Nate Knows Nada

Big Brother, the confabulist antagonist of George Orwell’s 1984, can’t be found in the Bush Administration. Much as the Left hates (at least somewhat justifiably) the Ashcroft gulag and the Rumsfeld poetry machine, the real danger probably does not come from agents of the government. Rather than the control of how we speak, think, receive information, and act coming from a centralized authority with the power to imprison and forcibly deprive us of our liberties (and I’m not sure whether I shouldn’t put that last term in quotes), we will probably give them up willingly in the pursuit of consumer goods and material power.

I first starting thinking about this after watching Bowling for Columbine with BF. (He was thinking pretty intently about it also.) Michael Moore conducts a semi-social science experiment to try to figure out what the differences between Canada and the U.S. are in terms of the attitude toward guns. Part of the difference lies in the approach to fear in each country. We (U.S.) seem to be a more fearful society. Our news is full of it, our entertainment builds on it, and our politics thrives upon it. And Marilyn Manson (of all people) seems to hit it right on the head when he notes that what this seems to result in is the consumption of ever more and more stuff. We buy to palliate our fears, relieve our tensions, pick up our moods, and make ourselves “better.” (I know I have engaged in “retail therapy”, and I’d be willing to bet that you have too.)

This is not a profound point. Plenty of religious thinkers and holy people have noted that fear is one of the mechanisms that drives acquisition and that happiness cannot be found there. Marx also made the point quite stunningly. When Jesus Christ and the Buddha and Karl Marx all agree on something, you know that you’ve got a problem…. (Thanks, Dixie Chicks! *wink*)

But there is more than truth in it — we don’t buy to live and satisfy our needs. We live to buy. Why else would every town in America need a Super Wal-Mart AND a Super Target? Even if the catchment area is only a few thousand people….

And in the resulting orientation to consumables, we become easily impressed by the demands of everyone out there willing to sell us stuff. Feeling low? Buy a new pair of shoes! Feeling ugly? We’ve got a new facial cleanser for you! Feeling scared? Buy a new super lock for your front door! Feeling threatened? Buy a weapon and turn the threat back on others! Feeling insignificant? Buy time on the news by doing something outlandish! Feeling? Buy something to revalidate that you ARE a person! Pretty soon we just buy because we buy, and it is at that point that we can be told to do almost anything.

The new Big Brother will not come from the government. He won’t even be a single person. He’ll be driven by market research, focus groups, and ad campaigns. He’ll be diffuse and collectively created. No one will be him or control him, because he will only exist as an aggregation of all of us. He will be the human tendency of group think, given sinews and a place to stand. He will be driven by our desire for security and self-validation, for happiness and community. We’ll surrender ourselves to him, because we will be afraid of not doing such, and we won’t know what else to do. We will buy and fill our outsides because we can’t face our insides. Rather than being one with everything, we’ll work to possess one of everything.

This isn’t an anti-corporate screed or some diatribe against capitalism — rather it’s my acknowledgement that our social system, like all human inventions, contains both the potential for great benefit and great harm. And I think we’re tipping in balance to the latter.

Al Sharpton, of whom I am not really a fan, had a quote in the Times this morning that sums it all up. When asked whether he favored gay marriage at a candidate forum (sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign), he responded, “That’s like asking me whether I favor ‘black marriage’ or ‘white marriage.'” Sharpton, who is black, received thunderous applause. Exactly.

In other news, there’s evidence now that HIV has begun to develop resistance to the drugs involved in the triple cocktail. Not only does this bode ominously for continued advances against the virus, but it also complicates treatment in places like sub-Saharan Africa, where the administration of treatment will have to be quite strict in order to prevent massive resistance development from occurring.

Things like this need to be said more often.

Well, I wrote my parents back today, and I told them that we won’t come to a meeting point about different readings of the Bible. But more important than that, I told them that what I found in being out and in a church that accepts that is that I have lived the experience and learned some of the lessons of love. “…God loves and is in everything. Since I have joined my piece of the Church, I have found that….I have a walk of faith, rather than a rote of rules and procedures.”

Now we’ll see what’s up when they respond.

On another note, my roommate just received word from his girlfriend of ten years that she wants to break up. She lives in Colorado, while he’s here. She told him via a text message on his cell phone. She isn’t responding right now. He has to get up for work in four hours.

Whoa.

I wish I knew what to do or say.