“Discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.”
-Thomas A. Edison
Have you been feeling it? A sense that there is something lurking below the surface of perception, permeating into everything. A subliminal itch that keeps calling out to be scratched, even though it seems that nobody else around you can hear it. An intimation that the waters of our collective reality are beginning to roil. And all in time for what we are being instructed is going to be one of the hottest summers on record, in more ways than one.
The mainstream media propaganda machine has been hard at work. For weeks now, they have been attempting to program the populace into accepting an unprecedented level of violence. Outrage is being carefully stoked from a pile of smoldering embers into a blazing inferno. At the same time, the condition of an unusually temperate Spring is being usurped by the oppressive swelter of a once-in-a-millennium phenomenon. Or so we are being told.
The tensions of the ongoing American culture war are magnifying the divisions between the competing tribes; now defined and established after years of echo-chamber indoctrination. Willing participants in our own othering, we continue to return to the sources that have been misleading us from the beginning. We expect that this time will be different. “Surely, this time, the truth will win out. They just need to see it to understand. Then they will come over to our side.”
And while the majority of us continue to battle each other over the latest salvo of social indignation, the dominos continue to fall all around us. The supply chains. The housing market. Hyper-inflation. Geopolitical stability. The unquestionable supremacy of the science, and the eternal value of the dollar. The foundations of 20th century reality. The world as we believed we understood it is being methodically dismantled in front of our eyes. Why?
For the same reason anything gets torn down: so it can be rebuilt in a new image. A shiny new wrapping that proudly proclaims a new and improved product. We are being catechized, in a less than expert manner, by the talking heads and the repeaters of the propaganda machine to believe that this world is an epic failed experiment. And the only way to save what’s left of our legacy and our future is to fundamentally reshape and re-engineer what has worked for thousands of years. This is no different from the marketing campaign that convinced the wealthiest nations to buy into the original Industrial Revolution. But reality looked different 150 years ago, so some repurposing was necessary.
In a way, it’s a direct inversion. Then, the promise was industrialization would create a better life for everyone. Now, the promise is that ESG policy will solve the problems created by industrialization(and, of course, the inherent selfishness of the human species). Both are examples of the public’s willingness to believe that a needle can indeed be found inside a haystack. As long as they are not responsible for the searching, and still stand to enjoy the benefits of it.
So maybe it’s not so surprising that people are willing to watch the world burn instead of looking for a fire extinguisher. Maybe they don’t recognize the sight of the flames, or think the smell is just the neighbor’s cookout. We have decades of data from behavioral studies that show how easily and completely the ordinary individual can be deceived and manipulated. Some of this work I have highlighted in previous pieces. But even armed with this knowledge, I find myself slipping back into the pattern of expecting someone else to address these problems we currently face; and threaten to leave to succeeding generations. And it seems to me that may be the point.
The more we begin to believe that these problems are too immense, that they will never be solved completely in our lifetime, or that somebody else must have a better answer; the more likely we are to become frustrated and focus our attention toward escapism, in whatever form that may manifest. So then doesn’t it stand to reason that, when confronted with an incessant barrage of contradictory sensory inputs, the ordinary individual could be essentially “switched off?” That they could be deliberately misguided with mostly false – but sometimes accurate – information? And that, over time, the psychological weight of that confusion and frustration could cause them to implode mentally before exploding physically?
It’s obvious to me why we are seeing a surge in violent activity. The media has instructed us that this is what we will see, and some of us have already started to believe it. Add on top of that the economic devastation of the last 18 months. Add on top of that the erosion of civil liberties, and the suppression of legitimate forms of expression to the benefit of the disingenuous. Add on top of that the fear, uncertainty, and doubt of not knowing whether you can survive the next month. Add on top of that the constant reports of new million- and billionaires created from the scam-demic. Add on top of that the malfeasance of public officials flagrantly defying their own unlawful edicts, while ordinary citizens are harassed or worse for the same behavior. Add on top of that whatever you like.
If you ask me, these are all the ingredients necessary for centralized authoritarian control of a population. After all, if the public cannot solve it’s own problems, and especially if that frustration produces violence(which it will), then the cries will begin that “something must be done!” But these calls for action are always the same. “Someone else needs to do something about this because I’m not willing to risk what I have.”
The stark reality is that we have already assumed the risk for these circumstances. When we turn on Netflix and veg out for hours, we assume that risk. When we fire up the Xbox and waste entire days competing with friends and strangers in digital nothingness, we assume that risk. When we turn a blind eye to the inhumanity that we all perpetrate upon each other, every single day, we assume that risk. And every day that we, as individuals, choose not to acknowledge what is staring us dead in the face, that risk grows.
The media does not care about you. The government does not care about you. Corporations most certainly do not care about you. Their only interest is in maintaining and increasing their control over you, and thereby their power. Power which is given to them directly by you and by me, if we choose to do so. And that is the key, here: we do still have a choice. At least for the time being.
Yeah, I guess I’ve been feeling it, too. Or maybe I just picked the wrong week to quit smoking. Either way, act accordingly.
