Dear Friends,
It seems to me, many of us would like nothing better than to see a zombie apocalypse, just to live in interesting times. Perhaps that is why so many are willing to embrace what we know in our hearts to be a lie… to get that exciting adventure. Hollywood has glamorized dystopia for generations. From Soylent Green to Walking Dead, Hollywood, or more precisely, the cultural elite, have predicted a coming American dystopia since the 1970s. Almost like the elite want a dystopia? But of course… they do. People cannot have it too good else we will destroy something just to see what will happen. Soon, we discover we don’t like chaos, and hopefully we can put it back. In the case of an societal collapse, it is unlikely we can close that Pandora’s Box, let alone put the demons back in.
People disconnected from reality can romanticize all they want because they are ignorant of what it takes to keep a human being alive. Meat comes from a deli, power from a switch and heat through a duct, they have never sustained themselves outside for more then a day, camping… whining the whole while. A grumbling belly doesn’t feel so bad… when it is someone else belly. If Sly Stallone can climb a sheer rock face in the blistering cold, with a wet tee shirt on, then the cold can’t be that bad. Many have grown a lovely garden consisting of a dozen onions, a squash vine and a flower arrangement. Which they are certain could feed them for the year. This is a real societal problem, that the people who want to make all the decisions for everyone, are idiots.
Even as many romanticize dystopia their innate normalcy bias gives them the comfort to believe nothing can go wrong. They think that a few peasants will fight to the death for their entertainment, but their lives can only get better. How could anything go bad for them? It hasn’t in the past. So, no matter what they do to make the world worse, their lot cannot go down, or so their ids tell them. One thing that most people don’t realize is that things go badly, slowly at first, then all at once. The thrill of a coming dystopia that is not tempered with a knowledge of what it really means for everyone, is the thrill of someone about to be thrown into a wood chipper feet first, alive… who is blindfolded and doesn’t even know what a wood chipper is. That deep hum of something running is elating though.
The romanticizing and normalcy bias allow those captured by absurd ideas to implement them with the gusto of a zealot. Since the universe would never harm them, suffering is for the little people, they can be secure in doing what it takes to bring on the reset that will empower them forever, to make every decision for everyone. A dynasty of the oligarchs where the elite are locked in, no one, regardless of merit, will ever be allowed in again. All they need do is eliminate freedom of speech, the Right of the People to assemble to have grievances heard, castrate the Right of self defense, create chaos and crime while using law as a political weapon. No way these things could negatively effect the lives of the elite, just the lives of the people they want to oppress… right?
I think we can all agree, that there are policies the elite could implement that would protect our society, culture and nations from a dystopia… and the elite are not doing them. Instead, the elite are implementing everything possible to bring it on, almost like the elite today are intentionally creating a Beast system, just to see it in action. I think they are captured with the romance of creating dystopia, while at the same time thinking everything will remain the same, for them, but what excitement at seeing us suffer. What they fail to realize, is that the person running the Thunderdome never wears a pin stripe suit or power dress, they reek, wear ear necklaces and pelt shawls. The people who used to wear pin stripes and power dresses, fight to the death in them, for the entertainment of the hopeless.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
