 Dan O’Neill cartoon from the Jefferson Airplane CD Volunteers We all want to believe everything is going to be OK. So when things are going badly, the hucksters of phony miracle cures and reassurances come out in droves like worms after a heavy downpour. We get overweight, a thousand quacks will sell us diets that ‘worked’ for a small sample of people only because they were so desperate that anything would have worked for them, for awhile. We get sick, everyone from Big Pharma to faith healers will sell us something that will heal us, their cures’ efficacy based on doctored trials and hawked by disgraced physicians in white coats. We get depressed, organized religion will pounce on us in our fragile state with promises, for a tithe, of absolution for our negative thoughts and deeds, salvation in the next, perfect, eternal life, and a community of uncritical people who will embrace us even when we loathe ourselves, and wacko psychologists will fleece us into paying for their wondrous theories and never-ending therapies, and cults will show us, if we give them everything including our minds, the one true way. And in order to sell their patrons’ flawed and dangerous products, the whores of the corporatists will lie to us and prey on our desperate desire to believe that global warming won’t happen, that our beloved SUVs are better for the environment than hybrids, that ethanol and nukes will safely, cleanly provide all the energy we will ever need, and that the only thing that’s preventing a ‘victory’ in the Middle East is those Iranians, Syrians, and Palestinians, who need to be bombed into behaving properly. So we get Exxon and Monsanto and other pathological corporatists paying scads of money to incompetent and greedy people to write phony books and articles, and then spending scads more to promote these fraudulent works, and to get morons in the mainstream media to mindlessly propagate the propaganda (and to shamelessly broadcast, as ‘advertising’, these same criminals’ deceptions — such untruths that, if they were directed against shareholders or investors rather than mere consumers, would land the perps in prison for life). And we put up with it — the greenwashing ads and the fraudulent ‘scientific’ reports and the massive publicity given to the junk science and fictitious research put out by phony ‘think tanks’ and ‘foundations’ that are simply anonymous fronts (with Orwellian names like ‘Citizens for a Free America’) for these same corporatists — because we want to believe. If we believe that we don’t have to do anything, or that nothing we do (or cease doing) will make any difference anyway, then we are free to do nothing, to go on doing what we were doing before. We do what we must, then we do what’s easy, and then we do what’s fun. There is already so much we must do, to stave off the fear of not having enough, to meet the ever-increasing expectations of the boss, the family, the lawyer, the doctor, the police, the government, and nearly everyone else, that when someone tells us “you don’t have to do anything about that, it’s all a misunderstanding, we’re taking care of it” we will accept it no matter the source or its lack of credibility. One less thing to do, to worry about. More precious time for the easy and fun stuff. It is just too much to ask us to be informed, and to think critically. Informed, critical thinking is the road to disbelief, to greater personal responsibility, to having to do more that we don’t really want to do. There is just so much stress in our lives already, we don’t want to know. We don’t want to think. The corporatists, of every stripe, and their whores, understand this. They are playing us perfectly. We are now consumers instead of customers, disengaged cynics instead of citizens. We are not responsible. The corporatists don’t tell us what we don’t want to know. They tell us reassuringly what we don’t have to do. So, dumb and complacent, we don’t know, and we do nothing. And so we can’t complain. It’s our own fault, but now we’re helpless. Funny thing about information, though. It’s like a genie that won’t go back in the bottle. You learn a little, you can’t unlearn it. You start to pay attention, and that gets you thinking, imagining, wondering. Pretty soon you don’t believe what you’re hearing, what you’re being told. You stop feeling helpless, and blaming yourself, and start to feel responsible, compelled to learn more, to become more informed and think more critically, to do something. The ads don’t work anymore. You abandon the mainstream media for information sources that are still credible. You find yourself buying less, buying more critically. You discover that learning more creates stress but also makes you happier, more alive, more self-sufficient. You no longer don’t want to know. You know. You are no longer free to do nothing. You’re free to do something. Some of the people you know seem to get this. They’ve been going through the same thing you have. But what about everyone else? Daniel Quinn would tell us there’s no point in trying to persuade them, argue with them, until they’re ready. Until then we have to just wait. But there’s so many of them. What do we do? Can we afford to wait, while so many people remain the victims of whores in five thousand dollar suits, the apologists and front men and hucksters and lawyers and politicians of all major parties and dirty trick squads of the corporatists whose pathology ruins our world, and who keep so manyin their thrall? If people won’t understand until they’re ready, how can we help them be ready, help them set themselves free? Categories: Let-Self-Change
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Waiting to Free the Crowd
I was going write a reply to this, but someone else already has.
You seem to be generalizing about the rest if of us and how we are living our lives, for example you say:You no longer don’t want to know. So, dumb and complacent, we don’t know, and we do nothing. And so we can’t complain. It’s our own fault, but now we’re helpless.I mean give us a break, this is just you feeling sorry for yourself since I would say you feel powerless to change the state of the world.There are tons of people working towards change and you do them a dis-service by lumping us all into one group of slaves. So what I am saying is that your words are just one big pity party and don’t help any of us to aspire to making the world better. A lot of what you write does make a huge difference and that is why we read your blog. But this kind of article just doesn’t help anyone. It is just saying we are all doomed. Really we aren’t doomed and there is so many amazing things happening in the world. Just check out Ted’s blog, check out the Linux community, check the shamans like Martin Prechtel, Malidoma Some, and Eliot Cowan of plant spirit medicine. Then there are people like the woman from Africa Wangari Mathi, Arun Shrivastava. These are famous people, but there are zillion more people working towards changing the world for the better for all of us. So for those that can’t do it or won’t do it, we will pull the weight and that is really sad, but there is a beauty and hope for the world in the people who are doing it.BlessingsChris
I completely disagree with Chris. I was going to say “Amen!” to this posting. I guess it’s true that generalizations don’t apply to the individual, but this post really hits home for me in terms of how I feel a lot of the time about the world’s problems: disempowered, complacent, helpless, hopeless, and like anything I might do won’t matter anyway. Or if I’m depressed I can take a pill, go to church, see my therapist, have a beer, go our for a fancy dinner, or buy myself something pretty all to make me feel better about not actually doing anything.I buy into this crap while at the same time I know that I am responsible. It’s a constant inner (and outer, for that matter) battle.And I am doing something about the worlds problems, never ceasing to look for how my world is connected to what is happening in the Middle East and how my day-to-day behavior leaves a carbon footprint. I do seek information and form critical opinions and don’t accept the infotainment as gospel truth and question everything. It is a struggle to live and love this world, this community knowing how it has to change, how I have to change myself to change the world. It is hard to know how small I am and yet how important each tiny decision is. Perhaps my actions and self-awareness will influence my neighbors and friends to think critically about themselves and their actions, too.
chris,i think that the important thing in dave’s article is not the “we are doomed” message, but the identification of the real enemies such as corporations, braindeadness etc. being doomed is really fairly irrelevant anyway, because if it is true, one might as well make the best use of one’s time and if it isn’t, then one better make the best use of one’s time ;)
Having read about these issues and others confronting civilization on this site and elsewhere, I’ve careened from dispair to hopelessness to resignation to fatalism to denial to hopefulness, etc. I’ve never been convinced that politics as they now exist present real hope, and I dispise my own learned helplessness. I’ve even fleetingly considered going more fully over to the other side, to be a “taker” rather than a “leaver” (Daniel Quinn’s terms) and enjoy the many seductions of the material economy. It hasn’t yet blended into a workable synthesis for me. Worse, perhaps, I don’t expect that preparations made now will mean much when things start pulling apart in earnest. So when that time comes (perhaps yet in my lifetime), I’m fairly certain I don’t want to survive long enough to witness much of it.All that said, I keep my eyes open and learn what I can before I must look away for a while. I don’t procelytize too much and, like Mr. Pollard, don’t believe much meaningful influence can be brought to bear on extricating ourselves from the problems we’ve gotten ourselves into. What I’m still struggling with is finding some ethical and emotional balance to deliver me somewhat from the omnipresent creeping dread I now experience.
Sometimes the experience of reading an essay is different than the experience of writing it, yes?I’ve had the experience of feeling disturbed by a post here while others seem to revel in it. So I can empathize with Chris about that experience, in general. To me this particular post seemed to be more restrained and better integrated than some previous ones. Perhaps, Chris, you responded to some other context, another post you read during the same sitting, or a trend you see here, moreso than this particular post?In my experience as one individual among Dave’s audience, there’s a category of posts which Dave seems to find beneficial to write, but which I find counterproductive to read. I now try to filter those out and ignore them. Those posts seem to come from a context that I find harmful to participate in; thus they’re not meant for me. Apparently his value system only partly overlaps mine.One overlap is the closing question, which has challenged me for quite a while: The great effort in steering people toward lasting change seems to be in assisting them to become ready. The challenge seems to be approaching the threshold of change, rather than crossing it.It’s been my experience that part of the challenge is the great variation among individuals as we approach the threshold of change. So far I have found no one-size-fits-all method of persuasion. Lots of methods work, but only for certain people at certain times. I derive satisfaction as I steer one person or a few people toward the threshold of change, but I find frustration in not being able to move more people all at once. I suspect many of us in the world-changing profession (or avocation) experience similar frustration. We do know some things that work. But they’re not working fast enough, with the gratifying sense of accomplishment that we seek. As prad suggests, however, we carry on because there’s really only one goal worth working toward.So…carry on, we shall, right?Cheers(There may be related thoughts at my little blue web site, BluePuzzle.org. Or not. Your mileage and experience may vary.)