Rousseau (1964) [1756] Cited in Hymes, 1996: Narrative Inequality, p. 25.
There are two resources that the mention of the role of consent in inequality brings immediately to my mind, which I think valuable to any brave soul interested in an exploratory sally into the cold, murky waters of our present social reality, a reality so successfully disguised as the produce of free will and individual human agency, which are, in turn, portrayed as the central doctrine of what is touted to be the social organization of choice in the modern world: effectively the true religion of the Holy American Empire and all its Western cousins: Democracy. I am not anti-democracy, but one big problem is that it doesn't really exist in the way most Americans imagine it does. The other is the the way we not only idealize but idolize it, as if it came part and parcel with the 10 commandments on Mr. Sinai--you have to wonder whether this ideology isn't just a little like the old divine right of kings in ages past. . . but that discussion for another day.
One is the video documentary of Noam Chomsky's: Manufacturing Consent. The other other is an article that appears in an edited volume called Social Dominance; this latter is one of those works whose essence is rich, but which rich essence has been distilled and concentrated in the title--rendering everything after the title more or less supplementary and superfluous. The title is, Let's Both Agree that You're Really Stupid: the Power of Consensual Ideology.
A caveat about Manufacturing Consent. I am neither prescribing nor ascribing to anarchism. I think the chief virtue of this documentary is that it points out that that you can wield power over a people so much more effectively if you make them believe that they are in charge and you are giving them what they want.
This reminds me of the common saying that The man is the head of the house, but the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head any way she wishes. Humorous, but nails the nature of manipulation. Well, some would call it diplomacy or politics, but that's also begging the question--what is relationship between the language we use to describe (or obscure!) reality, and the true nature of reality itself. Yes, it's 1984 all over again, (but are we not all grateful that orwell did not have the foresight to prophecy the big hair of that ignominious decade, and thus extend the life of its unpleasant effects) . (: and he may have been off the mark a few decades too early for the extremity of Big Brother, but dear Lord, just a few.
I write from the perspective of what many find surprisingly conservative social views, as one who met with the rude awakening in 2004 of accidentally discovering a law of (politico-)physics whereby, apparently, a fairly conservative resident of Washington DC, by driving a few thousand miles and taking up residence in the heart of Texas, is instantaneously transmogrified into a liberal. And not a lukewarm liberal either, apparently there are flames emanating from my aura. I think that technically, however, they are coming from the fire shut up in my bones and that my 'liberal' ideas resonate with all the old testament prophets and Jesus and the disciples. . . we should not lose sight of the earlier meaning of the word liberal-it means to be generous and giving. It is sometimes used as the translation of 'goodness' in the list o the fruits of the spirit. . .
Apparently, nothing need change but one's residence, for the transformation to Bearer of the Scarlet Letter (L, the L-word in point of course being LIBERAL) and 'poof,' my identity was suddenly transformed into some enigmatic entity I myself could neither see nor describe, save after several years, in year Ot Seven, I had accustomed my eyes to see the image in the collective mirror of the many faces of my new community and culture, and gradually to recognize my own face as it appears in mosaic pieces, on the sea of prosaic faces, in the countenance of a thousand Texans, skewed in the light of a strange reflection, unfamiliar enough to defy detection, and leaving me with a waterless beach full of mystified questions.
The word consent, as it is bandied about in the U.S., is integral to the sacred American ideology of freedom and independence, and is the pivotal notion in what I have come to believe is probably the greatest political snow job of the last thousand years, with the greatest number of subjects in the history of humankind taken in by it. The human animal is smart enough to object to overt efforts at enslavement by other humans. There seems to be enough of a sense of social justice encoded somewhere in their DNA that in time, at least some of them will recognize the exploitation of one class of human by another and will exercise their gift of agency and volition by intervening, revolting, and setting about to right the imbalance that incensed them.
However, it has generally been members of the oppressed population who rise up, having nothing to lose, in an effort to seize back their rightful autonomy as human beings. Unfortunately, it seems you have to actually be one of the oppressed before this burst of humanity shakes you in your shackles. Shucks. Sure the others shirk their responsibility with a shrug of their shoulders and a shameless show of shit-headed apathy. (No apologies for scatological representations of the products of fallenness and hell--scripture quite favors that literary device).
And of course, that other persistent trace in their DNA seemed to destine the revolutionaries to the same fate of their 'evil' predecessors, the same cycle of rising to power with decent motives and then finding that being in the dominant position in society causes clear and certain danger to one's moral health, first a cancer to the eyes, which results in a blissful oblivion to the suffering of others, and soon addictions to comforts (call it palliative care, you know you want to) that cannot be maintained without the oppression of some other capriciously determined class of human beings, and thus, 9 times out of 10, the new civil savior eventually becomes the new unsavory oppressor, just like clockwork.
All that agency and yet--how unbearably predictable the human cycle. All that free will and the lion's share of the population keep their heads down focused on the bit of rut in front of them as they rock back and forth spinning their wheels and trying to free themselves by accelerating in the rut. 9 times out of 10, no one turns the wheel and tries to cut across the grueling groove. 9 times out of 10 they do not step outside themselves to survey the situation and engage in a little metacognition--assess the situation, regroup, develop a new strategy and take decisive action. Yes, Alexander was right, the masses are asses. And we are they.
And Americans may just be the guiltiest and the stupidest asses in the history of time, the most inexcusable. What society has ever had so many tools and done so little work with them? Do not even animals arrange themselves such that the dominant alpha male takes his leadership not only to enjoy its power, but to look after the interest of the herd? Understanding the safety of the herd to be inextricably linked to their own?
What society has ever had so much knowledge at their fingertips (literally), and so much leisure to pursue it--never has it been so easy to just reach up and grab a torch and start illuminating the dark corners of society where evil still reigns to reach in and take up the cause of the innocent and the oppressed. But I see Americans sitting in their lazy boys in front of the TV--a crystal ball providing direct access to intense real-life, naturally occurring, unscripted untrumped up, real life survivor drama where the stakes are life or death, not being kicked off an island, the stakes are shelter from falling bombs and stray bullets, seeing your child live to adulthood, enough food for your family to eat, escaping or surviving rape and domestic abuse, rather than missing out on a chance to win a million dollars with a consolation prize of public notoriety that may still lead to luxury and to still more insulation from the actual reality-shows (not reality charades) unfolding behind closed doors and iron curtains. . . that square shaped flat screened crystal ball a window that leads to a critical door, ubiquitous and thus, much too easy to ignore.
Here it is, heroism (another of the American pantheon of purported principles of purpose) on a silver platter. The American, however, elects to lean back, dim the light, and watch Die Hard for the 4,000th time. Watch someone strong and beautiful spend millions of dollars blowing things up and pretending to risk his life saving others' so we can get our adrenalin fix, pretending-just as a mental exercise- to care about the lives of people outside our own, even if they are imaginary people being saved by an imaginary hero from a gang of imaginary terrorists. Americans spend millions of dollars and millions of hours RE-CREATING death and destruction so we can slake our thirsts for what??? A reminder of how cozy we are and perhaps a spark of a glimmery memory of of an age when we ached with those who ached and spent our millions of dollars and millions of hours on the billions of people trapped in story lines they cannot turn off when they are ready to go to bed at 11:00. Oh yeah. Reality check. We may have thought we had come of age. But the fact is, that golden age has yet to come. We are currently merely inhabitants of the age of gold.One cold ice age, this one is. Yeah, yeah, whatever, one gold one coming up.
RE-CREATION of DEVASTATION as RECREATION--Animation as anesthesia, animal nation shooting up for corporate amnesia, exercising nothing but imagination, exorcising any suggestion of guilt or obligation, hell bent on escaping any actual conflagration, blasting doubters with our righteous indignation, we gave at the door, dammit!! When we checked our consciences with our sheepish woolen cloaks.
Americans pay through the nose to keep the hallucination coming in a steady stream, we pay top dollar for this elaborate delusion, deaden any impulse that might lead to resolution, restitution, revolution. Sheesh, revolution was so much more chic and noble when we were not the oppressor. The best laid plans. . . well, they're still lying there. Right next to the American also lying there intoxicated by their creature comforts, in a pool of luke warm social vomit, expulsed from God's own mouth. Having been neither hot nor cold. Suffocating in their own self absorption. What was that about all roads leading to Rome? Romans road? All Romes leading to this road? A Very, Very long (thrill ride of an) Access road leads to Excess road, A dead end. Well, first there's a moral cliff to fall over, and then the dead end's at the end of your fall. Well, technically, The Fall, capital F, but who's keeping score?
Make no mistake, I do not speak of all Americans. But I speak of the current essence of America. She who has an ear to hear. . . let her hear. But I wax pessimistic. And my alter ego (and my altar ego) believes you really can change the world, and so can I, and so we must.
No transformation can begin, however, before an assessment has been made and acknowledged. Someone has to see and interpret the handwriting on the wall, otherwise its just prophetic grafitti. Mene , Mene , Tekel , Parsin . . .
Reveling with goblets of silver and gold and praising the gods of silver and gold-- yeah there's a cup for you, but it's not a cold one, nor is it a gold one, and I daresay it shall not pass from you save you drink it to its dregs. . . Someone call for a wise man or a wise woman who is not afraid to tell the Emperor that he is BUCK naked! Let the headline show: Almighty buck exposed. We can just call him Al. For now. Al American. The Emperor is not one man or woman, it is the spirit of a nation.
I've strayed a a bit from my original focus. But fear not, I shall return later to continue discussing the matter of deformed consent.
