I had a BBC nature documentary on the deep sea running the other night while I was trawling the web for more insights into our current plight, and after a while they got to "black smokers," those strange lightless ecosystems.
It struck me that they are a pretty good metaphor for our 'western' consumer capitalist societies, and quite a few others.
We live under a cloud of filth and lies, physical filth and poisons spewed by industry. It covers the sky and separates us from the sun, changing our world's relationship wih the source of all life on Earth. Also looming about are clouds of metaphysical and psychic filth spread by militarist leaders lost to religious delusions and geo-political fantasies: the lies pumped by the vast machineries of propaganda. This swill leaves us increasingly separated from anything like truth or reality, whether the falsehoods concern science, history or current events.
Frustration, fear and anger are deliberately fostered by these regimes. You can look to Palestine for much of the model. Being a bit of an old nerd, it also reminds me of the Frank Herbert book, The Dosadi Experiment (not that I've read it for years).
Completing the metaphor, there is no light, the only energy comes from the ecosystem of bullshit itself. Increasingly economic activity is focused on keeping bubbles alive - borrowing and refinancing, wars, consumer spending, pump and dump - with spin and mania. And more lies.
Edited: nd
Article comments
1 - RedTard
You seem very bitter. It's like you are looking for the meaning of life and can't find that, so you blame western society. We are humans and we're not perfect. The perfect society exists only in your mind.
Capitalism and consumerism is bullshit, but it's the best bullshit we've come up with yet. Because of the excesses and the bubbles and the greed there is an oversupply of "stuff" in capitalist societies. This oversupply of "stuff" ends up filtering down to the poor and they are materially better off than in other systems.
In our society you have the freedom to choose. If you don't like our capitalist bullshit get together with a bunch of other loons and start your own commune, no one is stopping you. In the mean time your typing on a computer, using electricity, and living a building that was built by us "evil" capitalists.
Why don't you just give all that up? Simple. Because you're not satisfied with controlling yourself in your free society, you feel the need to control others as well. You are no different than the hypocritical, power hungry politicians you pretend to hate.