Another Brick in the Wall of the Tower of Babel

There exists an ideology of the American Dream – a creative symptom of the Protestant Work Ethic brought to the New World. It has since taken the form of what sociologist Robert Bellah, echoing John Locke, calls utilitarian individualism, or the idea that one should maximize self-interest respective to an intended telos. It is this ethos that built America into the “stuff dreams are made of”, yet unmoderated and unchecked, it has degenerated the dream from a recipe for success to plutocratic-controlled socioeconomic stagnation.

Yet there is a solution to this problem – and it is a problem – of which the Occupy Wall Street protests are only the beginning. The first step is the same as with Alcoholics Anonymous: getting people to admit that there is a problem. Except it must be admitted not just by those adversely affected, but also by those who do the affecting. This is called social responsibility.

But this obviously is not so easy, for why would individuals act against their own interest? Basic economics have long demonstrated that there is a symbiotic relationship between the now proverbial 1 and 99% in the exchange between consumers and owners of the means of production: if consumers don’t consume, then producers don’t make money. An article “What happened to upward mobility?” in last week’s issue of Time adduces academic research that income inequality and lack of social mobility are deleterious to everyone, not just those at the bottom. So why would the 1% stand in the way of their own interest?

The answer is that they don’t know it’s in their own interest. David Brooks in last Monday's New York Times column “Let’s all feel superior” called this myopia Motivated Blindness, in which individuals actively don’t see what they don’t think is in their interest to see. Barry Ritholtz came closer in his Washington Post article “What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral”, calling out the plutocrats for cognitive dissonance, which is when a failed belief system is confronted by evidence of its implausibility.

His evocation of the Big Lie is key here, for this is a phrase that Hitler coined in his autobiography, Mein Kampf, and made the central tenet of his strategy for ascending to power and advancing his agenda. In fact, if you compare the current pro-Wall Street Tea Party and Republican agendas, they bear a striking resemblance to the US Office of Strategic Services’ psychological profile of Hitler in their absolute and uncompromisingly self-serving catechism. I realize any comparison evoking Nazism is acerbically hyperbolic, but I do so only to draw attention to the modest beginnings that allowed him to blitzkrieg his way through politics.

But Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who came to America to encourage the protesters during the early stage of the movement, hits the nail on the head in what he calls the fallacy of ideological fantasy. This builds on the Marxian (can we print his name in America without getting arrested yet?) observation that “they know what they do, yet they do it anyway.” This is to say that individuals recognize the inherent problem of conforming to a flawed system, but its ideology has so fully shaped their realities that they shirk away from that momentary, seemingly alien discomfort when their subconscious wants to prod their awareness with the truth it recognizes. But the mind’s power to believe is formidable, and it can convince itself of anything. This is the Big Truth that Ritholtz called for in response to the Big Lie.

The cornerstone by which the Big Truth can be heard has been laid in the form of OWS. Its resonance can be seen by how many cities across the world have citizens who have taken up its cause. And according to a LiveScience finding published in July, it only takes 10% of the population to espouse an idea for it to be accepted by the majority of the population. If the finding is true, then given 2011’s U.S. Census’ report, the critical mass for public opinion to be changed is 31 million Americans (not including those under 18, it shrinks to 26 million). If 9% of Americans (on the low side) are unemployed and divert their efforts toward advancing OWS, then we’re almost there. We just need, ironically, 1%.

Robert Bellah also posited an idea of civil religion, which, crudely put, unites all Americans not by our love of country, but by our allegiance to a superstructure far greater than ourselves. That ideal is, through the smoke and mirrors of politics, a common moral purpose toward the welfare of all citizens and consequently the nation as a whole. If I might extend Bellah’s religion metaphor, God in the practical sense is the President of our nation. Each and every group lobbying congress to advance its interests is, in a manner of speaking, a nation unto itself speaking its own language, sharing construction in a Tower of Babel to have its message heard. But with so many groups laying bricks and not unifying behind the one cause that really, underneath all different interests, brings them all together, then nothing will get accomplished. But if the churches and mosques, labor unions and PTA, and especially students on college campuses – who were so essential in resisting the Big Lie during the Vietnam era – congregated toward their mutual self-interest in support of OWS, then we might actually do our founding fathers justice in upholding their principles. As Bellah points out, when our individual sensibilities prove inadequate, we have historically resorted to those cultural traditions – religion, which transcends class boundaries; and civic organizations – by which to overcome our limited individual impact.

America was founded on political dissent; its imperative is our national birthright. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality.” Thus protests naturally must occur when representative democracy fails to represent the will of the people.

Most importantly, we are all American before we are for a given political party. It is due time that we remember the American Dream that we were promised and unite toward making it realizable again by backing OWS. Otherwise, all in all, it’s just another brick in the wall.

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost

I used to really enjoy hip hop, but I haven't avidly listened to it in about a decade. When asked why not, I would usually attribute this to it largely having little content anymore. After the 90s, beats displaced lyrical content and street cred as the selling point for a song – and even for an artist. If you pushed me harder, I might tell you that there is nothing original being produced in hip hop anymore. The trope of growing up in the hood and making it, while resonant in their own American Dream sense, have become blasé to my desire for originality. And the all too common motifs of sex, drugs and guns has become has long since ceased to perk up our desensitized ears.

In truth though, I'm disappointed to say that there never was much of anything original about hip hop except the style itself and its art form as a normative outlet for black expression. Maybe I'm over-reducing it. But in terms of content, the beats have all been sampled, and even the lyrics call to mind those of blues – the cultural antecedent to hip hop. Even the messages in what are regarded as some of the deeper songs are repackaged to a generation not only that hasn't been exposed to their earlier forms, but doesn't even know they exist. The result is a culture that keeps re-inventing the wheel and as such never really makes much progress.

Take the recent song "No Church in the Wild" by Jay Z, Kanye West and newcomer Frank Ocean. It's definitely catchy, but it's hook is what get people talking:

"Human being to the mob/
What's a mob to a king?/
What' a king to a god?/
What's a god to a non-believer?/
Who don't believe in anything?/"

Woah, pretty deep right? It's saying that there's a hierarchy in the world that everyone is subject to, but non-believers throw it all off because they don't subscribe to the same system of values that orders the universe. Or, looking deeper, the object of each line has the capacity to supersede its subject... a mob can overthrow a king, a king can command his subjects to worship a different god, the non-believer can have a religious experience by the grace of God. Analysis aside, this isn't really new. Machiavelli has discussed this classically, as have other thinkers. But what makes this song so profound to a number of people is the fact that they likely weren't exposed to the literature in which such sentiments have historically been expressed. And if they were, hip hop (knowingly or not) repackages such truths in a concise, catchy and mnemonic form.

I suppose there has to be merit in this. In the literary tradition of writing with one's audience in mind, so too must the vocative mediums of truth and cultural expression similarly adapt to an audience that not only doesn't know history, but doesn't have the attention span to learn it. Maybe history is irrelevant as long as its truths are preserved. But what are truths without context, and what is context without resonance? As Galadriel tells in the opening of Lord of the Rings, "...some things that should not have been forgotten were lost." One merely has to read or see this trope played out in its numerous extrapolations in book and cinema to see how it ends. Or, if one lacks the patience to read a book or watch a movie, just listen to any real ballad. The real message is inscribed in the riffs between verses.