Hope in an Apathetic Climate? Some Reflections

We have built fantastical architectural designs which reinforce the order of spatial existence we occupy, but our reliance on set structures has created a dogmatic permanence.  We have become consumed and blinded by such dogmatic claims that we cannot observe the planned obsolescence nor the impermanence of the structures we have created and our existence.  Our order is fragile and yet we protect it, upholding the notion that it is a strategic operation of co-existence, when, in reality, we use it to isolate ourselves.  We exist in an interconnected series of power structures, failing to recognise our very existence and constructed order as powered, thus negating our innate ability to reclaim power through deconstruction.  We can create a power, through the creation of an anti-power.  There currently exists a thin veil between private and public: it is time to renegotiate such terms. 

Why?  Because we have become obsessed with essentialising life instead of rationalising, questioning, and challenging dogmatic practices and the status quo.  It is uncomfortable living in a country full of glittering lights, cities plagued by cathedrals of consumerism, and the propagandised message of limitless possibilities.  Worse is knowing that the system is rigged unfavourably against you.  It is a system reliant on the failure of certain groups within its boundaries and occupied space.  It is a heightened sensory dream (or nightmare, as the case may be) from which we cannot escape because its inbuilt inequalities are the only guaranteed thing.  These inequalities are the reality of many.  There appears to be a conscious disconnect, a turning of heads, an inability to face the consequences of uncontrolled markets in capitalist systems. 

It’s the people on the street waiting for someone to give minimum change in order that they may purchase a hot drink.  It’s the students who have to choose between paying their rent and bills, and feeding themselves. It’s the workers stuck in dead-end, menial jobs for minimum wage and no recognition of their services to society.  It’s about all of us and the decisions we are forced to make on a daily basis whilst situated in a system built against us.  It’d about attempting to find hope in a climate of apathy, disillusionment, and disaffection. 

The key is finding the leverage point to force change.  To put power back into our hands and fight for the ability to do-good by people, we need to put values of compassion, honesty, and accountability back into our systems.  We need to remind ourselves of our humanity and collectivist nature.  Until then, little will change.

It is easier to fight and demand change, than it is to exist out of sheer compliance.  It is better to be uncomfortable in the demand for change than it is to be uncomfortable out of fear of change.

This is why, on November 4^th 2015, thousands of students and workers from across the country gathered together in London, to demand free education, the keeping of maintenance grants, the defence of tax credits, and increased taxing of the rich.  It was a mass demonstration full of fed-up people, tired of being uncomfortable, living on the edge, because of the inherent pessimistic nature of the system we occupy.  It was the chance to be heard.  It was the opportunity to show the ‘fat-cats’ thriving off our suffering that we were there to take a stand, to reject their perpetuation of capitalist ideology.  We said no.  Nobody has the right to control, belittle, and marginalise the significance of our lives.  Yes, oftentimes we allow the shallow, narrow-minded, self-absorbed elite to control us.  We are autonomous individuals whom have been subjected to the atrocities caused by the ruling classes.  We said no.  This was the possibility to reconnect and break through from the pessimistic mind-set we had been indoctrinated into.  Consumerism and marketisation of educational institutions disillusions human connections.  Education and employment should never be about surviving within the constraints of capitalist society as we know and understand it. 

Going against the tide is emotionally tiring and draining because you don’t know what you will have to fight against each day and the pressures you may face.  But being heard and getting through to even one person makes the troubles worthwhile.

So here’s the question: what are we going to do?  Where are we going to go from here?