The illusion of having a voice that matters: impenetrable social classes are alive and well.
By: Adam Borowski
Tags: Crisis, Society, Wealth, Choice, Class

Author in China, searching for answers. Image source: author’s personal archive.

You are probably thinking: ‘’Wow, that’s a pessimistic title.’’ Sadly, yes. It would seem our voices don’t really matter. Sure, we’re told to ‘’be different,’’ and ‘’embrace creativity’’ but these are just slogans. Society doesn’t value people who try to challenge the status quo. I suppose you could argue society depends on cohesion and harmony —that’s its nature after all-but there has to be a portion of society which moves it forward. And you don’t have to do much to be seen as a trouble-maker and an iconoclast. In 2020, asking questions is all you need to do to be seen as a problem.

Look at celebrities. Yes, talent should be supported and celebrated. But how many celebrities are ‘’famous for being famous?’’ And then you have a gifted student who could contribute to society, yet no one listens. If society celebrates mediocre stars, then anyone who truly shines is going to be ignored. That’s why nonsense YouTube videos get millions of views while valuable content gets a thousand views. In a sane society, the opposite would be true. It’s great to have fun and ‘’goof around,’’ from time to time but it can’t be the essence of social life. There are many YouTube videos of people doing social experiments.

I find them fascinating. They are fun, creative and educational. Interesting, deep stuff doesn’t have to be boring.

Just look at how we treat geniuses. Fifty years or so ago, Alan Turing was chemically castrated and grew breasts. That doesn’t sound like a tolerant society to me. Things change, yes, but they also stay the same.

We often laugh at the ‘’primitive Middle Ages.’’ Except, paradoxically, there was often more freedom for genius to thrive back then. If we want to start fixing society, we need to have a smart society. Otherwise, nothing is going to change the dire state of the world we’re in. Make no mistake: the current pandemic is — yet another- warning for us as a civilization.

Imagine you’re in the middle of the trenches during the First World War in Europe. How many people were senselessly killed, manipulated by a misguided sense of manhood to fight ‘’for the cause’’? People who had the potential to change the world. Then look at the so-called ‘’third world.’’ How many gifted children die of starvation, forgotten by history? Even one gifted child could change the world, if his or her path was more fortunate.

Do we really have a voice? When you comment on Facebook, does it impact the world around you? You get a thousand likes, great! Does that change anything? Exactly. We delude ourselves into believing it does but — overwhelmingly — it doesn’t. Yes, it’s no different in the so-called ‘’free world.’’ And why aren’t we taught about psychopaths — and how to defend ourselves against them — in schools? This is an extremely important topic. Yet, you won’t find a single education system across the world talking about it. Why? Sure, you’re going to learn about the arcane-sounding ‘’antisocial personality disorder’’ if you’re a university student. . . but this kind of knowledge will stay in the ivory tower of academia, rarely reaching society at large. Really, really strange, wouldn’t you say?

I hope that, one day, we will live in a truly global society which respects individual voices (as long as they’re not openly calling for violence), regardless of who these voices belong to.

As Voltaire supposedly said: ‘’I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’’

To live in that kind of society, my dear reader, we have a long way to go. Who knows, maybe the covid crisis is going to be the beginning of a positive change?

As much as I’d like to believe that, the opposite is probably true.

On a positive note, I wish you all the best in 2021 — may money luck shine on you and your loved ones. Who knows, maybe — one day- we’ll find ourselves on an Earth similar to this one. . . and with memories from our last life intact? That would be one heck of an adventure! And we’d definitely appreciate the world without a pandemic much, much more!