Amerika

Modern people know a profound lack of the sensation of power because equality starts all of us with a presumption of zero importance, wealth, and status. We are then defined only by our jobs, and those tend to reward people who are obedient. This causes a tendency toward rebellion.

Since the jobs cannot be displaced, this rebellion takes the form of individualism. When not on the clock, people want zero oversight of their activities, if possible. They want all the pleasures of the flesh. They would like to indulge in luxuries. And if they get those, they want to be subsidized in whole or in part.

These things make them feel powerful despite the subjugation of having to go to a job and report to other human beings, most of whom are clueless about some essential part of what must be done. They want something entirely under their control, whose existence depends on their whims.

There are a few substitutes for power that create the sensation of power, and these are addictive:

• Appetites: sex, drink, drugs, gambling, exercise, risk-taking, and other sensual pursuits. These make the person feel alive with the power over their future in their own hands. Even the randomness of gambling is a bet against the universe, trying to see if their will shall prevail over that of the gods, nature, and mathematics.
• Consuming: people get a charge from buying things, especially if not needed, because then the thing is entirely in their hands. The compulsive buying in our society arises from the need to feel powerful. “Just write a check” to take care of a problem makes us feel powerful, so does buying new gee-whiz gadgets.
• Pity: people love to read about celebrities self-destructing with the same zeal with which they consume stories about the starving orphan urchins of Biafra or the war-children of Palestine. They love to pity the poor, the Other, and the insane; they enjoy a good tragedy and to see the misfortunes of others, which makes the readers feel safe in their own relatively moderate set of problems.
• Jingoism: our guys versus their guys remains a very popular trope on both sides of the political spectrum. Whoever dare oppose the consensus of the herd must be smote, and whoever joins us in this quest is a good guy until proven otherwise, and whatever makes us rich is justifiable even if people have to die for it.

People pathologically engage in these behaviors because they make them feel powerful. Rather, they give the sensation of power, which to those who have never had the duality of both power and the need to accomplish something with it seems like a form of power beyond all imagining. In their pursuit of the same, they lead themselves into darkness.

Tags: altruism, appetites, consumerism, jingoism, pity, power