“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” – a quote commonly attributed to Thomas Jefferson
Try telling my friends that. In a society where being out of step with the way in which we are told to live our lives is considered insane, I am forced to question my own sanity because of my dreams of watching the world burn to the ground.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not looking to see the world and all its inhabitants consumed in hell-fire. I just want to see a fresh start. It doesn’t take a genius to see that we live in a sick society but disrupting the status-quo of people’s lives by forcing them to question whether they could have more is met with resentment and disdain.
My friends are all very content with life. They work jobs that pay the rent and afford them one, possibly two holidays a year. They can afford to run their mid-range cars, pay their taxes, put food on the table and have a little money left over to consume copious amounts of alcohol at the weekend.
At a party I produced my soapbox and started asking questions regarding human rights and what might constitute wealth. I was looking for agreement amoung them. I pined for one person to proclaim “By God! You’re right!”. The reaction I had was a curious one. After leading a discussion in which I presented valid and logical points, I was told by a good friend of mine that she was quite aware that things could be better but she doesn’t care and she didn’t take kindly to me raising concerns with her country and society. In fact, that was the general consensus. Instead of accepting that something wasn’t right with our society and rising up in arms, chanting on the streets with our pitchforks and burning effigies, my friends got irritated with my pointing out the obvious and instead withdrew back into their inane chatter about the difference between MacDonald’s and Burger King fries.
I was saddened by this response of apathy. Ignorance is one thing but knowing indifference is another thing completely. There is no such thing as ‘good and evil’, there is only ‘good and apathetic’. One friend has acknowledged the plight of our modern day slavery but his question was “What are we supposed to do about it?”
Do you live on in ignorance (and potentially bliss) or do you lead what Aristotle called 'the examined life'?
In the words of Howard Beale (Network – 1976) “I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad.”
If someone punches you in the face and steals your wallet, your natural reaction isn’t a shrug of the shoulders fuck it, what am I supposed to do? It’s a knee-jerk fight reaction. Defend yourself and the people you love. The same applies to institutions and established centres of power whose only purpose is to rob you blind and strip you of all your basic human rights. What my friends have failed to realise is that people with power only seek two things: the retention of, and gaining more power.
So what does a disillusioned member of society do to find peace? I have considered many different scenarios. Join a commune, buy a plot of land in the wilderness and live off the fat of the land, initiate a revolution - smash the state and all that. The problem is that I am as impotent when it comes to making a change to society as an ant is to leaving its hill. As angry as I may get, as pissed off with the fuckers towing my car or the thieving bastards stealing a huge chunk of my pay check, I have no power to change it. Now I envy my friends. Living in ignorance is living in bliss. I want to go back in time, unread the books; pay no attention to social commentators and tell the Greek god of dreams and sleep where he can shove his red pill.
So, I have decided to embrace this system. I have my nine to five. I pay my taxes and am going to book a holiday ten months in advance to give me something to look forward to. This was all undertaken on sage advice from my brother. He is a businessman and a cynic who values money above all else. After a drunken conversation with him he disclosed that he used to feel the same but realised that to try and achieve happiness, one must first make peace with the establishment. So by Christ I am trying. I might even start voting and buy into the illusion of choice that we are all so grateful for. I figure that if I keep repeating my statist mantra, I will start believing it. Then once I believe all the shit I am peddled, I can eventually stop worrying about globalisation, consolidation of wealth, poor starving fuckers in Africa and the sham of democracy we live in.
So to all the money lenders and purveyors of fine electronic goods, to George Soros and Bill Gates, to General Electric and Halliburton, Exxon Mobil and IBM I say this: I repent! Forgive me my sins and embrace me with your iPhones and Frapuccino. Give me Smirnoff intravenously, peddle your wares subliminally. I am ready for it all…..I will live the dream.