When police can murder a citizen in front of TV cameras, then you know something in the system is wrong.
When the President of a country can lie and then try to legislate a social media platform into silence because they check his facts, then you know something in the system is wrong.
When a minister can lie to parliament without sanction, you know something is wrong.
When a lie becomes “fake news“, then you know something is wrong.
In our society, as in any other before and after us, there are always powers at work that we are unaware of. Those are not necessarily negative powers, but it could be.
This is so because every individual works to promote his own interest, and so does every organisation. Quite often, their interests are directly opposed to ours. That is what happens in any business negotiation, whether you buy something small or are involved in a large business deal.
When people are “outfoxed” by the other party or they experience (feel) that they lost, they search for a reason.
Unfortunately, we live in a time when the searching for a reason has become searching for a culprit. We live in a society that does not take responsibility, mainly because they have been brought up not to take responsibility.
If your own lack of effort or knowledge leads to failure or loss, there must be a reason. And if the reason means you must admit responsibility, then it is much easier to blame.
In such a society, what necessarily follows, is that the distance between classes becomes larger. If only because one group or class approach life differently.
If you have a group of people who grew up in a consumer culture and another in a production culture, there will be a widening of wealth. This is because the wealth (money) always flows from the consumer to the producer. It has no choice.
In those two cultures, the way children are brought up differs in various ways. As far as money and wealth is concerned, it differs in the way people approach value.
This difference is seen in the stories people create and the stories people tell. In the producer culture, stories tend to be about success, especially in the family. In the consumer culture, the stories are about the other culture (who denied us success) and the stories center around the reason why we were denied success.
The producer culture then becomes a culture of superiority and the consumer culture becomes a culture of inferiority. Because I am denied success by an outside force (the producer), I am entitled to compensation. And those who took from me (who ended up with “my” wealth), must compensate me.
Confrontation is unavoidable if the gap between producer (have) and consumer (have not) becomes so unbalanced that the consumer does not have enough resources to sustain a basic comfort level.
When the culture of production becomes a culture of greed, the soil is prepared for revolution.
This revolution comes in different forms depending on the type of society in which it occurs. In a globally connected society such as ours, the revolution may take the form of physical force, but more often, it comes in the form of a rejection of what the “producer” culture presents as the acceptable norm.
In the time this post is written, we have not yet reached the stage where the consumer culture is convinced that it has nothing to lose. So, the revolution presents as a non-violent rejection of the status quo.
That is one reason we experience a resurgence in so-called “fake news”. It seems to me the term “fake news” makes it easier for people to accept the validity of misinformation or lies. If lying is against your upbringing or your religion, you cannot take part in it. But if you rename it, it becomes acceptable and it can be used against your “enemies”.
The problem we experience is that fake news has become a tool with which the unhappy masses or consumers, can be manipulated.
This can be used by countries or individuals who want control over a community. It can also be used by the same people who the consumer wants to hurt, namely the producer or “ruling class” (the “haves”).
Once people accept fake news and the border between truth and lie becomes blurred, the circumstances are perfect for the use of tools such as conspiracy theories.
Our society’s values have changed. An we can do little about it, because that is how we develop.
Many organisations exist and will be created to try and get us on the “right” road.
They will all fail.
All efforts to root out smoking, prostitution, drug abuse, child abuse, and the abuse of people weaker than us, will not be rooted out.
There are too many institutions that will cease to exist if their reason for existence disappears.
There are too many people who need an excuse for their own failures to allow the truth to be the status quo.
Eventually, all that matters is not whether we have a perfect society. All that matters is whether you can survive in society.
The question really is, whether you are an activist for something that you will not receive in the end.
Are you sure that you are not just “cannon fodder‘?