My Current Sadness
My Current Sadness
An 18-Year Old College Student and first-time DW
Contributor shares his views…and Feelings about
Today’s America
By: Bradford Clinard
This is my frame of reference. It is late and I want to sleep, but sleep alludes me. In its place is a small pain in my head over the sadness I am feeling. The sadness is for my generation, for my country, and for my world.
I do not feel I am extremely educated. I am a college student working hard to learn, grow, and discover more about myself and the world around be. This is of course following the implicit politically correct path—constantly reinforced by others telling me how well I am doing. I quickly admit that I don’t think I know a lot. In fact, the more I learn the more I realize I don’t know—one of the great reasons I see to live and learn more.
For about the last eight years, I have struggled for understanding about the world around me, a journey taken by most, yet uniquely mine. At this point in my journey, I am very saddened for I feel intrinsically something is very wrong with our system of being. I truly hope that someone wiser than myself can tell me otherwise.
In gathering an understanding of the American Way into which I have been so proudly born and indoctrinated, I begin to see increasing discrepancy and hypocrisy. Many of the instruments used to run the show are inherently undemocratic. I can’t be the only one who sees this. However, just in my attempt to write down my thoughts fear has arisen inside myself. The fear says I shouldn’t write my true thoughts for they are not safe; in fact they are oppositional and controversial. Paranoia arises. What might happen to me at the hands of people who enjoy the status quo my writing clashes with and rejects? It’s as if in my mind I see myself in a Communist Regime; where is my democratic free speech in that? I fear not the tar and feathering received by my prior free-thinkers but there is an underlying fear of being stigmatized.
I was taught, in school, that America was founded as a free society. It is a safe haven of escape from the tyrannous rule of Monarchs. A place where all men enjoy freedom and are equal. Hard work and dedication can achieve anything. We are told, not so discretely, BE ALL YOU CAN BE! Subscribe to a version of Adam Smith’s capitalism—competition creates competitive markets that self-regulate price and demand. There is a wonderful idea of Meritocracy. And of course how can one leave out the granddaddy of them all–THE AMERICAN DREAM. All this and so much more is packaged and discretely feed to us from infancy. All the dominant ideology running through my head…aches.
As I look around, I can see great strides have been taken as we are less racist, sexist, and homophobic than in the past; at least today it has ceased to appear in overt ways. Given that, there is a way to go still, but progress has been made. At the same time, some say there has been a moral landslide, but others call this “toleration” and “liberation.” I find out that primary education system itself is somewhat corrupt, as it taught me “facts” that turned out to be not so factual. It attempted to deprive me of critical thinking skills while teaching me to conform to massification. Meritocracy turned out to be a joke—acceptance to the “Ivy League Club” turned out to be based predominantly on family name or wealth donation potential. I no longer want the American Dream, which I view now as little more than self servitude—servitude to the system in exchange for consumption privileges and escapism. I don’t want to worship the celebrities who live the “great life.” They are wonderfully-employed red herrings, concealing the deliberate injustice and elite capitalist tycoons marketing them.
So where does that leave me—still trying to translate and play the game? Every time I am told “you are doing the right things,” or “keep up the good work,” it hits me as a reminder. I see myself, like others, as being goaded through the process of life; be as quiet, containable, predictable, consuming, and possibly productive as possible. Still, I suppose I will continue this until a better alternative presents itself. Ah yes, the self- empowerment junkies. I hear them preaching in the distance—positive thinking is the key to self improvement. What was it Dirken said, “Self improvement is masturbation?” Ok so honestly it’s not that bleak, but it is easy to view things that way.
Possibly this is why so many of my peers are habitually depressed and suppressing toxic levels of anger. It seems plain enough to me where one, especially an impressionable young adult or adolescent, could be confused about society. Maybe this is the real reason so many are ambivalent or apathetic about deep issues. They then run to hide in the safety and comforting escapism afforded through technology.
All this seems like a big pile of ____. Continually contributing to the pile are the real rulers. One word—OGILOPOLIES. They are running the show now. It seems to me that the US has cast democracy into the hands of the oligopolies. They used (and abused) the capitalist system to push it into its own quiet extinction without a word being said. Corporations did this by predatorily eliminating most of their competitors and allying with the remaining competition. Now they control the media, the government, the people and our way of life.
This can easily be seen in the Iraq war. It is the true injustice of today. Corporations are the imperialistic empires of today. First they took over our country by exploiting our people. (Do you think we are not exploited? What do you call it then when junk food is marketed to a five-year old by a Sponge Bob picture?) The country takeover was easy as they (corporate lobbyists) put money into the hands of men running the government, taking on the role of puppet master. They guarantee influence by using the formula—donate roughly thirty percent to Democrats and the remaining to Republicans. No matter who is in control they have a pocket paid for.
At the same time, people were sedated by already-available escapist leisure consumption. It is taught that to be democratic one should support the capitalist economy through proper consumption. However, we are never satisfied. Eternal Progress means there is always new and better stuff we can’t live without, just around the corner. Now they seek to expand their Machiavellian interests and policies throughout the world.
I now realize my sadness comes from the dehumanization I so vividly see being played out before my eyes, in part because, I choose to reject oppression, a sentiment I grew up believing this country also supported. But sadly, in today’s world like that of yesterday people are simply pawns used by Ogolopolies that further the interests of the powerful…now called corporations. The dehumanization is seen by the prostitution of our lives for a material world in the name of progress.
I constantly hear people complain about Bush and his war. The real problem is America. Moral and ethical lines I once knew and looked to have been blurred to non-distinction. Those between Democrats and Republicans, corporations and government, and the exploitation of a notion of freedom. For what purpose or cause is this war being fought? Terrorism, Sadam… democracy in Iraq? Sadam is sentenced to execution and nobody seems to care. Was it not just two years ago when we triumphantly dragged him out of his hole? What has changed?
Change has come in the elevation of our day-to-day fear. Maybe this is the true victim of terrorism—our enjoyment of life without fear. Worse yet, our fears today wear numerous faces that are inscrutable. It threatens to strike anywhere anytime. From the awaking bang of September eleventh we have seen shoe, sports drink, roadside, and suicide bombers. All share a similar resolution—they create more destruction and fear. The news media have also had their hand in adding to the flames of fear. Once again corporate profit-driven interests control news media. Because destruction sells news, terrorism is overexposed and under-explained, fueling the fear and more importantly giving our enemy a venue for their message. It is a message of hate, but their propaganda is selling.
In America, we relish our celebration of Eternal Progress. I don’t see our state of fear as progress. I don’t think we are getting closer to the Utopia we project; in fact I see this projection as dangerous. It is anti progress. I would gladly trade technology and luxury consumption for a simpler time of yesteryear. A time of relative innocence. Maybe that is in part where my sadness is rooted—a break with that former innocence, a shift to the adult world, and growing pains. Still, maybe it is the pain felt and shared by all who refuse to be inebriated and immersed by consumer media-ism lifestyle.
What has changed is the corporation’s agenda. They don’t care who wins—the war in Iraq or the elections. Neither do they care about the lives lost or the injustices done again and again to humanity. In the end they think they will win because they get more power and the “all-mighty dollar.” At least now I understand that expression.
I see my sadness more clearly now. My sadness is for lives forever changed, lives never truly lived, and for the ultimately lost. I will not forget.
ABOUT THE WRITER:
(Brad Clinard is a High Pointer and a sophomore attending the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where, when he is not ruminating on the state of our nation and culture, he makes excellent grades in his area of scholastic concentration (presently business) and excellent strokes on the tennis court for his University’s Varsity Tennis Team. )
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