Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Lord of the Flies

This society is Lord of the Flies writ large. The adults left the building a long time ago and their infantile descendants have taken over the planet. We need not wonder why the developed nations turned their backs on the abject poor in the rest of the world, when they don't even take care of their own...

The hallmark of infantile behaviour is to be solely concerned for oneself. It's a refugee mentality that dominates all aspects of this society. The natural environment is a non-consideration, because a refugee will cut down his last tree, if he needs the firewood. The concept of taking concern for other's interests has been systematically denigrated until it's no longer socially acceptable. And now, here we are with the worst poverty statistics in 70 years, even as our infantile leaders lie constantly that the economy is in "recovery". 

Fairy Tales for Bedtime, and All Other Time...
The other hallmark of juvenile behaviour is to talk constantly and do nothing. As in, "When I grow up, I'm going to...". That's this society in a nutshell. Substituting non-stop talk for any form of action. The marketing department has taken over every aspect of life. Being humble and plain-spoken is strictly for chumps. Case in point, there is not one talking head out there who has any semblance of a plan for how to get us out of this economic slump. The plan is - no plan. So as a substitute for an actionable roadmap, the thought dealers of today merely blow smoke up our ass, incessantly.

"All The Phony People, Where Do They All Come From?"
My company recently added a new question to its employee survey: True or False: "I can really be myself at this company". I'm not kidding. Why didn't they just come out and say - on a scale from 1 to 10, how fucking phony are you? Unfortunately of course, the phoniest people are no longer even aware of just how phony they are. They were long ago assimilated by their own superficial persona. Not the deepest thinkers, mind you, since it takes all effort to maintain appearances. These are the human bulldozers now running amok in positions of leadership across all sectors of society.

A Bit of the Old Ultra-Violent
Of course, no Lord of the Flies society would be complete without a proclivity for ultra-violence, just now emerging from behind the Xbox, fully armed with the latest in assault weapons. Unfortunately for young men between the ages of 18 and 25 who commit most of the violence, the part of the brain making up the conscience is not fully developed. Not surprisingly for this infantile society, it's pea-sized conscience is likewise underdeveloped.

Revisionary History
On a personal note, my grandfather was a fisherman and labour activist in Canada during the 1930s when the grapes of wrath were pounding the shores of British Columbia. As in other places, the men of that time fought back and stuck together to keep their families out of poverty and otherwise prevent employers from playing the workers off against each other. Today, not so much. Today's working class has been systematically brainwashed into voting against its own interests. A steady diet of "adult" cartoons, Reality TV, and Faux News has rendered average intelligence down to a bowl of porridge. And in the meantime, history was conveniently "rewritten" by the Lost Boys of the Idiocracy to cast the robber barons of the Depression era as the good guys and FDR as somewhere between a communist and fascist, depending on the narrative. Of course, these Lost Boys - who are no more than bloated xBox playing children themselves, are as clueless as the day is long. They don't know what happens to all of "this" when people can no longer afford to feed their children. At that point, all talk of greed-based ideology goes straight back into the garbage, where it sits and waits for the next hubristic society to come along, scoop it out, and use it as phony justification to collapse their own late stage economy.

In the meantime, this will all be fun and games until someone loses an eye. At that point, this society will wake up to the fact that the so-called "men" in leadership are really no more than testosterone-depleted little boys.