Many people today are angry - whether they are politically left or right. They feel like the land tenants in Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath", whose land now belongs to the banks, which want to evict them. The tenants fetch their guns to defend their land, as they did against the Indians. But who are the Indians today? Who must you aim at? - "It is not us," say the men who have come to deliver the bad news to the tenants. "It's the bank. But the bank is different from the people who work for it. Everyone in the bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank exists and keep going. The bank is more than people. It is a monster. People created it, but they can't control it anymore."
That's the situation of all those angyry people today. But nobody has a complete overview of the situation, nobody knows all the ingredients and determinants of the miserable situation. Accusing whom? Fight who? To resist against whom? Day after day, the dull feeling grows that we are only living in an all-encompassing simulation of democracy, which is an illusion of participation
What was "the bank" in Steinbeck's novel is "the system" today: something that people have created, but which is itself greater than those who work for it and in it. This system has alread acquired a life of its own. More or less we all are part of the "system", at least all active members of modern civilization. We are part of the system, but we can't change its course.
People on the left and the right take out their "guns" and target individual actors: the bankers and bosses, the "elite", the migrants, the meat eaters and drivers of SUVs. All in vain. We are at the same time the tenants, who are deprived of their livelihood, and also the shareholders of the "bank", which expells us from the "good old days".
We would actually have to turn the guns against ourselves.
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Enough with intellectual, escapist hand wringing! Look at the actual history of the origin of the problem. People are conditioned by the system that capitalism created. Don't blame the individuals at the bottom. They have to survive in it. The targets have to be those who've expropriated the wealth of humanity, thereby subjecting others to misery.
Krish55
Level 8
Oct 7, 2019
0
Based on what you wrote, I think you would like Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari . It is mainly about how humans have gotten to the point to where famine war and plague are no longer our main deterrents in continuing the species.
The relevance to what you wrote are the chapters dedicated to how human created myths in order to mobilize us towards a common goal.
In his analysis, one of the greatest thing that separate us from our primate cousins is our ability to communicate about things that do not exist. Another being the ability to coordinate large numbered strategic plans, that are reciprocal in nature.
Some myths discussed are christianity, humanism, capitalism and money.
He takes a pragmatic view towards these myths but encourages us to be consciously aware that we are the creators of those myths, as we head into the future.
I find it a fascinating and thought provoking read.
Stoic247
Level 5
Oct 6, 2019
0
anyone wanna join me? 
I just know that all the tallest and shiniest buildings in the major cities have the names of banks and insurance companies on them.
BufftonBeotch
Level 8
Oct 6, 2019
1
I am not angry. I have enough, and I have my one vote. That is my share of power.
Your last sentence tells it all. It is all of us together who make up this modern world. We all benefit from the economy of scale, but only by losing some of our self-autonomy. We are small fish in a big pond.
Welcome back!
WilliamFleming
Level 8
Oct 6, 2019
0
It’s “Grapes Of Wrath”. The title a reference to a line in Battle Hymn Of The Republic.
We are all Tom Joad.and have been exploited to varying degrees of corporatisation. Our ‘gun’ is to opt out of consumerist culture.
From Grapes Of Wrath
“If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know.”
Geoffrey51
Level 8
Oct 6, 2019
1
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