The Revolution will be validated
it is impossible to deny the hardship those connected to world events are enduring. We are infested with alarming regressive attitudes that are threatening the beliefs we have been experiencing for a long time. Politics is now more than ever at every corner. It has become a lens, filtering our surroundings. Paranoia is gaining ground like it hasn’t before the last biggest political crisis in Western history.
It is clear the results of the efforts in weaponising the power of social media and harnessing it to force events at a global scale. We are living through a historical moment of change; the world before the unleashing of social media is dead. We have just entered a new historical paradigm, and I am unsure which title would be appropriate, but I will try — uncivilised de-evolution, a term that encapsulates the deterrence of the natural progress of existence, largely driven by the influence of social media. In other words, the world has changed since the launch of Facebook, and not necessarily for the better.
My concern is the social crisis we live in due to politics' enmeshment with multinational corporations, which are now warfare for geopolitical and biopolitical games. The point is that, as of now, we are undergoing massive changes that I consider incredibly damaging. These changes will play out for a while and worsen before they get better.
What I see as the main problem right now is how we are talking to each other, how we are augmenting what is going on, how we are not listening and extending our hands to everything we can question but can see when others are not doing that. The oldest, most successful tool to exploit humans is through fear. The fact that our brain hadn’t evolved from when we were hunter-gatherers explains the success of the psycho warfare we are seeing right now. This psychological warfare, which manipulates our fears and insecurities, is evident in the assault on our relationships, speeches, and feelings. No one is outside of it, as the current war on our integrity shakes all structures to the core. It would be hypocritical to think that change is bad. No, not really. It is essential for the natural progress of existence. The issue is enduring; it is going through a period of social, political and economic tension. It is the perfect set-up for a deadly war. We haven’t seen the West engaging in a battle within its borders since the Second World War. I hope we are far from seeing it repeated.
Before I am invited to an anxiety-led piece of writing, I can identify what we are doing wrong in our clusters, in our interdependent cosmos, with our friends, families and acquaintances. We are not listening. We are stressed and overwhelmed with the exhaustive performance of our devices. Everywhere we look, there is breaking news that something worse than before has been said. The goal to stress us and tire us is working. We are depleted. We have minimal resources to keep up with the sensational. And that is a fundamental tactic to get us looking the other way — acknowledging what we are being told, like skipping the terms and conditions of a tool. And, of course, our capacity to think through what is going on decreases the more we are absorbed in the spectacle. And to bring questions to those who hold so much certainty about what is being said and are capable of testifying that everything somebody says is true is incredibly hard. How can I confront anyone by questioning somebody they deem as the owner of the truth? We cannot even conceptualise the fact that we are flawed. How are we looking for solace and a saviour?
Listening to those who genuinely believe that all crises are down to everything they don’t understand or know will save us and change where this is all being led. Because if I don’t understand and don’t know, that’s the problem. The problem with this current psychological positioning is that this new and permissive stance is advancing all ideas invasive to an open society where all can live freely by refusing to accept what’s outside my reality. Because if it does not belong to my reality, it should not exist. And indeed, that’s the reason for my unhappiness. We use what is wrong with our lives as shields to question deeply what is not okay with ourselves. With our society's oversimplification of complex social processes, we are isolating ourselves, retreating in fear and from the humility of not knowing. There is a clear defence of the right to be ignorant. I have the right to refuse to understand the other because I feel my existence is threatened by what I don’t see or know. And those that refuse to confront themselves with the reality of their contexts and which contexts they belong to won’t survive.
To choose to live in fear and not confront the irrationality of fear, we are doomed to retreat and not survive the demands that existing exerts on us. To create scapegoats to justify my unwellness is like heroin — it gives you a sense of power that slowly corrodes your capacity to stay anchored to reality and isolates you. To search for safety and encounter it quickly by blaming everything external to me is precisely that. The appetite for quick solutions is so immense and attractive that we cannot listen to our instincts and discernment to know where the line is drawn. Our fundamental aspects of sociability are being assaulted as we stop seeing each other as people. We are busy fighting who is right. and that’s precisely it. We are back in Rome, at the Colosseum. Would it go on if all the supposed enemies decided not to fight each other? Would there still be a show to cheer on?
How different would it be if I would only listen to somebody who inherently believes that the problem facing our countries is too much immigration? Take Portugal, for instance — the contribution of the immigrant population has been so astounding that social security paid itself off in a single year and had a surplus. It has never happened in the country’s history. A significant number of social workers are immigrants themselves. Taking care of our older population. And being an immigrant is just the social positioning of someone within a society. It is a person right there, working like all of us. Crime has gone up! No, it has not. Why is it so hard to contradict what a statistics agency concluded? Ah, they are corrupted! Who said that? The same person telling you that immigration is bad? I know it is hard to make someone confront themselves because what they have believed in is not valid. The best way to help somebody facing this is to extend our hand and not judge. We cannot judge because judgment itself is poisonous. It gives the false precept that we are somewhere in a higher position than the other when, in fact, we are precisely in the same place. We have a more challenging time accepting that we are the same, like the one who knows little, because, like them, we also need to eat to survive.
Although the appetite to engage in emotionally charged debates is at an all-time high, we stop shouting at each other and see the perception that the other holds; could be us too. The arrogance brought us here. Greed has brought us here. We do not see each other as people but as opponents. Every aspect of life has become a battlefield, a rivalry, a football match that lost control, and people started killing each other for it. We need to be accountable for our emotions and feelings and understand that they are a byproduct of a world exhausting us. And especially a world cashing in on instigating fear and hate for each other. It’s not the guy who believes that immigrants are bad — it is the politician who says it in a manner that validates the irrationality of that thought. Their ingenuity of them is what’s getting us into small wars everywhere. Let’s stop that. Today, the most revolutionary thing to do is listen to those who hold a view imploding our existence. It is not working saying that what is being said is “horrible” and woefully “ignorant” and all that. Let’s have discussions; let’s demonstrate why our views are threatening our own lives. We are living in a crisis of humbleness. Affluence is poisoning us. We don’t need more. We need quality. Let’s establish what is most important right now — not allow that we turn our backs on each other. History teaches us when that happens. Let’s not let people in power win us over. Let’s be the revolution every day.
