On the topic: The Storm and the Day After. Postscript. Part Two. Change with continuity? The same thing all over again?

Oct142024

On the topic: The Storm and the Day After. Postscript. Part Two. Change with continuity? The same thing all over again?

On the topic: The Storm and the Day After.

Postscript.

Part Two. Change with continuity? The same thing all over again?

The community assembly carries on with the introductions. It is your turn to answer the key question “And what about you?”

Yes, there are several possibilities. You are a moderately intelligent person and you believe in yourself and in your ability to convince others (for that you read quite a few manuals on how to gain followers, and you even took the course “1000 steps to be popular in the digital age”), so, for example, you can try to convince the rest of the people present at that hypothetical assembly that the best way to go is to create a society where artists and scientists have a separate space for themselves. And that for that, of course, a State will be needed, because it is impossible to even imagine a society without a State (well, yes, it is possible, but that is not the point). And that a State needs someone to govern it, that is, someone to command it. There will be no shortage of people to command. And that papers be drawn for everything: to acknowledge each person’s property, for exchanging, that is, for buying and for selling.

If, before the appearance of that State, theft and plunder were carried out by force, and the new civilization is, well…“civilized”, then these crimes must be regulated and legislated and made legal, so that legality replaces legitimacy. So it’s not a bad idea to create a body of people specialized in making laws. With them, flags, national anthems, borders and custom-made histories will also be born.

Of course, what will happen is that those who were dispossessed – with or without laws – will have nothing more to offer than their manual and knowledgeable ability to produce: and, on the other hand, those who benefited from these crimes will be able to «buy» this ability to produce. «Hiring» may be the used term, because «exploiting» sounds bad. Then legislation will also have to be passed on this relationship. Against all evidence, as both – the contractor and the contracted – are members of this nascent community, it will be an agreement between equals who will freely contract and be contracted.

To exalt this “freedom,” a term will be coined that eliminates the difference between owners and non-owners. “Citizens” may be an attractive option. And from there, its aseptic equivalents will be deduced: “women,” “youth,” “children,” “senior citizens,” “whites,” “African Americans,” “Asians,” “browns,” “indigenous,” “mestizos,” “Creoles,” etc.

All these terms make it possible to set aside, or conceal, the contrasting differences between the haves and the have-nots, and there must be laws that guarantee this concealment.

And in order for these laws to be obeyed (you know: it often happens that there are people like that, who do not obey), another group of people will be needed to dedicate themselves to “establishing order”. A police force, I mean. And, an army will be needed to appropriate resources that are in another community.

And there will be a need for someone to assign a place to each skin color and gender in that society.

For example, dark-skinned people will withstand the rough weather better (or so they were taught), and those with light skin are more sensitive, more delicate (or so they were taught). Women will perform well at home. Men will perform better in executive positions. The “otroas”, the “others”?… ugh! It is an aberrant phenomenon that must be eliminated or their existence ignored. That is what closets, raids, prisons and coffins are for.

You rescued from the catastrophe the most important thing, that is, your set of values. So it is natural that women, since they are the ones who can bear children, take charge of the home where those children will grow up and take their rightful place. You also brought with you your canon of beauty, so you will instinctively determine which woman is more… more… more “desirable” (I was going to put “is hotter”, but the artistic and scientific seriousness of this text advises against it), so that the best “breeding stock” are selected to “improve the race”. “Good taste” will be important not only at the table and in dressing, but also in “humanhunting”.

Of course, women will always cause problems – it is in their essence – so a moderate feminism must be implemented, always under the supervision of men. In the case of any «excesses», men will promise to behave well and suffer themselves, for example, to take lessons on gender issues. And they will also bear women to have access to spaces of power. Of course, that is as long as they become masculinized.

For instance, the arrival of women to managerial positions will be presented as an “achievement” of women in general, although girls, young women, adults and old women who go to school, or work, or the marketplace, as students, employees or housewives, will continue to be “targets of opportunity” in the sight of the predator hidden behind these “new masculinities.”

The same will happen with the dark ones. They will continually rebel and resist taking their place in the new world. So at least two things will be necessary: one will be to hand out alms (not too many, because they might get used to them); the other will be to adopt some dark-skinned people so that there seems to be some inclusion and so that people think that there will always be the option to climb up the social ladder. If they persist in their foolishness, well, that is what police and armies are for.

If, God forbid, the “otroas”, “the others” follow the bad example, there is no problem. One will simply have to apply the principle of “impersonation.” That is, straight people will pretend to be “others”; they will behave well and assume their place in the government and that will be that. Be careful never to abandon the closet-raid-jail-coffin policy. Well, that is, those who make it into coffins. Because forced disappearance will be an option.

This, let’s say, «dark skin society” will have to contribute so that the created State can offer support to the arts and sciences. Because that is what you were taught in school: big money financed the great scientific discoveries and the wonderful works of art that fill inaccessible museums and modern laboratories and test rooms.

Well, used to fill. Because in this “suppository” that I propose to you, all those things will have disappeared, or will be destroyed, looted, and what remains will be left isolated amongst the rubble, blood, bones, mud and scum somewhere.

But, in this isolated community’s idea of the future, «progress» will discover new territories and technologies to conquer in a short time (let’s say in a few centuries).

At first with «white» weapons and armor, then with more weapons, now firearms, and tanks and airplanes, conquest will advance and, with it, prosperity and development will flourish. And, of course, dispossession, subjugation (of course a “modern» one), destruction and death, but that does not matter now.

Soon, it will be the banks who command mining companies, agro-industries, industrial corridors, tourist centers, modern trains and airports that will penetrate plains and mountains, pollute rivers, lagoons and springs, use as employees (warning: avoid using the word «enslave») the dark-skinned locals, take what they can and go somewhere else, leaving behind a wasteland… as it happens in war. At every turn they will find the docile, servile and cruel front(wo)man in the State that will be needed for the birth of this new civilization.

And so you realize that it is possible to find a safe space if, as they say, “you know who to hang out with.” For that, an educational system will be necessary that “teaches” children from a very young age their place. So yes, let there be schools for the dark ones and schools for the light ones. Your rise as an artist or scientist will follow the overwhelming advance of this brave new world.

Since creative freedom in arts, research and hiring will be the most important thing, it will be necessary to avoid the arrival of those who strive for a Totalitarian State, even if that requires… another Totalitarian State.

It does not matter that this State is a representative democracy, a monarchy, a parliamentarian one, a dictatorial one, etc. What matters is that it is capable of homogenizing society by imposing the hegemony of an idea: “progress”; that is, progress of the individual person, at any cost and over whoever gets in the way. In this case, the effort of the “others” must be directed towards being part of the “ones”. One must change sides, then, regardless of color, gender (or non gender), size, religion, race, language, culture, way of being, history. Happiness will reign in the “ones”, and the unhappiness of having to fight for happiness will reign in the “others”. The “ones” are the possessors, the “others” are the dispossessed yearning to be possessors.

In this dilemma you will hope to convince other people of this great idea. It is your turn. Go ahead, apply what you have learned.

Of course, it is very likely that someone will interrupt you and remind you that everyone, including you, is in that situation precisely because of a system that operates within that logic.

-*-

Of course, you now think that this hypothesis is too extreme, that no rational, cultured, highly educated, heterosexual, masculine or masculinized, civilized and “modern” person would want that.

But I have only summarized for you the foundations of a capitalist society: exploitation, repression, theft and contempt. A patriarchal, racist, exploitative, warlike, criminal, inhuman, cruel and merciless system that grows by means of destroying everything. And it grew until it destroyed the world as you knew it. A society like the one you and us “live” in.

Oh, but don’t get angry. It’s just a «hypothetical» situation, so to speak; a “suppository”, if you will. Scientific and technological advances, as well as the flourishing of «old» and «new» arts, are w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l-l. Global warming is a hoax invented by idle ecologists (did I already say that they are also ugly?) -mere modern hippies with studies-; climate change is a fad, there are no hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts, floods outside the usual ones; femicides? They don’t exist, they are punishments that fate gives to women who reject their place… or who are found in the wrong place at the wrong time; there is no organized crime because the State does not admit competition for that (in crime, of course; in the organized part it is, by far, surpassed); and disputes between countries are solved through dialogue, so there are no wars or genocides that use history to their advantage (“we have the right to eliminate the other because before we were the other and they wanted to eliminate us”). Well, everything is fine, isn’t it?

But this manner of replicating the previous organizational model is only one of many possibilities; there must be other ways. Because, in the hypothetical “day after,” one option is to start to rebuild the system that provoked, set on, and brought along its final destiny: the storm. Of course, this manner works by “smoothing down the edges” of that system.

I propose this possibility because it is well-known that there are people who tend to start over again from what they already know when imagination and audacity lack. Just as a movement that is organized to confront a State party becomes, well… a State party. It feeds off it and “appropriates” the uses and customs of whoever was its enemy. Thus, anything goes, everything is permitted, in order to avoid ceasing to be… a State party.

And, just as it is evident that there is “something” wrong with the system, it is also common to internalize the evidence that nothing else is possible, that “a world where many worlds fit” is not possible.

To be continued…

From etcetera.