And Why Not?
There’s a pervasive theme in the zeitgeist that things are not right. One might feel it like an unsettling churning in the pit of one’s stomach, or a frantic thrashing of one’s soul. Whatever it is, the underlying thought is, This is wrong, and I don’t know what to do about it.
It’s no wonder, then, that in this milieu once forbidden ideas are being looked at and not with her but with interest and curiosity. “Would X really be so bad?” is heard in many circles, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. “Wouldn’t Y be so, so much better than this?”
Complicating matters are the restrictive dichotomies we find in American discourse. You’re either Republican or Democrat, communist or capitalist, a fan of Socialism or democracy. There are no other choices. It’s one or the other. Lesser of two evils. “Well we might not have the best system, but it’s better than all the others.”
Is it? I find it hard to hold such convictions, and can’t understand how anyone else does, given the lack of imagination when it comes to other possibilities. The only choices aren’t Marx or whatever you want to call what we have now. Further, many, many criticisms of capitalism are perfectly valid but get immediately dismissed by those on the right side of the spectrum because “That’s what a socialist would say!”
I was raised as a traditional conservative, some might say Republican, and while I am still sympathetic to many of those tenets, I find several of them lacking. among those, the unwavering belief in a free unregulated market, so-called free trade, and a laissez-faire attitude towards big businesses and corporations. There are others: for example, I’m not against regulation or taxation. I’m not even against corporate taxation. In fact, I think corporations might need to be regulated in taxed more to bring them to heel.
My biggest beef, though, is how so many normal main stream middle of the road conservative type of GOP people categorically refusing to see that corporations have become as powerful or more powerful than the actual government, and in fact may control the government, and that they refuse to see this as a bad thing, or refuse to use governmental power when they have it because of misplaced ideals about the purity of small government.
What do we do about this? I don’t know. I’m not a policy guy. I have ideas, but putting them into practice? I couldn’t tell you how they would pan out. But what I can tell you is that categorically refused to even entertain alternatives is pushing people to what were once considered extreme fringe ideas is totally beyond the pale but are now being discussed as viable, even desirable alternative.
And it’s hard not to feel this way, when literally the only explanation for the complete and utter insanity we’ve seen in the past two decades or more can only be actual malice. This is not mere stupidity. Our enemies are not just wrong. They are evil.
But I don’t know if I am more angry at those in power, or the regular people who think that everything is fine.
Here’s the kicker though: the way things are going actually benefit quite a few people and their families. I put it to the tune of about a third of the country. Ever wonder why Joseph Stalin is actually remembered quite fondly by many Russians? Because life under him, and under the USSR in general, was actually preferable to what came before for a wide swath of people. We have course hear about the dissidents and those who oppose communism, atheism, and the Soviet state. But lots of people loved it. Their lives improved. How do you circle that square?
Do you think that the people who stand to benefit, and are currently benefiting, from the new America that we find ourselves morphing into are going to be persuaded that they’re wrong by something as Quotidien as history? You’re dreaming.
Whatever you want to call the current era were living in, I like the Age of Fakery myself, it is undeniable that it is the direct result of ideals that we want held as sacrosanct.
If we can’t even talk about this stuff, we can’t act surprised when once abhorrent ideas are greeted with a shrug and a weary utterance of, “And why not?”
Sword-and-planet fiction that says “And why not?” to the fantastical and fun.
