My friend John, from the band Sleeps in Oysters, wrote this a few weeks ago:
A thought borrowed from 'Fight Club' a bit: Suppose what we're watching here is a generation who've been raised by television, movies and song lyrics to believe that probably, eventually, they're going to make it as pop stars, actors, models, millionaire entrepreneurs. And, moreover, to believe that these are the ONLY aspirations worth having, the only people that count, the only way to validate one's existence. Suppose, at the same time, they're learning from adverts that smartphones and iPads and HDTV are basic human rights. And that they were born into a world where formative social interaction is increasingly reliant upon technology of the kind that costs a lot of money. And suppose that in the country that we all call home, accepted political doctrine is that economic achievement and the acquisition of wealth and property is paramount, that poverty is a consequence of laziness, inadequacy, stupidity. And then that certain opportunities turn out only to be available to those who can afford to pay impossible fees for a University education or work for free for six months in an internship to prove their worth. Suppose, then, that the voice of authority in school or in Whitehall or wherever gets stuck on the idea that in a free market economy, if you work hard enough, work single-mindedly and for longer hours than you would in any other country in Europe, success and wealth will follow inevitably, cause and effect. Suppose that turns out not always to be true. And that if you wanted to change any of that, it would really help if you'd gone to Eton.
Suppose following your dream, believing in yourself, working all the hours under the sun turns out not actually, necessarily, to count for much. And that you've watched it not count for much for your parents for your entire life. And you're still poor. Hang on, I'll rephrase that, because you're not. As everyone's keen to point out, you've got a Blackberry and expensive trainers, so compared to a Somalian refugee at Dadaab, you're OK. Actually, compared to 80% of the world'd population you're certainly not poor. BUT compared to the people that our insanely unequal society celebrates, adulates, idolizes...Compared to the tiny minority who've really won at the free market...Compared to the bankers who pillaged your country and left you to live with the consequences...Well, you're not rich, either. Your not winning. And that fact is in your face, all the time. And life is ordinary, it isn't glamorous. And despite your best efforts and your conspicuous affectations, you still don't have all the things that every day of your life the world is telling you that you should have in order to feel happy, to be successful and complete as a human being.
I suppose if all of that turned out to be the case, it maybe wouldn't be all that surprising if your first impulse in response was to smash a few things up, and your second was to just take some of the stuff that cold hard real life doesn't allow you.
I'm not trying to excuse or justify anything. It's obviously abhorrent and appalling and impossibly sad that innocent people have lost livelihoods and been made to feel afraid and, almost unbelievably, have lost their lives as a result of this shit. But I do think we have to try and think about WHY this might have happened. And happened here, now. It's starting to look like an easy get-out clause for the politicians to deny any kind of connection between these events and the social and political environment that they've occurred in. I do not accept that riots happen in a social vacuum, that the 'sickness' in our society is attributable only to those who lash out, and has nothing to do with any of the rest of us. And a lot of us seem to be so busy inventing justifications that we imagine might be posited by those responsible for the riots in order that we can scoffingly reject them, nobody seems to be asking - if that's not a reason, then what is?
All that said, no answers here. I dunno. Rant over.
Suppose following your dream, believing in yourself, working all the hours under the sun turns out not actually, necessarily, to count for much. And that you've watched it not count for much for your parents for your entire life. And you're still poor. Hang on, I'll rephrase that, because you're not. As everyone's keen to point out, you've got a Blackberry and expensive trainers, so compared to a Somalian refugee at Dadaab, you're OK. Actually, compared to 80% of the world'd population you're certainly not poor. BUT compared to the people that our insanely unequal society celebrates, adulates, idolizes...Compared to the tiny minority who've really won at the free market...Compared to the bankers who pillaged your country and left you to live with the consequences...Well, you're not rich, either. Your not winning. And that fact is in your face, all the time. And life is ordinary, it isn't glamorous. And despite your best efforts and your conspicuous affectations, you still don't have all the things that every day of your life the world is telling you that you should have in order to feel happy, to be successful and complete as a human being.
I suppose if all of that turned out to be the case, it maybe wouldn't be all that surprising if your first impulse in response was to smash a few things up, and your second was to just take some of the stuff that cold hard real life doesn't allow you.
I'm not trying to excuse or justify anything. It's obviously abhorrent and appalling and impossibly sad that innocent people have lost livelihoods and been made to feel afraid and, almost unbelievably, have lost their lives as a result of this shit. But I do think we have to try and think about WHY this might have happened. And happened here, now. It's starting to look like an easy get-out clause for the politicians to deny any kind of connection between these events and the social and political environment that they've occurred in. I do not accept that riots happen in a social vacuum, that the 'sickness' in our society is attributable only to those who lash out, and has nothing to do with any of the rest of us. And a lot of us seem to be so busy inventing justifications that we imagine might be posited by those responsible for the riots in order that we can scoffingly reject them, nobody seems to be asking - if that's not a reason, then what is?
All that said, no answers here. I dunno. Rant over.
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