Silver Bullets
“Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends” — Dr. Manhattan, Watchmen
This is an extract from The Difference Manifesto by Ben Wallace, which explores why diverse societies thrive, and why systems of order lead to collapse. To read more from the book purchase a copy here.
By the end of the graphic novel Watchmen Adrian Veidt — a genius of Machiavellian proportions — has forged a new world peace between the USA and the USSR. As he goes to his chamber to meditate, he remarks to his friend that everything “worked out in the end”. Leaving the room, his friend reminds him “Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.”
Like the uneasy peace at the end of Watchmen, human happiness and fulfillment can only ever be ephemeral. Not only is there no silver bullet for making everyone happy, but ambition and competition — wanting things which are better than we had before — are core, genetically coded parts of human nature. We got where we are as a species by competing with other animals, by wanting what they have, or by being the best of the bunch. We’re rarely satisfied with what we have, and never for long. That’s why a multi-millionaire pop star can have a supermodel wife, a beach house in Santa Monica and legions of adoring fans, but still turn to drugs in depression. We reset our expectations every time things get better, and expect more and more. To take this away is to take away the essence of what makes us human.
There is a strange symmetry — a seductive semblance of dualism — in exploring our universe’s relationship with our own humanity. As it grows from the Big Bang our universe expands into difference and disorder, and yet we believe its chaotic growth will end in a ‘thermal equilibrium’. At the end of aeons of growth, we believe that the ultimate displacement and disorder will lead to a completely even, ordered distribution of matter and energy. Likewise, as human beings we have evolved to be restless, competitive and dissatisfied; striving and irregularly expanding in search of what is different and new. And yet, the more we discover and disrupt, the more we categorise and taxonomise. We intervene and impose order. We legislate and build surveillance, prescribe algorithms to control our traffic lights and sleep patterns, fill our mobile phones with sensors designed to track our location and surroundings. We relentlessly seek to rationalise the behaviour of 7 billion separate organisms.
Everywhere we look we observe balance. We see it everywhere from the precarious ecosystems in a tide pool to the silent orbit of our planets around their sun. We create it for ourselves in our stories — the balance between good and evil — and we worship it in our star signs and mythologies. From a distance, in a snapshot, all is serene and still. Close up, against the moving backdrop of time, it is a mess, a scramble, a turf war.
Happiness isn’t the same for all of us, and it isn’t the same for any one of us over time. What I want now will probably change once I have my first child, or my first grandchild, or my third wife.
The mantra of The Difference Manifesto is that we as individuals are the balance and difference — we are the counterweight to the ossifying order of the establishment. Against systems which by their nature create bureaucracy and sameness it is our duty — almost our destiny — to do anything and everything we can to be not only agents of change, but to help create a world where fulfillment and happiness are recognised not as uniform, attainable ideals, but as fireflies jumping out of the hand as soon as they are caught. Aspirations are unique to each one of us, and are unique to their time.
What is to be done
Each of the three central sections in The Difference Manifesto is an experiment. It asks you to entertain something you might not agree with and, by looking at the world and countries we live in, to test whether things could be better with this way of thinking. The final section is a bestiary of sorts, a collection of practical and radical things that people are doing right now to try and live differently, or to help others to embrace Difference. It’s there to show you that some pretty amazing things are happening right now, and that many others are not just possible, but in many ways inevitable.
Each chapter is modeled loosely around one of three fundamental things that our biggest social systems need in order to function, but which risk crushing our individuality and desires if they are unchecked. The first is Difference of thought, why we need nonconformism in society to challenge the big systems that surround us and impose order and standardisation. The second is Difference of identity, the way in which those thick straight lines on maps demarcate not only our national boundaries, but also who we are and who we are not. And the third is Difference of perspective or, more specifically, how right and wrong are not absolutes, but fluid and evolving definitions within our countries.
Put simply, Difference is. It’s a common aphorism in this ever-expanding universe that the only constant is change, but it’s an appropriate one. Embracing it allows us to stay happy, and as a society we neglect diversity of thought and opinion at our peril.
Studies are inconclusive as to whether there’s a salary “plateau” after which we stop feeling happier or more satisfied with our lives, but it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realise that the pursuit of material goals (designer clothes, a fast car, a preponderance of bling) might not be the long term key to making us happy. Knowing that our desires and circumstances will change, the question we have to ask ourselves should not be “what do I want to be satisfied right now?”, but rather “what should I aspire to be in future, that is most likely to make me happy”?.
An organism is the sum of its millions of teeming constituent parts. You are the 5 people closest to you, but you are also your parent’s education, your first breakup, that unfortunate night in the drunk tank. We’re not nihilists. Unlike Nietzsche, we’re not beyond good and evil; we’re beyond one good and one evil; we’re a recognition that there are 7 billion different pantone colour swatches of what’s good and what’s evil, and that these 7 billion are what make up the world. The way to embrace Difference is to embrace a system that thrives on Difference and whose first reaction is to flex and accommodate it, rather than stamping it out in place of artificial uniformity. It makes us stronger, smarter, brighter, freer. If there is to be a scale on which our systems are weighed, we are the 7 billion fingers tipping it in favour of Difference.
You can read more by Ben on Medium here, and The Difference Manifesto is available in both electronic and paperback form on Amazon. Follow @BANGwallace on Twitter for updates and extracts from the book.
