We Are So Fucked
I’m going to try to articulate some ideas here and nobody is going to read them, which is central to what I want to say. Our society is splintered in dozens of ways, nearly all of which are reparable. Most people I know consider themselves virulently anti-Trump. Most Trump supporters I know consider themselves battle-scarred free-thinkers who had to shrug off a gauntlet of corporate media propaganda to arrive at their views. Meanwhile, the anti-Trump camp considers Trump supporters overweight, underdressed knuckle-draggers. But if Trump’s base seems less educated, less wealthy, less sophisticated, is that a reason to scoff? Why are so many Americans susceptible to what Trump is selling? Racism is too facile an answer. But whether Trump’s base is willing to tolerate intemperate language if it leads to greater economic opportunity, or they prefer white supremacy to diversity, why hasn’t the intellectual firepower of American liberals brought enlightenment to rural Michigan? What do urban anti-gun activists know about varmints? What do outspoken advocates for racial and economic justice know about the vacuum of capital where heavy machinery manufacturing used to thrive?
Meanwhile, after staying couped up for months, we took to the streets to proclaim neither passive nor homicidal racism would be tolerated any longer. We all know the names George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. But going back to what we do and don’t know based on what’s beamed onto our screens, note the kinship we feel with unarmed black victims of police violence and the contempt we feel for the trailer park. Injustices are occurring all over the place. Some we have to research to understand or even realize exist, some are bombarded at us by the media and some we’ll never know about. How does it get determined which stories get headline treatment, which get buried on back pages and which get ignored? And who is involved in those decisions? 95% of the people I know with advanced degrees believe whatever the New York Times tells them to. And more than 50% of the people I know without a bachelor’s degree recognize that major media outlets, be they Fox, Comcast, Disney, Viacom, Facebook, Google or Amazon all apply manipulative criteria to which stories get amplified and which get muffled.
It feels exhilirating to see beyond face value, to be contrarian and even iconoclastic and have your rebellious impulses validated by the most powerful man in the world. What sort of comparable thrill is the woke crowd offering? Lockstep agreement on language to use around current reckoning with historical atrocities? Will that work? Has it thus far?
None of this is to take Trump’s side and pooh pooh his opposition. It’s to get the opposition to take a break from mocking the rubes who voted for him in order to recognize manipulative forces at work on Blue America. And it’s to call attention to how readily we disdain. We all carry pain, we all process it differently. There is a very great fear out there that acknowledging pain is a form of weakness that could lead to societal collapse. The rise of the beta male. I’m not ready to invalidate that fear. Maybe that’s me. But one person’s hurdle is another person’s doormat. An obstacle to you might be an on-ramp to me. Or vice versa. So I’m slower to condemn just about everybody. Is anybody deliberately trying to be awful? Offensive, maybe. But awful? No. So when somebody presents objectionable views and employs risible logic to defend those views, that doesn’t mean that that person’s terrible. It means that person is doing the best they can and might make a good friend if given the chance. Views can be discussed. Disagreements can be managed. Being right or wrong on a given issue is not a definitive stamp on the quality of a person’s soul. Why do we act like it is?
If you ask me, it’s spiritual poverty. We’re so busy and so worried about so many things, most of which are balmed with terrible tv and even worse music that getting right with ourselves without being SELF-righteous feels like a luxury beyond our means. But stopping to consider this might cost you that promotion. That’s an obtuse example. But even attuning our personalities to thrive in professional environments can make us less available to our families. How many successful people do we know with miserable home lives? How many unsuccessful people do we know with miserable home lives? Success isn’t an arbiter of happiness, but it’s worth recognizing just how difficult cum elusive a happy home life is. Will it get happier when you get that pool? Again. Obtuse. But the point is that we’re harried and bent out of shape. And that’s how you get politics as dysfunctional as ours. All that fundraising. All that apathy. All that ignorance. All that bullshit criteria.
I dunno. More later, I guess.