Oh life

 Over the past few months, I have been fortunate enough to be introduced to a whole new world of people I wouldn’t ordinarily engage with. It sure has been interesting seeing how realities differ. A fair amount of them seem fixated on classifying people either as leftists, capitalist, communists or socialists. Much of the conversation gained momentum during the US presidential debate where some would gladly back Trump’s republicans and throw shade on Biden’s Democrats, calling them inept socialists. When I tried to dig deeper, from the little that I read, the a glaring difference between the 2 during the last 3 presidential terms is that it seems as if between the tax cuts, war mongering, sub prime crisis and the pandemic, the 2 Republicans on either side of Obama have racked up the biggest deficits the US economy has ever known. In fact the 3 presidents at the helm when the US experienced its biggest deficits ever were Lincoln (Civil war), Bush (funding 2 wars) and Trump (even prior to covid) read this article if you like https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump. I raise this point only because many of them tend to fall on the running of the economy as their central argument

 

But that isn’t why I write this blog. I listen to many of these people mentioned above and all I can think is that they are either a few years older than I am, smart or think they are smart or rich and feel they have much to lose, because in my 44, ‘middle class’ years on this earth, I have never spent so much time debating or conversing about these terms as I have in the past few months, and my background is finance but now working for government to aid their job facilitation efforts, (which by my summation would mean that I should have spent some time grappling with these things. If I had to ask say Agnes who helps me out over the weekends at times what she thinks about these things, I dare say she like me would say, do I have running water, is my garbage collected, can I go to a good hospital, can my kids go to school, you know stuff that matters. I listen and engage in these conversations hoping to throw out perhaps a different viewpoint, but I guess often times, stewing in one’s version of reality is just what one needs or wants, I guess the same could be said of me and my views right? Some people seem fixated on these terms socialist/communists and how evil they are. Who in 2021, of any relevance (with respect of course) conforms to the traditional definitions of socialists or capitalists? Those days of the red of Russia and China are no more. China has always featured amongst the fastest growing economies in the world over the past few years and it is the second largest economy in the world right now, have a read here to see how it places https://www.investopedia.com/insights/worlds-top-economies/ 

 

To be honest large economies such as UK, Norway, Denmark, France adopt some so called socialist tendencies through their healthcare and social welfare programs, hell a place like Sweden, you have to buy booze from a government run liquor outlet. Oh wait government bail outs, the kind that the world is dishing out right now, what of those? Are they not also forms of socialism? Or do we just call them stimulus packages and move along?

The world has changed or rather those black and white definitions many of us cling to in order to define, categorise or make sense of people or things are outdated and our minds need a refresh. Go on, join us !



“In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.” George Orwell, 1984

 

Whilst I was hunkered down in my humble abode during over the holidays, I got stuck into an old book by George Orwell that I’ve been wanting to read for a wee while, called 1984 and a friend suggested I read A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley as well and I duly obliged of course, it wasn’t like I had a whole lot of places to go to or people to see right?! Dayum!!! Can you believe that those 2 books that were written the late 1940s and the early 1930s contained many concepts/ideas/situations/realities/imaginations written about in those 2 thought provoking pieces of literature are just as relevant then as it is now. What strikes me even more is that those opposed to totalitarianism and the worlds portrayed by both of those books, actually practice some of those things they oppose today and would love for it to remain as such. You look at how society is ‘tiered’ at the moment with the Rich living their best lives, the middle class working the hardest to ensure the system continues to function and the have nots who no one seemingly cares much about. In Huxley’s book they have 5 castes Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons, with Alphas being at the top of food chain and the Epsilons tantamount to slaves, I guess.

 

If I had to ask people who are against the mind control or ‘big brother is watching’ worlds portrayed by those books whether they would like to exist in those worlds, I’m sure their answer would be absolutely not! Poof! Disgusting! Damnit humans, are interesting folk! A lot of people who say argue against religion, say if God does exist, why does H/She give me free will, I must just be told what to do or think, ok live in the world of 1984 then, oh heeeeelll no!! ! Simplified example but you get my gist. I ain’t no shrink, but my observation of some of us is we identify with what suit our narrative and see it as the whole truth. In this brave new world, the castes mentioned above, are produced via embryos pumped with chemicals and hormones in order to determine their caste, I guess similar in a way to genetic modification efforts that we are currently pursuing in a way right?

 

Man, so many intertwined thoughts rushing into my poor mind at the moment ey so forgie me if I am all over the place. Let’s think about the wars that have taken place recently, I am thinking of the carnage in Syria and Yemen, granted I haven’t given it much thought but what is it all for, any war for that matter? What are they for? Are they waged merely to fuel economies? This world we live in, we seem to be building an environment where people want more new things in order to keep the economies running. Humans seem to be tending to live the lives they claim to not want to. People are getting rid of God or at least trying to, loads of free love and fornication being thrown around going on as opposed to the monogamy portrayed in Huxley’s reservations. Here is an extract from Huxley’s book that describes what I’m referring to “Not so far into the future, the world has become a single supranational state, ruled by a council of World Controllers. Consumerism has replaced religion, science has eliminated illness and ageing; the happiness of all is ensured by genetic engineering, brainwashing, recreational sex and tranquillizing drugs.”

 

Ideas such as big brother and the thought police seem to be playing themselves out in our world nowadays with social media an censorship. Right? It may not be exactly how it was meant, but this, dare I say capitalist free market existence we so revere could be interpreted as leading us towards parts of this totalitarian world we so despise. Big brother is watching and we have given them our permission to, interesting to see how it all plays out. And it seems like it isn’t the big brother we 

 

I was having a chat with a friend the other day and he asked me which parts of the books I enjoyed the most and I never really got to answer, but I must say in Orwell’s 1984, when Winston is given the book written by Goldstein and he is in his hideout and excitedly starts consuming its pages. Man the pearls that come out of that book. Take this one for instance… 

 

“It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which WEALTH, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while POWER remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”

Deep!

 

We are a contradiction a lot of the time right?! People claim to love law and order, but if you had to ask why choose to settle in Africa to do business they will quip, damn, it’s the wild wild west out here, less regulations than in the west so you can make a buck or two. 😂

 

So just to close it all out. These terminologies people throw out to define things that tend to not fit with what we want in life, I find to be a somewhat lazy argument. The world isn’t as linear as our training has lead us to believe, I guess this flows from last week’s blog too. We are but walking contradictions mostly and it sure is a beautiful thing. My hope is to listen to learn and hopefully share and then hopefully one day we will indeed occupy a Brave New World.