It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
So says Upton Sinclair, according to Paul Krugman and Wikipedia.
As it turns out, all of our salaries — our livelihoods — within modern culture depend upon thievery. We buy and sell land, "commodities," and, most abominably, other living creatures, without wondering what exactly it is that makes these things ours to buy and sell.
It can’t be money that gives us right of ownership — after all, we had to act upon a presumed right of ownership regarding non-owned resources just to be able to print the damn money to begin with. Non-monetary forms of wealth encounter the same problem (among others). What is it, then?
Actually, nothing. Ultimately, defenders of a "human right to own everything" ideology come to their last stand (and I use the word "stand" in a very weak sense) -- the presumption that at least a limited portion of human behavior is justifiably governed by the rule:
Might makes right.
This kind of self-serving ad-hoc exceptionalism is a telltale sign of a defendant, or a species, who finds it difficult to face an obvious truth. It’s as good as conceding the point.
To Mr. Sinclair’s point, I can certainly attest from personal experience that it is very difficult to get someone to understand a truth that undermines the fantasy upon which their livelihood (or otherwise) rests. But illumination is not impossible, for very good reason: The fantasy is just that. It can be exposed. It can be destroyed.
And really, I think we’re surprisingly close to consensus that the way we live our lives within this "human might makes right" fantasy is both broadly destructive and personally unsatisfying. To the latter consideration, which, I lament, is usually more important in our day-to-day decisions, modern forms of labor are typified by tedium, mechanization, fragmentation, physical inactivity, and superficial satisfaction at best. Today (and it has probably been so for the past 10,000 years or so of agricultralism), it is a rare thing indeed to enjoy one’s work for the work itself. The modern labor form requires enormously strong social inertia to maintain its towering presence in the way we live, and that social inertia is why we still pay into it.
After all, spending 70% of my waking hours getting ready for work; traveling to and from work; and, of course, working means I can afford a socially acceptable apartment and some socially acceptable clothes. It means I may have some socially acceptable friends and associations. Perhaps even socially elite ones, if lucky. And all of that means others may care about me — and about what I do and what I have to say.
The social inertia game is real and complicated, and the saviors of our planet are the ones who can walk within and without that game, who can set priorities and let go of small offenses, who are willing to take advantage of the imagined rules to gain in substantial ways, who can sacrifice enough to live the culture they detest and, in doing so, gain the knowledge and access to injure it more fundamentally.
In our complex reality, the saving, if it comes to pass, will be an inside job.
Cross-posted at HERE.am