“Homo homini lupus.” (Man is a wolf to man)
— Latin proverb
“Mean people suck.”
— American proverb
We are living in times unprecedented. The structures and relationships between various organizational entities and their social, behavioral, and cultural fault lines are being vividly exposed in that giant petri dish: The Internet.
With so much disinformation and disturbing hostility, across such wide varieties and combinations of human interactions, the patterns of social, political, and economic dysfunction are exposed in the brilliant light of the virtual global town square.
The impact of the dysfunction has been evident for a long time, but perhaps never as obvious as it is today. Governments’ inability to function rationally, “strongmen” taking over major countries, wage slavery, wage theft [1], and the working class falling farther and farther behind, “culture wars” dominating national conversations, nonsensical wars, conspiracy news channels, crackpot religions, school massacres, transphobia, misogyny, racism, and lies – so many lies. Sensational lies, angry lies, mean lies, sophisticated lies – bullshit – broadcast so much louder and more frequently than the truths they try to hide.
Fall of democracy imminent. Nuclear war imminent. Climate catastrophe imminent. Economic collapse imminent. Civil war imminent. Most people who are paying attention feel extremely frightened and helpless, certain that the future is hopeless, and are, as often as not, fighting mad.
This book takes the position that things are not hopeless. It argues that behind all the madness lies an aberrant behavior pattern common to very wealthy, powerful people.
This book is about this behavior, how they convinced us to let them get away with it, and practical methods to reduce its ability to exacerbate what are natural, manageable problems into one existential crisis after another.
The World Today
The first step to finding solutions to our problems is to examine some of the things that don’t make sense. If everything was making sense, then our conventional solutions would be working. But they don’t and they are not.
In the last few decades, we have witnessed an exponential explosion of the use of fear and hate to manipulate large segments of the population. Who is doing this? And why? Don’t they know that inciting rage in so many people can have unpredictable, catastrophic effects? What can they possibly think is worth this amount of risk?
We are witnessing a steady rise in brutality, racism, misogyny, usury, fascism, and other degenerate social diseases on the one hand, while significant gains in equality and freedoms are being made on the other (for example, the legalization of gay marriage and the election of a black president in the U.S.) Why the dichotomy? Is the world getting better or worse? Are we going to have a civil war between the people who want the world to be worse and those that want it to be better? And why is this struggle happening now, and all over the world?
Why are clearly inferior (and often clearly corrupt) politicians winning elections? Is this just the result of finally obtaining a critical mass of poorly educated citizens? Is the failure to teach critical thinking finally taking its toll? Has democracy devolved into just a bunch of stupid ignorant citizens bumbling around making mistake after mistake? Or is it something else? And yeah, why isn’t critical thinking taught to our kids?
We now have several simultaneous existential crises, none of which look solvable. The institutions we have set up for solving these kinds of crises are a dysfunctional mess, brought to us by the same lovely folks who created them – because these awful people are also running much of our media, governments, judiciary, corporations, and financial systems.
We have the knowledge, technology, and resources to house everyone, feed everyone, and to restore the environment. We are masters of nature and technology. We won, so why does it feel like we are losing? The world’s knowledge is a click away. The best instructors will teach us classes on any subject. We can chat with anyone from anywhere. All for free. So why does it feel like ignorance is everywhere and the distance between people is increasing?
Why do we have these seemingly contradictory events: the New Deal, the Great Society, the Civil Rights Movement, the ‘60s counterculture movement, the democratization of computers and information, and Obama winning the election on the one hand, and the Vietnam War, Watergate, Iran-Contra, neoliberalism, hate radio, hate TV, stagnant wages, and the 2000 and 2016 regressive elections on the other?
Is it all just a tug of war between two sides of the political spectrum? Or is it just the age-old battle between freedom and tyranny?
Everyone believes this is a war between good and evil, no matter which side they are on. But it turns out that the truth is obvious and doesn’t require opinions, hedging, or value judgements.
We just need to look at who each side’s proposals are good for and who their proposals sacrifice to see the truth of this war.
[1] “Wage theft costs U.S. workers as much as $50 billion per year — a number far higher than all robberies, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts combined,“ https://www.epi.org/press/wage-theft-costs-american-workers-50-billion/
So many angry people
Steady increases in economic inequity were predicted by nearly everyone after the 1980s introduced supply-side “trickle-down” economics, austerity programs, neoliberalism, and the weakening of labor unions and social safety nets. Experts who cared about these things predicted that these would significantly increase economic inequity, and that this would result in significantly increasing tension between the haves and have-nots.
But who expected that the architects of these programs would be able to redirect the ire of the have-nots onto immigrants, people of color, and just about everyone else but the architects themselves? And just how were they able to get away with that, anyway?
Who expected them to weaponize the have-nots to attempt to overthrow democratic governments, not just all over the world, but right here in the United States of America? And what can we do about these forces replacing larger and larger sections of our media with their anti-equality, anti-egalitarian, anti-democratic propaganda machines?
And with all this formulaic hatemongering of disadvantaged demographics, how many parallels to Hitler’s rise to power can the press ignore and still be called a “free press”? And how many parallels to Hitler’s rise to power can the average American be unaware of for us to still claim we have a functioning educational system in this country?
So much harm
And why are some people so set against masks and vaccinations? Most of them can calculate that the predicted one percent death rate from COVID19 would have meant at least four million deaths here in the U.S., with even greater numbers of deaths as a result of hospitals being quickly overrun. So why were so many Americans so comfortable with the idea of creating our own Holocaust? Why were so many in favor of such a thing in the name of not wanting to wear a mask, not wanting to stay home, not wanting to get vaccinated, not wanting to admit that a virus was real and not a hoax?
This anti-vaxx and anti-mask rhetoric is promoted by some very popular influencers. How is this not interpreted as blatant biological warfare, especially against our own aged and poor citizens? Were these influencers really making the mental calculation that COVID19 was killing more of their political and cultural opponents than their own kind?
And we can ask the same questions of the climate change-deniers. And of those states that deny their residents access to healthcare and other life-preserving assistance provided free by our government. And of those in power who vote against common sense gun control.
How are these not crimes? Why aren’t the perpetrators punished for causing the deaths and life-changing harm to so many people? What kind of “freedom” allows people to commit such horrific acts of stochastic violence on other people?
So many people angry at the wrong people
Were there just a lot more brutal and cruel people than I had ever imagined, and, if so, where have they been hiding? Or has half the world just gone insane?
Most people I have met during my life seem kind and rational, for the most part. Some people say that people like me are living in a bubble. But my bubble has included rich and poor and homeless and desperate people, ultra-religious and quasi-religious and non-religious people, educated and undereducated people, brilliant and ordinary and wildly different people.
The worst people were those in my bubble who seem to feel they are “entitled” to whatever they want by virtue of some logic only they are privy to. These people are very comfortable doing horrific things to other people while pursuing something they want. They are willing to do whatever it takes to win, and no matter who they harm they are comfortable with it because they are “better people” than those others. Maybe there are just a lot more of these selfish, entitled people out there than I had ever imagined?
Some say that many people outside my bubble are “deplorables” who just enjoy being mean and nasty to other people. Or that the people outside my bubble are incredibly stupid and clueless. Or that most people are just willfully ignorant animals following the shiniest meme put in front of them without a care in the world about how they might be causing harm to themselves and others.
And if the problem is indeed these “outside my bubble” deplorable or clueless people, aren’t they the same people who are fed a steady diet of fear, anger, and hate and are encouraged to arm themselves to the teeth? Doesn’t it seem like they are being incited with one end goal in mind, which is to kill lots of other people?
Which, when you come down to it, means killing lots of Everyday People like you and me.
And what is with this electing of affable buffoons to public office? Doesn’t anyone think it is awfully strange that they all advocate the same agenda? An agenda that most would call seriously “evil,” or at least sociopathic, if looked at from a historical perspective. The agenda of those whom we will presently define as “Predators.”
At a deep level, the major surprise here is how things are not going as one would expect from a species whose members all want to live “the good life.” Instead, so many people are so freaked out, and so damaged, that they grab at any scrap of respite no matter how transient, no matter how deplorable, and regardless of whether or not it sabotages their chances for a better future.
And, well, here we are.
Much of our confusion arises because, to a large degree, we had reasons to expect different behaviors from those running the show. Society is nothing if not a narrative about how the smart, educated, powerful people in charge are there to prevent the status quo from disintegrating into chaos and conflict. They’re supposed to smooth the uncertainties and disruptions generated by cultural, economic, political, and technological transitions.
These are the questions, and hundreds more, that haunt us. People have become both very angry and very concerned about the lack of, I don’t know, common sense? Basic humanity? Shame? And, okay, there are bad actors in this world, we all know that, but why wasn’t anybody doing anything about them?
There is a lot of angst and, frankly, surprise about the fact that there appears to be nobody doing anything to say NO to the dysfunction and abuse. This surprise is found across all demographics: conservatives, liberals, urban and rural folk, and the rich and poor.