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Lack of Protests During Oil Spill Disaster --- Are We Now in a Culture of Dependency?

Part of the inaction in the US is connected to the election of Obama. People are expecting him to act but he has not done so in a decisive way. As head of the government he has the ability to take strong immediate action against energy companies, and this is what the situation desperately calls for.

But it is generally wrong for citizens to depend on a political leader to get things done. This is an error of modern democracy -- by electing someone to “represent” yourself you are giving up your independence and initiative. In general, politicians try to take away your initiative -- they “de-initiate” you; they try hard to make you dependent upon them and their parties. In Obama’s case, we are not exactly sure what is going on, but we hope that he would be a good and exceptional politician, one who both acts and encourages mass action at the same time.

It is disturbing that we have no mass protest, no mass expression of rage about the BP oil spill.

So we have to ask some historical questions about American culture. Do we have a group think increasing in politics so that we are more reliant on politicians and parties than 20 or 30 years ago? In the 60s we had a break with conventional parties and politicians, and this trend continued well into the 80s. But in the last 20 years, have we had a sea change where it seems that a dependency has grown on parties? The marketing of both parties has created a partisan and sectarian culture, where citizens must choose from a massive list of opposites, Column A or Column B. Whichever way you choose, you become dependent on one ideology or another, even if one column is better than the other. What is lacking is flexible and creative thinking. Media and entertainment have contributed to the political theatre with the “fun” created by creating a circus of political pugilism.

Another related question also comes up, has something happened in the last 10-15 years in US culture which has promoted a general culture of dependency or passivity?

Have we become dependent upon electronic media and devices so much that we live mostly in a virtual world and do not know how to act in the external, tactile, ‘real’ world anymore?

Our responses to events, if we even bother to respond at all, are at the computer. We do not leave our houses, our protests and anger stay in a virtual sphere, in the abstract electronic world -- which is not a threat to powers, as long as we stay locked up in “cyberspace”. For it is mainly in the realm of material things and warm bodies and real human relationships that things get done. Many of us have retreated into a world that is fascinating, informative, fun, necessary, complete but also ultimately impotent.

And powers that be know this. If the electronic does not serve the physical, if the information and ideas of media do not translate into material action, if our human communications do not trigger other spheres of human behavior, then our activities will ultimately not be successful.

Arrayed against electronic bandwidth is human bandwidth; it is much wider than the electronic and it includes friendship, comradeship, action, caring, sacrifice. Human bandwidth creates a communication that is more truthful, intimate, passionate and compelling.

Also, this phenomenon begins to remind one of the roles certain religions played in the past. Believers were kept in a “spiritual” realm severed from the “temporal” plane of real things and real problems. The arguments provided were either nothing could be done for the problems of this world or that true reality is ethereal and this world is an illusion. The congregation was urged to not act or react in the real social world. Modern media and entertainment bear some resemblance to this phenomenon.

Further, the diversions of our electronic activities are so great that it may be difficult to notice a “real event” and separate it from all the cultural distractions. Everything becomes a bit of information or entertainment and has a momentary attraction in our world of Media Vertigo. We focus on it and then we discard it. We behave as if we have ADHD but we do not have it…or do we have its digital mutation?

Psychologists now talk about a lack of compassion and sensitivity created by violent games. We also know there is a growing lack of intimacy caused by the superficial connections on the internet and cell phones. And there is the growing preference for a lack of intimacy.

Also, there is a tendency to cultivate shallow internet relationships where the definition of friend has been downgraded to that of a temporary “one-off” acquaintance --- in these friendships the negative is not tolerated, difference of opinion is not tolerated, the “friend” disappears for long periods and reappears when he has some selfish personal need to and etc. These are “e-quaintances” of the internet often mistaken for friends.

We must also ask if growing dependency is somehow linked to corporations and consumerism. These have given us so many wonderful things in the last few decades: electronics, pharmaceuticals, foods…

The corporation is now the source of all knowledge and power. It is Mother and Father to us all. And certainly in the case of children who receive the messages of marketing from infancy, their true mother and father may well be the corporation, for they are more powerful than ordinary mom and dad. And this is through the legal right to advertise to children without the parent’s consent.

High stature and respect go to the big company. Thus, the corporation becomes the ultimate problem solver and expected savior in a crisis. Our dependency upon the corporation has advanced in the last few decades. And it would seem that this is the logical conclusion of the notion of a “Service Economy”. We are served by gracious servants, and we are made slaves. We are conditioned to rely on them completely for all things, Agents, representatives, salespeople and professionals serve our every need. So it is only natural when a nation faces its biggest environmental disaster ever, the average person does nothing and waits for someone to fix it.

One more issue to consider in our growing dependency is our strong financial connection to the given economic system. The house, the mortgage, the credit card, the loans, 410k, and more, all of these are necessary in life but at the same time they rein us in. We pause and stammer; our fates are completely tied up with the economic and financial system. We become conservative; we develop a very cautious attitude to all things. We are afraid to take strong stands, we refuse to take risks, we avoid action, we evade our moral conscience.

When the average person began to think in financial terms like professionals something changed. We became investors, we played the stock market; we emulated the rich and successful. At some point we had a mass embrace of capitalism, and at that point we became powerless to oppose its many deficiencies. We became entangled in the game; its fate became our fate. We become timid; we could no longer act independently.

Consider all of these trends. These might explain a growing dependency in the USA, a dependency that prevents us from acting when the worst environmental disaster in US history is happening before our eyes.

What do you think?

Axxiad News