A Rant on Personal Power

I don’t know about you, but I’m a great one for distrust. It’s not something I like about myself, but I can’t deny that it’s there. I distrust politicians and politics of all flavour — “Would you like a Strawberry Government with your McHappy Meal, sir?” I distrust corporations; I know they’re screwing up the world in return for forcing me into pointless wage work. I distrust experts, with their all too often paid-for opinions. I distrust the media, constantly ramming poisonous shit down our throats and adding to our unhappiness. I distrust the military, always spoiling for a fight to justify their sacrifices. I distrust the police, doing a hard job, sure, but one that makes them brutal, unsympathetic and desensitised. I distrust religion, seeking to enslave. I distrust the strangers around me, because I am isolated, and it makes me scared. I distrust criminals, and terrorists, and True Believers, and the MPAA, and the current rampage of anti-privacy law, and the whores who make our films and music, and… well, in fact, when I put some effort into it, I can find things to distrust in just about everyone except my nearest and dearest.

There’s nothing particular unusual about that. Nowadays, it seems like everyone I know feels much the same. Almost everyone who takes the time to look at society seems to be getting scared and cynical.

There’s a lot of crap going on in the world, rotting society from the inside. It feels like the last days of Rome; our society is made up of corruption, jaded tedium, petty cruelty and apathy, and we make ourselves feel better by saying it’s great. But we know it isn’t.

We’re programmed with the Golden Lie, right from the word go. “The only way to be happy is to strive and consume and stay isolated.” Be good little tax-producing units, so our lords and masters can feed off us.

Healthy.

I’ll pick on TV, because it’s such an easy target, and like most armchair warriors, I’ve been conditioned into laziness. It’s just one cog of course, and I wouldn’t want anyone to think I blamed it for the state of the world. Not entirely, anyway.

Soaps show us that everyday life is painful and unpleasant, teaching us to be selfish, shrewish and unfaithful. Dramas take another angle, highlighting the special, exciting, thrilling lives of those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, particularly the supposedly luxurious, idyllic lives of the rich. Violence is shown to be a good answer to your problems, and to have few consequences. Wife left you, taken the kids? Go kill some bad guys and she’ll come back. Heroes don’t get killed very often, and fights produce no bruises. Horror demonstrates that every action you can take has the potential to end up in an appalling, nightmarish situation, from answering the phone to going down to the shops. The only place of everyday contentment is inside Ad Land, where deodorant can make you beautiful, and breakfast cereal will turn you slim and glamorous.

But all this is fiction, isn’t it?

Sure it is.

Who’s reminding our subconscious minds of that, though?

The real-world shows are no better. The news continually thrusts the horrors of the world at us; a million ways to die before breakfast. Documentaries tell us to be paranoid, and to trust no-one. We should go and hide in the countryside, surely, away from fellow people? Look at the nature documentaries, though. The land is corrupted, polluted or despoiled. There’s nowhere to run. If you want to make it big, then hope to get lucky, and go compete in a puerile quiz-show or Reality TV program, or take your chances with the lottery. Oh, and don’t step outside unless you have to; there’s mad-men with guns out there.

We’re sold on the dream of the Golden Life, but it has never existed, despite “Hello!” magazine and MTV. Being rich and famous merely hammers home how hollow it all is. No wonder so many celebs go mad and get suicidal, or join the Scientologists — if there’s a difference. We’ve been convinced that all it takes to get to this mythical Nirvana is to be in the right place at the right time with the right face. How are we supposed to be happy with the real world? We can’t even be happy with ourselves; we’re too fat, or too skinny, or just too real to match the plastic, air-brushed ideals we have been force-fed.

Ralph Lauren photoshopping reality into stupidity

What are we to do, then? The answer we’re given is nice and simple. Work ourselves into an early stress grave, in order to buy the latest pair of jeans, or the latest hair spray, or the latest PS2 game, or the latest holiday, or whatever the hell it is you buy. Escape into TV or mags — getting ever more programmed — or vent your aggression away from any useful channel by playing squash or hitting your mates.

Do anything, in fact, apart from accept that your life is your own responsibility, and if you want a better one — if you actually want to feel happy or contented for a moment — you have to stop worrying about the consequences, and go for it.

I know I’m powerless. Everything and everyone in my world keeps reinforcing the fact.

Except that it’s bullshit.

Society is what we make of it. Big, scary-sounding things like “Government”, “Terrorism”, “Science”, and “Police” are all just a shared idea in the heads of the people involved in them. And they are people, despite what you may think. Not necessarily particularly generous or kindly ones, but people none the less. We all collude in allowing these big things to take shape. We get the government and society and entertainment that we tolerate.

Aspirational.

The time when there might have been a Glorious Revolution(tm) is past — and besides, I distrust revolutionaries and anyone else who wants power. There will be no sweeping struggle to reclaim the world. We’re too poisoned, and the forces that keep us chained to our desks are too strong and clever. But that doesn’t mean that the world can’t change. Mystical thinkers suggest that a shift in the way we think is round the corner, that it can save us from ourselves. Fingers crossed, eh?

In the mean time, society is just made up of lots of people. If you don’t like it, it’s people that you have to reach out to.

Post-modernism had the right idea. People don’t much want to analyse themselves and the choices they’ve made. They invest a lot of pain and effort into their lives, and the last thing they have to want to accept is that the investment was wasted. If you’re going to reach out to them, make them realise their world is their world, you have to hide it inside other stuff where they won’t notice it at first.

We all want to be happy — to feel that we have a purpose, to take control over our lives, to be secure and healthy, to love and be loved. Working like a lunatic for a fool who patronises you, in order to buy things you don’t want or need, is not the way to any of those things. Thinking for yourself, taking responsibility for your current situation — well, let’s just say it’s a good place to start. Maybe the only place to start.

The more people who realise that, the more the rest will come to realise it too. If enough people really knew, the world might start to change for the better. Hopelessly naive of me? Perhaps. It’s something to aim for, though — better that than a pair of Jimmy Chu shoes, or a copy of the latest version of Halo. Hell, it’s a purpose, and I could do with one of those.

There aren’t any heroes waiting to save us. No-one is going to make our lives better for us. Only we can do that.

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.