a cynic's guide to modern life
number 1 january 2004
The Things That We Know
“In Germany, the Nazis first
came for the communists, and I did not speak up, because I was not a
Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up, because I
was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak
up, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics,
and I did not speak up, because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for
me... and by that time, there was no one to speak up for anyone.”
-- Martin Niemoeller, Pastor,
German Evangelical (Lutheran) Church
I can’t necessarily put my finger on what it is, but between you
and me, I haven’t been comfortable with the ‘cynic’ label for quite
some time. It’s not because
I’ve turned a corner and all of the sudden I’m hugging assholes and
using phrases like ‘turn that frown upside down!’ without a derisive
laugh. I still spew bile with
as much ferocity as I did before. However,
something has changed in the past few years.
Being a cynic to me is poking a hole in the balloon of
pie-in-the-sky idealism and getting people to realize that there is no
black and white, no good and evil; just varying shades of gray.
Life exists in a balance. For
every happiness, there is bitterness.
Every victory has a defeat.
I never viewed the role of the cynic to bring down society.
Cynics are there to give society a dose of harsh reality.
But that role’s necessity is shrinking because society has
concluded that almost everything that has been built up for the last
couple of centuries is complete bunk.
What I find disheartening is that nobody seems to care enough to do
anything about it. Society
knows its harsh realities. They
don’t need any prompting by the cynics.
But instead of moral outrage, a call for an account from our
leaders on how things can get this fucked up this badly, we have retreated
into a shell of fierce, barbaric nationalism on one hand and irresponsible
consumptive decadence on the other. These
are the things that destroy great societies.
Very often, they are not brought down from without, but from
within. The general malaise that exists in our society that comes
from not having any hardships to strengthen and unify us.
These are the things we know:
·
We know that
many of our fashions, our electronics, our knick-knacks, household items,
our running shoes and just about everything else imaginable is made by a
system of third-world slave labour. We
know that this continues the cycle of third-world poverty by sending
children to work, rather than sending them to school.
This also encourages companies to take away manufacturing jobs here
and send them overseas, forcing our citizens into accepting lower paying
jobs with little or no benefits. However,
since we want to be “like Mike,” and since these sweatshops aren’t
in front of our faces, we ignore it and swipe the card.
A twelve-year old Indonesian child spent fourteen hours in a
factory making this? Oh well,
it’s not a Canadian child so who gives a shit!
We also realize that any future this planet may have depends on
development of the third world. Doesn’t
it make more sense to help these people out of poverty, to have even more
educated people in this world, who can help to solve the desperate
problems that threaten this planet? We
know this, and we do nothing.
·
We know that the
“war” in Iraq is complete nonsense.
Even the most hardened conservatives know that it’s a move to
shoehorn American interests into the Middle East, using the moniker of
fighting terrorism as a justification.
Instead of calling on our leaders to fight terrorism in ways that
will actually work, we quietly bullshit ourselves into believing that
capturing Saddam Hussein will curtail terrorist activity, instead of
increasing it exponentially. We
don’t question why there isn’t a military presence in the Republic of
Congo, currently the bloodiest and most savage conflict on the planet
today, because it’s easier to be in denial.
It’s easier to believe the lie that the military machine will
bring us one step closer in winning the war on terrorism than believe the
truth that it will make things worse.
If we mentally snip out the history of Saddam Hussein being a
puppet of American foreign policy, it will all fall into place.
We know this, and we do nothing.
·
We know that we
have no recognizable culture left here in North America.
We further realize that this is the root cause of most of our
unrest. Our culture comes in
the form of jolts to the system. All forms of art have been co-opted by a mammoth machine
designed to make money. We
seek thrills, not substance. We
seek to be pacified, not enriched. We
realize that all entertainment is not required to be enlightening, but we
indulge less and less in endeavours that make us think and more and more
that give us a giddy thrill. We
further know that this deadens our senses and forces us to seek more
outrageous thrills to keep us stimulated.
We, as a people, are addicted to hip.
The puppeteers who make money off this obsession change what hip is
on a nearly monthly basis so people will spend more and more money keeping
up. We know that this pursuit is an empty one, and it may be the
cause of so much depression, restlessness, dysfunction and rage in our
society. We are an angry
people, and in our heart of hearts, we know why, but it is easier for
Madison Avenue to dictate to us what we need to do than to figure it out
on our own. We worship images of perfection, not gods.
We chase products, not ideals.
We wrap our whole existences around property.
Property defines who we are. The
car we drive, the clothes we wear, the décor we adorn our homes in all
make us. We know this,
and we do nothing.
·
We know that our
people have been sexually hijacked. The
human body has become the ultimate experiment in marketing.
Every year, the powers-that-be redefine what is “sexy”,
rendering those who intake the flood of imagery on a daily basis unable to
comprehend their own sexual impulses.
We
know that these images are wholly inaccurate, and subject to airbrushing,
lighting and distortion to elongate or enhance desirable features.
To even look at these models in real life, they would look little
like how they look in these pictures.
We
know that our young women starve themselves, engage in diet plans that
don’t work and spend excessive amounts of money in pursuit of the ideal
that 97 percent of the time will not result in the body that they are
looking for. An estimated
3,000,000 young women are diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, a psychological
disorder with a 15 percent mortality rate. Up
to 450,000 of these young women will die from this disorder.
In no small part, sexual and body inadequacies play a significant
role in this disorder. 80-90
percent of young women also actively engage in diets with a 90-99 percent
failure rate to attain the unattainable.
We have taken a natural anxiety that everybody experiences about
being unappealing to the opposite sex and blown it so far out of
proportion that many young women are left dying as a result.
We know that this is unrealistic and dangerous, that we are losing
too many of our young women, and we do nothing.
We
know that our young men are increasingly falling into the same trap.
Between 2-3 percent of teenage boys have used steroids to enhance
athletic performance and body image.
Steroid abuse leads to shrunken testicles, lower sperm count,
baldness, acne, depression, stunted growth, violent mood swings and
eventually heart disease and liver cancer.
Our young men view a barrage of images that show that men are
supposed to be virile, strong, confident, rich and able to get any woman
they want into bed with them. This
unrealistic expectation amongst our young men has led to a whole range of
anxieties and inadequacies. We
know that young men do not need to be judged by their size, their bank
accounts or their ability to score, but we do nothing.
We
know that the flood of images in the media have short-circuited our entire
definition of what is sexual. In
television commercials today, the mere allure of sex no longer entices us.
Anybody can get laid. Real
men have threesomes with anonymous bi-curious supermodel twins grinding on
dance floors in nightclubs. Male
rap stars gyrate with armies of scantily clad female dancers shaking their
booty and looking at him with raw animal lust.
Our lovemaking is increasingly getting its cues from television,
music and pornography, not personal exploration.
Again, our sex lives are a series of giddy thrills, not an
exploration of body and spirit. For
a long time now, sex has ceased to be the holy grail of emotional, mental
and emotional expression and just another recreational activity, even with
those we love. The bodies of
our partners are just a vessel for the greater fantasies of fulfilling
what we think we want. We
engage in more on-line and video sex than real sex with real people,
because this is what we are told we want.
Our sexuality has been raped, discarded and left for dead.
We know this, and we do nothing.
·
We know that our
whole concept of civil ethics, gender roles, relationships and dating, and
just about every other social interaction are taken directly off of the
television screen.
o
We breed and
encourage our young men to be as obnoxious as humanly possible.
Television and movies have taught us that the louder you are, the
more outrageous you are, and the more in-your-face, extreme attitude you
have, the more people will respect and listen to you, even if you have
little to say or contribute. We
encourage our young men to “notch the bedpost” and fuck as many women
as possible, as this is the mark of a real man. We have taught our young men that it is perfectly okay to use
and dominate women how they see fit for their own pleasure, without any
emotional consequence. As a
result, a slew of emotionally scarred women litter our society.
o
We encourage our
young women to do whatever it takes to be with the young men in the first
point. We send mixed signals
that on one hand, if you fuck, or enjoy fucking, you are a slut.
But if you don’t fuck, you have no worth, because all of your
value lies between your legs. We have taught our young women through dating books and
daytime television is that the only way to get by is to deceive, to use a
man’s attraction to you to get what you want.
Not only is it okay, it is encouraged and considered fun to string
men along and harvest them financially and emotionally until their
usefulness has been tapped out. As
a result, a slew of emotionally scarred men litter our society.
o
We have taught
our young men that everything traditionally “male”, be it good, bad or
somewhere in between is wrong. Instead,
we want metrosexuals: An
urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time
and money on his appearance and lifestyle. Conversely, we have also
marketed the opposite lifestyle to young men as a “reward” for being
so hip and sensitive. Violent
video games, porno movies, misogyny, and oafishness are a perfectly
acceptable balance to looking and acting like a pussy.
Traditional male ideals such as duty, responsibility, humility,
quiet strength and manners are gone.
o
We have paradoxically taught young women that its hip to be independent,
while at the same time, they must give into the misogynist male fantasy
world. Through the media,
girls now must give sexual favours without flinching. Through music videos, a woman’s worth is how easy she is
and how her tits and ass look. A
steady diet of MTV, fashion magazines and pop music tells them that
everything revolves around getting a man.
Developing intellect and savvy is pointless when the media has made
any feminist headway obsolete. Big
tits, small ass, porn star ethic trumps hard work every time.
o
We have been taught that we are the centers of the universe.
Catchphrases like “if it feels good, do it” pervade the
consciousness of our nation. The
god of self-esteem is all-powerful. It
doesn’t matter what happens to the people around me, I have to take care
of myself first. I am a
soldier in the “me” generation. As
long as I get what I want, everything else is just gravy.
Ironically, despite worshipping at the altar of self-esteem,
self-esteem is at an all-time low because it is primarily measured and
connected to the contributions we make to the community and the people
around us. We have lost all
concept of civil ethics because of the notion that I am more important,
and my problems more pressing than the next person’s problems.
We have the idea that in order to get self-esteem, we must
sacrifice self-control. Today’s
children are growing up with a smart-alecky, obnoxious, self-serving
attitude, fueled by a child obsession.
The idea exists that teaching children to control themselves, to
not speak out of turn and to behave in public is child abuse in some
circles. These children will
grow up and get slaughtered by a system that doesn’t give two shits
about their self-esteem.
We
know these things, and we do nothing.
·
Finally, we know
that our whole culture has succumbed to the “shut up and shop” mantra.
Never more in our whole history have we abandoned our ideals to
accumulate worthless possessions instead of dealing with the crippling
dysfunctions that a life spent chasing possessions yields.
We are all strung along like puppets, spending our time, energy and
money embracing whatever is the flavour of the month.
The further tragedy is that what we buy is generally the cause of
what’s making us buy. It’s
a cyclical addiction. We
watch Trading Spaces and renovate our houses to mask our broken
families. We buy SUVs and
jet-skis to escape the drudgery of urban existence and ruin the last bits
of nature with them. We wrap
ourselves in the latest fashions to cover up our own inadequacies.
The family unit is rapidly becoming obsolete.
We ogle pop singers and movie stars and wish our partners looked
like them. We live
vicariously through television families more than we spend with our real
families. We watch reality television instead of living our own lives.
The environment is on the slippery slope to disaster.
Our own personal sense of self-worth is so distorted and torn, we
explode in a host of psychological disorders.
We know all these things, and we do nothing.
It
is not an age for a cynic. Cynics
thrive in better times. Cynics
are there to remind us that even in the best of times, we need reminders
that things could always be better. But
being a cynic is pointless when people know the truth and choose to ignore
it. I have not written a
single word here that is a new and undiscovered truth. We have all known
it for years.
Poking
holes in a balloon that’s already full of holes is pathetic.
Screaming from the rooftops that we need to do something about it
is a waste of breath. People
are stuck. Unless there is a
shattering sense of urgency that wakes people up and out of this consuming
and comfortable funk they’ve been in, then our society is finished.
The trouble with us, and every other society before us who has had the same problem, is that before we knew it, our problems have grown larger than our ability to conceptualize them. It is then easier to just ride the wave. Indulge in an increasingly voyeuristic, decadent and hedonistic lifestyle before the other shoe drops. We can solve all the problems listed above (and the hundreds of others that plague us) in a generation. To our credit, we have the intelligence and the technology to do so. All it takes is to take one thing and commit yourself to it. One thing. If everybody chose one thing, and committed themselves to it, then in no time society would start to clean up really fast. Unfortunately, being cynical doesn’t make me optimistic.
Copyright
© 2004 Don Porter. All rights reserved.