate. One feels
demoralized and diminished as a result.
Moreover, nationwide,
under the present system, riddled with vast economic inequity, the
negative repercussions for disobedience and failure are more than most
people can endure, economically as well as psychologically. In a culture
where success is deemed the end all/be all of all things, failure is
devastating. In a corporate structure rigged to benefit a privileged
few, and upward class mobility is merely a mind-fogging, cultural myth
-- then failure is altogether likely.
Combine this, with the
pernicious, puritanical/Calvinistic notion that failure is due to flawed
character, and you have a troubled population; staggered by
self-doubt, roiling in the unfocused rage of the humiliated, and primed
and stoked for demagogic displacements.
While nice liberals
retreat to their comfort zones, the forsaken laboring class constructs
insulating walls of resentment. In the US, more and more, the criteria
that forges personality and informs our condition is wrought by the
calculus of enclosure: guarded gate communities; isolation in
motor vehicles; the insular pixel fiefdoms of the internet; long work
hours, often spent in cubicles, comprised of meaningless labor, and
cut-off from both the norms of nature and resonate human contact.
These
conditions create an existence as redolent of the aromas of existence
as plastic covered cheese-food. In cultural terms, it is as if the
people of the US have become mummified in plastic packaging wrap; have
been rendered -- Body Bag People.
Of course, one yearns for the void
to be filled. But with hearts and minds mortared closed, sealed off
from the shock and humiliation experienced from the daily economic
exploitation of a hidden, intractable class system: “ what penetrates
these self-constructed prisons is loud, stupid, even fascistic in tone
and theme e.g., violent video games; the empty spectacle of
steroid-fueled professional sports hype; the exercise in Rock and Roll
imperium that US militarism has become; fundamentalist
sermons that long for the blood and thunder of Armageddon. In short,
all the Sturm and Drang necessary to pierce protective walls, yet, at
the same time, insure one remains ensconced in one's comfort zone.
Yet
the sense of powerlessness is not mitigated for long, a nebulous sense
of unease nettles. The world appears to bristle with threats; a
low-grade hysteria is maintained and ceaseless war is both convenient
and inevitable. Yet all the ramparts and fortifications of the national
security state still do not create a sense of safety; instead, its siege
mentality increases the interior void of the US populace, and, as a
result, the vitality of life is barred entrance.
Blood sacrifices must be made to the god of the inner abyss...corpses are tossed into the void.
Over
the top? Given the fact of the hundreds of thousands of corpses the US
empire has lain under the native soil of nations from the Persian Gulf
to Central Asia (and
now North Africa) in only the past decade up to the present -- which,
in combination with a government that practices and a general public
that is indifferent to the use of torture -- the image limned above
doesn't seem hyperbolic in the least.
At what point, does it
become incumbent upon an individual to seize back his identity, to
reject being defined by the exploitive, dehumanizing demands imposed
(and small bribes proffered) by corporate/governmental elites?
The ongoing tragedy in Japan reveals how dangerous it can be to refuse or defer the challenge.
Phil
Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York
City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil's
website http://philrockstroh.com/ And at
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