To notice,
to pay attention is a political act: the decision whether or not to ignore.
The corporates
or states can try to distract us and we can distract ourselves. They amount to
the same thing; the act of turning our face away from something we do not want
to address. Why we don’t want to pay attention depends on the object: a tax
return, a failing relationship, a hand outstretched by a pleading person. We
can turn away or allow someone else to distract us.
To look at
something we’d rather not is a political act. It may cost us time, money, fear,
engaging with part of ourselves that we would prefer to suppress out of shame
or because it conflicts with the carefully constructed image of ourselves.
Documentary
films are engaging, even addictive, for exactly this reason. We allow the film
maker to crank our heads around, turning our face to that which we have ignored
because it was new and required time and learning or because it was painful and
challenged our preferred view of the world.
The film
maker’s crank can work in another way: he can turn his camera away from things
we should see. It is not just a matter of reality and fantasy. Over the past
200 years storytelling in the form of books and novels has focused on what we
call real, reality, realism, the details of daily life. But there is a gulf
between the Mass Observation movement of the 1930s or George Orwell’s Road to
Wigan Pier and the marital infidelities of a John Updike novel or the Big
Brother television show. They are all forms of realism yet they can tell us lots
or little about the world.
Where are
the ideas that drive us to stand up and resist or to tune our mind to eternal channels?
These are more real, central to our sanity, to our ability to grapple with
reality. Where, today, is the film, novel or television of ideas?
In every habitat,
jungle, routine or regime we tune out a little. If we didn’t we could hardly
remain individuals. But the tuning out, like the daydream, must be compatible with
our functional role. A train driver should
only dream so far in his work. But outside, he is probably freer than most. A corporate manager can read the corporate press, from the
sports page and movie reviews to its presentation of world events. But if he
starts to read Antony Sutton, Joseph Campbell or Carroll Quigley he will
quickly reach a level of internal conflict that prevents his continued work for
government or big food or the oil business.
So you
abandon ideas in return for earning a crust. The first thing the billionaire
does when he has guaranteed his crust is to return to ideas! George Soros
promotes his view of society through regime change, Jeff Bezos and Pierre
Omidyar buy news organs, Bill Gates tackles third world diseases. Ideas are
what we put aside to our personal cost.
We can
start by observation. Not shoplifting opinions ready made from Facebook but by
using our own eyes and rediscovering our own morality.
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