The Discreet Harm of the Bourgeoisie

I'm not against specialization, and I'm a fan of a well-differentiated society, one that looks like an ecosystem, but in the case of humanity it's important for people to realize that they are part of a system or they can engage in all kinds of antisocial behavior by accident, out of ignorance. Probably willed ignorance, but, whatever. The ignorance doesn't mean it doesn't count.

It's not a fucking video game. People can get hurt. A classic example is that of pacifist meat-eaters. You are killing cows by proxy, you want to say to them, you have a responsibility to ensure that it's done humanely, which is to say nothing of the killing of humans. People have to own even that or simply stop doing it. Now there's an idea. And torture, of course, soul-slaughter.

But they're immersed in ennui, the perpetrators--insulated, numbed. As people so often do they double down on a mistake, thinking they haven't done enough of the thing they shouldn't have done in the first place. And as they invest more in the mistake it becomes harder to own it and reverse direction, to the extent, sometimes, that it can only end in death, their own deaths.

The realization of the mistake and the wrong they've done is more than they can handle. They are not actors and autonomous entities but addicts, so it only ends in death and dehumanization or in the ditch. And it can happen to a whole society, evidently. Here's the point, it has happened to us. We think if we consume more it will make us happy and it never will. No way, white people.

There's nothing wrong with it, consumerism per se, I don't think, if it works in the system as a whole and doesn't throw it out of balance, but we're way beyond that. Way beyond. Beyond beyond, probably already in the ditch but we don't know it yet, the denial of the addiction is so strong. What's the solution? I don't know. I think individuals can change but a whole society?

That's a big boat. Remember, though, the talk Franklin Roosevelt gave which kept people from succumbing to panic and saved the banks? It makes you wonder. If the right person said the right things maybe we could escape the fear, the fear that if we give up the quest for more shit we'll be lost. We won't be lost. In fact we may find ourselves again. At least we might stop torturing people.

That would be good. I wonder if Dick Cheney believes in the existence of souls?