What I did for my summer vacation.
What I learned during the Covid shutdown.
The last year and a half have been many things. Frightening, depressing, enlightening, inspiring, perspiring, expiring… It has shown me many things about the human race, some of which I had hoped never to witness in person. But it has firmed up several beliefs I had before.
1) Humans are pack animals. We have evolved to work in groups, and when left on our own, we go crazy. We rely on each other to regulate our behaviors, and as we have all seen, when there’s nobody around to say “you know, you might want to think that through first”, a lot of us get more and more erratic. We each have our own way to do this, of course. Some of us go inward, some go outward, some refine themselves, and others… explode. So we find or create our packs.
For those of you who worked at home for a while and are now getting back to group work, this is probably apparent (it is for me) – people got used to doing their own thing while working from home, and are now having some trouble acculturating to the idea of moderation. (I know I’m really looking forward to retirement next year). Some go further than others, of course. The packs we invent reflect either what we see as the ideal or what we are told should be the ideal (depending on location and personality), and some groups are wandering off of the map.
This can be a problem. When you have humans, you have problems. If we don’t have them, we create them. We do the same thing with our packs, or herds, or schools, or, as human groups called ‘families’. If we don’t start with one that suits us, we build our own. The technology to do this more efficiently and personally has expanded greatly in the past couple of generations, and many say it has outstripped our ability to do it wisely. The internet has become an ideal place to build families and packs and herds, each to their own preference.
We’ve all seen the dark side of that, haven’t we? Most of us have also seen the bright side, but as always, the battle between darkness and light is still hard fought, and full of dopiness. Everyone has their own needs, and it has become apparent that at least one of those needs is To Be Right.
Yeah – humans are not done evolving into a sapient species.
2) As a sort of spin-off of this, human history has been one of strife. We have finally reached a point where we don’t have to be, but so far we are mostly sticking with our heritage instead of growing out of it. We’ve painted ourselves into a corner where tradition and wealth and other anachronisms still have a lot more power than they deserve. Power belongs to the powerful because, well, that’s what they built our society to be like. Pillaging is now called ‘banking’ and corruption is called ‘lobbying’ and subjugation is called ‘right to work.’
And yet… we have seen evidence that the rich are not better than us, and in fact are about as useful to civilization as tentacles on a squirrel. And about as cute. The rich and powerful have been shown in start terms to be a drain on society, no matter how many PR firms they hire to make them look good. Without them, society would … probably create more of them, sad to say, even though their actual existence is the opposite of necessary (the French Revolution proved that). What civilization needs isn’t the rich – it’s the people who actually do the work the actual Essential Workers. Cooks. Nurses. Teachers. Carpenters. Janitors. Programmers. Masons. Electricians. And so on. What we can do without are … Owners. Parasites. Opportunists.
It’s a fundamental truth of economics that is apparently never taught in economics classes – when you take money out of an economy it is bad for that economy. And yet … those who own (without creating anything) do everything possible to make certain that they retain control of the money and power. And yet we’ve been given a glimpse at the truth that they are not just unnecessary, they are a drain on society. Maybe we’ll do something about this. It’s always possible.
3) Our society does not like to be bored. We have a long history of creation and art, and enough of our culture is defined by it arts that some have questions whether our arts mirror our culture or the other way around.
Our arts (in my opinion) are currently as debased as our culture. The rich and powerful control what pays well and what is seen, and as the rich and powerful generally have not one creative atom in their entire existence, they go for sensation and flash and brutality.
“Tomorrow,and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
A bit of foresight from someone who had and used his powers of observation that is as valid today as it was four centuries ago. Watch TV (if you can stomach it). Go online and (if you have a VERY strong stomach) read the comments. Listen to what passes for music. Watch what passes for TV. Observe what passes for information and news. Eat what passes for food.
Then look for subtlety, or nuance,or insight. It’s out there, but you won’t find it in the mountains of crap being promoted. And when you find it, look around and Follow The Money – it isn’t going to the creators – it’s going to the poseurs and patsies and managers. A million Spotify plays nets you a nickel. The Kardashians get renewed. Hannity is still on the air.
And if you want to get REALLY depressed, watch some commercials.
Blood and circuses. 24/7 reminders that you’re not good enough. Paeans to artificiality and bad taste.
Depressed?
OK – now take a look at the world beyond that crap. A lot of people have turned it all off and gone with something better, and/or gone back to creating our own arts and communities and needs and necessities. Instead of being told we’re bored, we’re creating our own remedies, our own arts, our own hierarchy without the Powers That Be.
We’re fighting back.
4) And that leads me to the other necessity I’ve seen highlighted so boldly– one that incorporates the other three. Humans need a Goal. Something to work towards. Something to team upon. For a lot of us, we use our work for this, but for others it can be sport or arts or social activities like politics… or, if you’re one of the ones who wants a different outcome, maybe brutality or harassment or insurrection or treason or … whatever. This drive is one that can be very easily perverted, subverted, inverted and other things that end in ‘verted’.
Everyone has a goal, small or large as it might be. To reach that goal, each of us needs resources, which means money, influence, friends, imagination. It is our job as human beings to lift up the creators and improvers, and tamp down the destroyers. “To help the helpless! To befriend the friendless! And to defeat… the feetless!”
And what did you do on your summer vacation?