Punching a Hole in Bubbles of Denial and Addiction: Late Capitalism and Its Discontents of the American Autumn
The global designs of the neo-liberal agenda have met the living
architecture of a larger order -- a portion of which has taken the form
of a still coalescing, yet potent, countervailing consciousness, a
global-wide Liberty Plaza of the mind -- an order that is not informed
by corporate era public relations legerdemain, hyper-adrenaline media
sound bites, rightwing emotional displacements, or "sensible" centrist
platitudes -- but the type of order that begins to jell when the
structures of an existing system lose touch with the realities of daily
life.
A
ground-level, global-wide movement is afoot and has announced to the
economic, media and political elite that they are on to their schemes.
Accordingly, the plundering class and their protectors will no longer be
afforded the luxury of insulating themselves (almost absent
confrontation) within bubbles of privilege, bubbles of denial, bubbles
of insularity.
Late
capitalism has proven to be wholly reliant upon, in fact, addicted to,
the creation of bubbles: market and media bubbles, respectively, serving
to create inflated wealth and the manufacturing of closed narratives
that shield the privileged players within from being held accountable
for the consequences of their schemes.
The
system is analogous to a rigged game in a tawdry, traveling carnival.
The carnival barker's success hinges on whether or not his audience is
seduced by his unctuous pitch, in this case being the dubious claim
that, under late capitalism, illusionary economic success is attainable
by pluck and perseverance. ("Step right up, folks, all can play"-- but
the house will win.) Of course, the game has been rigged from the
get-go, has been designed to fleece credulous rubes who have never
glimpsed the larger world, and, when any prize at all is won, it is a
piece of cheap, disposable consumer junk.
As Autumn
stands before us, it will be helpful to allow illusions to fall away
like dying leaves. Summer is kind to fools, but winter insists on
clarity. Let the old delusions blaze out in Autumnal splendor, and then
be mindful of winter's stark perfection…its demarcations…rendering bare
branches against a bleak sky.
Know
this: The illusions of the corporate empire can no longer provide
shelter; the elite and operatives of economic imperium can no longer
raid and plunder the easy pickings of summer…hoard and squander its
bounty. Therefore, to quote the poet, at present, "One must have a mind
of winter" to navigate the white-out winds of new realities.
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind […]
-- Wallace Stevens, excerpt from The Snow Man
Yet, with
the rise of that wing of the privileged class known as the corporate
media, we receive the opposite; instead, we are enveloped within a
hothouse bloom of hype, surface-level, adrenaline-activating content
bearing misleadingly narrowed context.
On
January 17 1991, at the start of the U.S.'s formal military hostilities
against Iraq in the first Gulf War, the "folk rapper"/performance poet
Chris Chandler and I were in Lafayette Park across the street from the
White House. Chris pounded and thrashed at his battered guitar and
recited talking blues protest ditties that we composed on the spot.
We were
among a crowd of well over a couple of thousand demonstrators, plus
scores of homeless people shared the surroundings as well. Shortly after
the bombing of Iraq began, many in the park joined in an impromptu
march around the metro D.C. area where thousands more protesters joined
our ranks.
As we
wended our way back to Pennsylvania Avenue, we were met, a block from
the White House, by a phalanx of police i.e., full riot gear-clad storm
troopers and mounted sons-of-bitches on horseback who charged the crowd.
The following is a close approximation of the account of the events as reported in the next day's Washington Post:
"A few dozen ragged protesters hobbled up Pennsylvania Ave. throwing rocks and taunting the police…"
Bearing
that in mind, here is the opening graph of the account of the events on
the Brooklyn Bridge, where on Sunday, Oct 2, 2011, demonstrators were
herded, kettled and arrested by police:
"NEW YORK
(AP) — More than 700 protesters demonstrating against corporate greed,
global warming and social inequality, among other grievances, were
arrested Saturday after they swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a
lane of traffic for several hours in a tense confrontation with
police."
Buyer
beware: If the corporate press reports a breaking story with any degree
of accuracy, the act is to be viewed as a fluke and certainly not as an
act of honest intention by the reporters, producers and editors
involved. On a personal basis, I have yet to be part of an unfolding
news story in which the version of events created by these courtesans to
power do not seem simply cut out of whole cloth, as they truckled to
create an inoffensive narrative for the ruling elite.
"Now,
from America, empty indifferent things are pouring across, sham things,
dummy life…. A house, in the American sense, an American apple or a
grapevine over there, has nothing in common with the house, the fruit,
the grape into which went the hopes and reflections of our forefathers …
Live things, things that are alive — that are conscious of us — are
running out and can no longer be replaced. We are perhaps the last to
have known such things."–Rainer Maria Rilke
Living in
New York City, as I do, brings into stark relief the fact that the city
operates as a defacto banana republic/police state. In the same manner
that the mission of the police force is to protect the power and
privilege of the moneyed classes, mainstream journalists work within the
boundaries of its acceptable narratives for the purpose of job security
and a bit of privilege.
The
general population, buffeted by economic insecurity, at least, up to
this point, has remained docile, and, to mitigate the anxiety and
depression caused by feelings of powerlessness, many have become
addicted to the small perks and bribes and endless distractions of the
corporate/consumer state
Furthermore,
these bubble-enclosed states of being constitute addiction in a literal
sense: Ergo, the compulsive mechanisms of addictive behavior are an
attempt to ease an individual's abiding sense of powerlessness and the
attendant feelings of anxiety and despair experienced in the midst of
uncontrollable circumstances and to quell troubling, obsessive thoughts
and feelings of acute emotional discomfort by an habitual reliance on
mood altering substances such as alcohol, food, gambling, work,
hoarding, lust for power, wealth and privilege.
Addictive
actions arise from the drive of libido, but its energy is usurped and
exploited by the relentless will of a rigid, turned in on itself
ego..."Self will run riot," as the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous
poetically puts it.
Addiction
is a pathology of the mechanistic mind; an addict’s disregard for his
own body and his exploitative attitude towards the world at large is a
microcosmic version of the economic designs of the global economic
elite. Apropos, the world is mine to abuse, not to engage...to exploit
from within a protective bubble of privilege and entitlement, not to be
enjoined with in common communion.
The
demands of the addicted mind are analogous to that of a bratty child, a
high chair tyrant, "his majesty the baby," who is convinced that his
wants are the end all be all of all things. Therefore, a childish addict
must grow up and ask himself this question: How do I transform my
obsessive wants into the rage of my dharma, my un-reflective compulsions
into the steady work of my soul.
In our
time, when nearly all the apparatus of the corporate/consumer state
exist and are maintained by the demeaning, soul-defying dynamics of
addiction, as an act of defiance, one should attempt to get drunk on
clarity--which is a different matter than a priggish, "dry drunk's"
hyper-moralistic refusal of excess, for the primary option does not
constitute a puritanical refusal of the world--but, instead, is an
embrace of the sacred quality of life, a respect for the finite quality
of our fleeting passage through this life.
The voice
of addiction (both internal and extant in the consumer state) will say
anything and will go to craven lengths to continue on. Withal, its
narrative will insist its path is the only passage possible…that its
doomed trajectory must be maintained. And when its flimsy, desperate
arrangements do collapse, it will insist that it must be propped back up
so it can topple once again (or as this destructive act of enabling was
called, a few years back, "The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of
2008").
Let the
stock market hit bottom and allow "consumer confidence" to plummet…allow
the psyches' of consumers, addicted to distraction, to spiral into the
abyss. Because, in so doing, one may be compelled to find and grasp onto
one's essential self, as the persona of one's false self, addicted to
the present order, disappears into the void.
To truly
embrace the possibility of change, it is essential to allow putrefied
habits to compost into the rich loam that will nourish reborn
understandings. Apropos:
I felt a Funeral in my Brain
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading--treading-till it
seemed That Sense was breaking through"
--Emily Dickinson, opening stanza from, I Felt A Funeral In My Brain
Yes, this is a grievous event…a time of tears, confusion and lamination. Yet:
Let the young tears come
Let the calm hand of grief come
It is not as evil as you think.
--Rolf Jacobsen, excerpt from Sunflower
Within
the present societal structure of the corporate state, "learned
helplessness" is encouraged (as opposed to embracing reflective sorrow
and deploying focused rage). Because it sustains itself by exploiting an
individual's instinctual drives and human longings, the present order
of late capitalism is depended upon allowing an individual to possess
just enough libido to vampirize--but not to retain enough élan vital to
be roused to rebellion against the corporate state's relentless
practices of economic coercion.
"In a
consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners
of addiction and the prisoners of envy" --Ivan Illich
I have
noticed that often what is (unconsciously) beneath paranoia is envy.
Envy…that others are taking up one's space in the world and are plotting
to maintain the arrangement. Solution: Punch a hole in bubbles of
denial and addiction and take a look for yourself. Insist on your
portion of life -- your portion of fate.
Many
situations in this life are rigged e.g., the gamed system of the
corporate state. But life itself is too vast, too intricate to be
rigged; it is truly too big to fail. Now: To the streets, glistening
with renewing rain…to the flaming barricades…its flames caress the
future. Come out of self-exile; you are the change you can believe in.
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 FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100...
