This post originally appeared on Substack, at this link. I’d encourage you to join, and subscribe (it’s free) for more media-rich content and social-opining.
There’s a chapter in Feast of Fates that largely centers upon the protagonists “awakening” into a new phase in their lives, and I feel as if I’m undergoing a similar process myself. Indeed, and not since the foggy years following my mother’s death have I been in a state of such profound retreat from the world, hastened, no doubt, by restrictions and condemnations for those of us who choose to go outside. The pandemic has taken a lot from society, and more than the souls of those who have passed. We’ve changed how we interact with each other, how we look at each other. We’ve somehow grown more suspicious and distrustful; more angry and violent with our behaviours and beliefs. Biden’s message for unity feels as insipid as his dribbling delivery. How can we be united when the framework and social structures of society are geared toward the indoctrination of our differences? How can we be united when we are trained, through repetition, social correction and coercion that we are all quite different and differently aligned/ maligned on a scale of social hierarchy? (A hierarchy that ironically includes every stratum of human existence while ignoring the defining factors of class and wealth.)
Those are rhetorical questions, obviously, and consistent with what I’ve always said about identity politics: repeated exercises in identifying difference and classifying humans by said differences will only lead us to further degrees of ostracism, tribalism and violence. And my theory/ opinion/ common sense/ what have you is being proven as fact. People are becoming more polarized, not less, and there seems to be no de-escalation in sight. Furthermore, the shameful ignorance as white-collar institutions proselytize Saint DiAngelo’s teachings on CRT, and flagellate themselves at her altar while paying feigned sorrows to incidents of actual, horrific and systemic trauma, such as the recent discovery of a mass grave of 250+ indigenous children (one of many, one can easily purport, given the reach and spread of Residential Schools in Canada) are acts so woefully ignorant of reality that our collective cognitive dissonance will soon shatter the foundations of our society.
I guess that’s the point, though, with all of this Marxist rhetoric that’s infected academia, our workplaces and now our schools, teaching children to hate and look and classify their classmates first and foremost by the colour of their skin and not by the content of their character. I learned that I was part black rather early, though not from my peers and friends, but from actual racists. What a tragic experience that must be for a modern child, to be taught that your friends secretly, supposedly, hate you due to their inherent racism and privilege. What an abhorrent way to raise children, who should be free to dream and love and hope before the world naturally erodes those states anyway. How truly hubristic and stupid one must be to think that they know better than Martin Luther King Jr. while they spew off the dictates and teachings of communism’s gory luminaries dressed up in a contemporary coat of paint. How exceptionally daft one must be to equate the struggles and woes of the Duchess of Sussex with any working black woman in North America and to then tip their heads in solidarity to Mrs. Markle. I’m quite sure Meghan flips a finger back while soaring the clouds in her petrol-guzzling plane on her way to preach to others about the perils of environmental abuse. Rules for thee, but not for me.
It would be funny, were this ideology and idolatry not so cancerous to society.
I don’t play the game anymore. I don’t start sentences with: “as a gay, half-black man”, because those are not the most defining or even remotely interesting things about me, nor do I want them to be. I don’t have gender pronouns in my Twitter bio, or even a Twitter account at all anymore. I’ve learned that the best of what you can do in this climate is to engage in arguments where you can have a long-form conversation (like my blog, my YouTube and now here), where you have the chance to take a scenario from point A to B or even C, rather than to circumvent conversational debate, which is what so much of modern-day correctness seeks to do. It wants to kill any dissent from the outset, because examination of woke beliefs almost always, and quickly, reveals faults. That’s why platforms like this are so important, and why I’ve found my way here. We need bastions of logical thought to which people can retreat from the inanity. We need places where people can be free to discuss ideas, to have them rejected or praised, broken down or expounded upon. We need the opportunity to practice the natural and essential conversion of ideas to debates to action. We need to be human again, with all the bumps, abrasiveness and wonders that entails; not infantilized creatures rocking in our safe spaces or members of an ideological collective no better or smarter than ants.
Clown world ain’t so funny anymore.
Dear Mr. Brown
I am a retired construction worker. I was a welder for 15 years before I got into Quality Management. Mostly Nuclear and Petroleum plants.
Please forgive my poor punctuation and structure. I did not want to retire but My job was cut out with the shutdown of Keystone pipeline project. I was bitter at first. To go from 140000.00 a year to 1700 a month in SSI is a tough adjustment. Me and my wife are doing great. In our little house .
I tell you this so you know a little about me. Because…
What I just read from you may be the most profound unbiased statement I’ve heard since all the madness started. You should be speaking in front of congress, on TV , on radio, in churches, mosques, synagogues and temples.
Such an honest and moving message. You are the type of leader we need. I know your not a politician but I wish you were. I have not yet read your books but I will start them very soon. I truly wish you all the best.
Michael, thank you for the moving story and message. What our leaders have allowed to happen to the labour and energy sector can only be seen as willfully ignorant at best, malicious at worst. My partner has friends and family who work in that sector and have had their livelihoods crippled. Add that to the inflation crisis gripping North America and the soon rising interest rates and you have the perfect storm for crushing the working class and instituting a government social-safety web from which many of us will never escape.
Still, I’m hopeful that things will change. These past couple of months we’ve had some incredible (and horrific, in terms of revelations) FOI requests that have painted our realities and leadership in a stark and unflattering light. More and more people are “waking up” to the nightmare in which we’ve trapped ourselves through our witless compliance. People are questioning authority and authenticity, rather than merely accepting spoon-fed beliefs. I feel as if we’re at a crossroads, and that we might, just might, collectively step in the right direction to enforce positive change. As long as enough of us are brave, or at least brave enough to follow the current when it finally shifts, I think we’ll find our way out of this mess.
I do what I can on my platform, because I know that a lot of people simply cannot risk their livelihoods in speaking out against the ills in our society. As someone who has few ties to a conventional livelihood, it seems a moral imperative that I use that freedom to encourage freedom for others.
Anyhoo, it’s Christmas Eve! And I hope that you have a holiday full of cheer and love. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. All the best,
—C