We play it too safe. We spend our lives trying to please others, trying to fit in; not stand out. And we end up small, hiding and obedient. As humans we tell ourselves we’re free, but it’s an illusion. We are surrounded by instructions, by people telling us what to do and how to live. And we let them because we believe that changing the world is impossible.
We lead sucky lives where we bite our tongues. Lives in which we never voice our objections because we don’t want to offend, get fired, be punished or worse, be poor.
But we know the world around us is broken. Companies monetise our attention. Platforms use algorithms to influence how we think, what we do and what we buy. The natural world is being decimated, the environment is screaming at us to stop consuming and belching waste all over our ecosystems. And despite seeing it everywhere we still do nothing.
It’s all lies
Everyone is lying to us. Corporations that knowingly destroy our natural resources lie to us on our televisions, telling us that they are doing good, that they care about the world, our children and us. We know they’re lying. But we keep sitting in front of the fucking television, or computer monitor and numb ourselves with entertainment. Our governments and elected officials lie and spin to avoid having to enact any change. And we keep electing them because we don’t know what the answer is, and we know that they don’t know, but better the devil you know…
We go out and buy stuff, we watch sport, we drink wine and distract ourselves in the hopes that we can escape the feeling we all have in our guts. To escape the silent panic and despair that took hold of our insides when it dawned on us that nobody had a plan. That everyone in power is lying. That the name of the game is ‘don’t get found out’ instead of ‘make things better’.
Winners and losers
Inequality became the theme of the past decade. We know that people struggle to find work, to make enough money to feed themselves and to look after their children. But the narrative we’ve been fed over the past 40 years is that our systems, capitalism in particular, are meritocratic. That those who work hard are rewarded and those who don’t will struggle. But this just isn’t true. Wealth since the 19th century has gravitated to the wealthy. The world’s 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than 4.6 billion people; that’s 60% of the world’s population. The 22 wealthiest people in the world have more wealth than all the women in Africa, combined.
And still we do nothing to address any of it. Because we all secretly hope and believe that we’ll become, maybe not billionaires, but definitely millionaires. And when that happens we don’t want our wealth to be taken from us. We are told that the system works and that we all stand a chance to benefit. And we are told this by the people who benefit most from things not changing; those who have power and who have wealth. And their story is powerful because we want it to be true. We want to believe our dream life is within our grasp.
It’s all about the money
What all this comes down to is money. Corporations need to grow, which requires more money. We want to grow wealthy and live in fuck-off big houses which requires money. We want to signal to our friends that we’re wealthy by having professionally architected gardens – money. American economist and sociologist, Thorstein Veblen coined the term ‘conspicuous consumption’ – the practice of signaling success and wealth through what we buy as opposed to who we are or what we do.
We have been indoctrinated into consumerism. Advertising and media have reinforced the concept that the things we own and how we look are the metrics against which we are judged, and against which we should judge (or envy) others. And consumerism is an incredibly effective way to manage a populace. Instead of using force, governments and corporations turn to PR and advertising to keep us focused on our inadequacies. Inadequacies that can only be mitigated through buying stuff. And in order to buy stuff, we need to make money, which means we have to work more. It’s a cycle of manipulation by corporations leading to a behavioural shift in why we believe we work and how we spend our money.
And then it’s all about obedience
A little more than a century ago it became evident to governments in major democracies that they wouldn’t be able to control their populations by force alone. In the mid 19th century, the woman’s franchise and labour movements and later the discovery of psychedelics combined with the social conscience that was driven largely by music saw the populations of Britain and the United States being described as having won too much freedom. If you don’t believe me, read the report written for the Trilateral Commission in 1975; The Crisis of Democracy. The report concluded that the challenges the US had in governing their populace ‘stem from an excess of democracy’ and recommended restoring ‘the prestige and the authority of central government institutions’. Several Trilateral Commission members went on to have roles in the Lyndon and Carter Presidential administrations.
The report went on to assign blame, stating that in the US and Europe, schools, universities and churches weren’t attending to their responsibilities of indoctrinating the young to make them more passive and obedient. So other means had to be found to control people. And that is where the advertising and PR industries saw their boom. From the 1950’s onwards, PR and advertising exploded as an industry. There was a media-naïve audience experiencing the wonders of radio and TV for the first time, and there were corporations desperate to grow market share, backed by governments who were deeply troubled by what they believed could end up being an ungovernable generation.
China a case study
I find it interesting to see how China manages its rapidly growing middle class. When their middle class was small and their wider Chinese population largely uneducated, coercion was an effective tool with which the Chinese Communist Party controlled its citizens. However, as the Chinese grew wealthier and a genuine middle class emerged, the CCP pivoted their economic policies which allowed a faux-capitalist economy to be evolve. With this shift global and luxury brands have established themselves in the People’s Republic in the hopes that they can access one of the largest markets on the planet. Which seems to have led to more Louis Vuitton and less Tiananmen Square.
My Answer – changing the world requires sacrifice
When I first started writing this post I was angry. I was going to call this piece, Be a fucking Pirate. And I planned to demand that everyone stand up and start the revolution. Part of me still would like a revolution, however that part of me is 20 years old and has a horrible goatee – and one should never listen to anyone with a goatee.
Truth is we have to stop the cycle of distraction. We have to see entertainment, shopping, sport etc. for what they really are; a way to stop us from considering the issues that truly matter. We need to learn to inoculate ourselves from the insidiousness of advertising, and the PR and spin shoveled at us by our governments and the corporations we work for. We do this by knowing who we truly are and by recognising that most of the media that’s fed to us is designed to seed uncertainty in who we are and what we believe in.
It’s time we face up to and deal with the things that concern us; the issues that have us worry for our futures and our children’s futures. If we want change we have to actually do something. We have to stop spending our money with brands that we know don’t give a shit about anything other than their bottom lines. We have to vote out the politicians who refuse to take action against climate change, corporate tax avoidance, corruption, inequality and discrimination. And we have to understand (and this one is going to be tough to swallow) that things will be hard for a while. That we might not have the mansions we wanted, or the cars we hoped for. That we won’t be rich but that instead we are going to struggle.
The time has come for us to sacrifice, to sacrifice our dreams of wealth, of possessions and of recognition.
Our generation’s World War won’t be overcoming the COVID pandemic. Our World War will be the sacrifices we make and the suffering we endure to change our social narratives. And to ensure the ongoing prosperity of our species on this planet.