“They who put out the people’s eyes…”
“They who have put out the people’s eyes reproach them of their blindness.”
The quote comes from John Milton. It was used in the beginning of the Noam Chomsky media critique documentary “Manufacturing Consent.” I do not remember much of the documentary, to the point where I question whether I watched it at all beyond the title card. The eloquence of the words intrigued me at the time. I was living at my mom’s, working at a grocery store, and reading a lot of classic books, including “Paradise Lost.” I liked the idea that thoughtfully crafted language could have a relevance beyond the writer’s immediate context (the quote comes from one of Milton’s anticlerical tracts).
Milton’s words are deeply perceptive because they capture a vital yet not immediately apparent aspect of power - that those in control tend to infantilize those they subjugate. They contend things could never change because the mass at the bottom is too ignorant to be elevated to a more equal position, yet the ignorance of the mass at the bottom is almost always the direct result of the circumstances those in control perpetuate. The historical examples are myriad, from the arguments of the nobility in revolutionary France to the arguments of plantation owners in the antebellum south. In all cases, the powerful claim the present situation is natural, is not the result of an ultimately arbitrary set of decisions.
The quote returned to me recently as I observed the panic over the reality of Bernie Sanders as a serious contender for the Democratic nomination.
James Carville, in an interview with Vox following a televised rant decrying the “insanity” of the Democrats, said the following in regards to Sanders and his positions:
“Most of the people aren’t into all this distracting shit about open borders and letting prisoners vote. They don’t care. They have lives to lead. They have kids. They have parents that are sick. That’s what we have to talk about. That’s all we should talk about.”
(Just for the record, Sanders does not support open borders. His position on prisoners voting has already been enacted in a few states without significant issue.)
Carville’s subtext is obvious. Everyday working people are too stressed out by the particulars of their lives to want significant change. Never mind the fact that Sanders two most famous proposals, Medicare for All and free public college, are designed to alleviate the very particulars Carville cites. No, the decent folks, according to Carville, accept their struggles and are content only with moderation.
Carville, a former strategist for Bill Clinton, is, along with the majority of the content providers in the corporate media, a member of the “establishment.” The word is a fair pejorative, but I think undefined it runs the risk of cliche. Establishment does not simply mean you are a moderate. There are, I’m sure, many people in this country who are legitimate moderates. I disagree with them, and I do not think they are representative of the majority of the country (who opinion polls suggest favor guaranteed healthcare, a more pacifist foreign policy, 70% tax rate on highest earners…), but they exist nonetheless.
Establishment means that you are a cynical moderate. You claim to be a supporter of racial equality, of labor rights, of greater egalitarianism in general, but your support is, of course, constrained by the realities of the people. Only a small percentage of committed people want change, you insist. The average working people, god bless their hearts, are not interested in anything abstract. You, living and writing in Manhattan or Alexandria, know this for a fact. You are certain that at some point the people grew up, got married, found a good job, had children, and stopped questioning things. The people, contrary to the notions of the radicals canvassing and phone banking in the communities where workers actually live, are level headed consumers concerned only with the satiation of them and theirs. You have to meet them where they are at.
At this point I return to the Milton quote. What I hear in general, from Carville and his fellow pontificators, or from Biden, Mayor Pete, and the other moderates in the race, is an insistence on people’s disinterest in bold ideas. Not quite a reproach of their blindness, at least beyond closed doors, but close enough. The move is deeply cynical because within it resides a truth. People, for the most part, are more concerned with their nonpolitical lives (romance, social circle, career, family, general psychic well being), than with public policy and collective action. Employing this reality as a rhetorical device is rather effective.
Effective but also repugnant. The task of a politician or a political party, at least an honest one, is not to remind the people of their transcendence, of their remove from the petty squabblings of material reality. That is the task of the people themselves. All such platitudes are ultimately patronizing. The task of a politician is to promote policies which improve the material reality of the people. We do not need to be inspired by politicians, we need to be helped.
Here we get into the “put out the people’s eyes” part. Life will be difficult and confounding (or joyful and mysterious) even if healthcare or your mortgage is no longer such a stresser. The point is that life does not have to be this stressful. That a hyper commercialized and debt driven society, a society that engenders apathy and limited engagement, is not inevitable. Such a society is the result of choices, many of which were made by the same commentators now insisting that the population is too checked out to support a new course. Perhaps they are correct. Either way, their dishonesty is astounding.
