An American Dream: The Ever-Elusive Neoliberal Nightmare
As I wake from an interrupted slumber that won’t allow me to go back to bed, Tyler Durden’s words from Fight Club ring in my head as I grieve the fantasy of what I once believed to be true.
“I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables — slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war… Our great depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won’t. We’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”
These words clank in my head like a harsh knock on the door waking me up from a nightmare that I once thought to be a dream. No doubt that my level of class and privilege led me to this disillusionment but as the cracks widen and Covid-19 brings up the nightmare that was already there, there is no more avoiding it. I can’t go back to sleep now.
We have been sold a lie. An insidious lie that those in the upper echelons tell themselves is true so that they can hoard their precious dream diamonds around their necks whilst the majority of the population remain starving, dying, struggling to access mental and physical health resources and barely getting by.
This nightmare disguised as a fever dream for those in power is not limited to white picket fences and two and a half kids. Part of what makes it so insidious is its ability to shapeshift.
The spiritual community has unfortunately been enraptured by one of these dishonest illusionments; telling us the law of attraction is all we need without considering the real world implications of those in the working class and marginalised, who if become too enraptured with these spiritual faux fantasies out of probably sheer desperation may lead themselves to a life of strife and struggle — much of what they already have had enough of.
Hiding behind their ;egoless’ egos, thereby rationalising their way out of real hard world topics, the spiritual community needs to look in the mirror and quickly realise the reflection of a sleep paralysis demon smiling back at them.
We must in all ways wake up if we ever want to make a real difference to our current paradigm. We must wake up to it’s every changing contortions, it’s propensity to benefit the rose-tinted glasses rich cats, the danger it holds to those who are marginalised and how it affects us in our everyday life; running after illusions sold to us like candy laced with cocaine.
Covid-19 has been my wake up call. A horn blasting through all my preconceptions of what this dream meant to me.
Hopefully more and more of us can finally open our eyes because I fear if we don’t, this nightmare we are stuck in is going to get a whole lot darker and a whole lot more difficult to fight.
The only hope we have now is revolution, and we need to do so with our eyes wide open and ready to face the truth of whatever may come our way.
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