Dear Neoliberalism…
By: Dafne Gotink
Tags: Neoliberalism, Psychology, Letters, Thoughts, Revolution

A Letter

Dear Neoliberalism,

You are the subject of many conversations these days, and the backdrop of private, stormy thoughts. You have been a shaping force in our lives and societies for the last 40 years. And right now, in these years, it is ending. Slowly but surely, your hidden influence on our world is waning — there is a generation so tired of you, so burnt up by your thought, burnt up like the Earth around us.

Neoliberalism, your collapse seems quiet, but is brooding with tension. Around us, you are dying, but in our minds, you are still more than alive. There is a level of freedom I wish to attain, that liberates me from you. And it can only be in a sovereign mind, that I will be liberated. In this, somewhat strange, letter to you, I will try to voice a pamphlet I have read in the eyes of my generation, in the hearts of the underpaid overworked nurses and the taken-for-granted teachers, instilled, doubtfully, in all of our minds. In order to rid ourselves from you, we must understand how we facilitate you.

As you grew on me, you made me think of usefulness and value in monetary terms; of meaningful effects just those of the short term; of needs, as those of the ego; of happiness, as having money. You made me think of my friends and colleagues as competitors, of my own worth as nothing if it can’t be sold. You know how to hide so well, to be naturally present as if a force of nature, instead of a man-made failure — that when you made us all into losers, the ghosts of nationalism, racism, supremacism, and bigotry, came back in full force. However, these lines of division will not define us, and distract us from your crime.

Let’s face the fact that your market dreams have never become our sunny reality. Our politicians, under your spell, have turned into businessmen, interested solely in their careers, seeing votes as paychecks instead of trust. You forced me to express the value of art and culture, the deeply human solace that rises above ages and borders, that offers heart when no one is around, in numbers. You think numbers are objective, freeing us from tyranny, but as so many saviors, you have turned into a tyrant yourself.

Usually, when I write a letter, I ask questions — but I no longer expect any answers from you. I will say goodbye to you with the power that created you: the human mind and imagination. Slowly, I will dismantle your presence in my thought patterns, undo my emotions of your system of value. Your price tags will no longer curb the possibilities in which I can be human, nor the ways in which I can live together with what is left of our Earth.

To be unpredictable again, to think and feel without time and money, to connect with the bigger whole, to not be watched. May time be truly ours again, immeasurable.

May our spirituality no longer be commercialized, no longer be used to drain us a little longer, no longer be used to divide us. May it become a revolutionary force, through which we understand what we are: life itself in the form of souls, endowed with the gift of creating anything. And as soon as we start to realize we are one, we also start to realize your oppression is one, your abuse is one.

We must let go of you now, of the ravages that allowed you to grow; let go of the internalized shackles of guilt and shame; let go of a system that does not serve the many, nor the earth we live on. I want you to imagine all the things we’ve kept hidden in the era of your market philosophy, and then imagine them bursting out at once — imagine millions of people letting go of you, and living a life truly worth living.