one of my favorite substacks is poetic outlaws, by erik rittenberry. he showcases a lot of great, edgy, and thought provoking poets and writers. but occasionally, he publishes his own essays. he recently publlshed one called the unraveling of the civilized world. it’s a potent read.
many passages smack you upside the head, but this one has stayed with me:
most americans, being out-of-control consumption junkies and dedicated servants of the machine, don’t realize how far things have gone to the wayside. they’ve grown used to their chains, their ignorance, and have grown comfortable in their own mediocrity. but deep down, we all know something is off. (erik rittenberry)
i mean, he’s right on most everything. not sure i buy the last sentence, for i think most have their head buried deep in the sand, but i hope he’s right.
i quit politics years ago not because i hated the game, or was turned off by the antics and power-hungry nature of politicians. no, i quit because i was disgusted by the apathy and the ignorance of the voters themselves.
my relationship with chicago was forever altered back in 2023, when only one-third of voters turned out for a mayoral election, further pushing chicago down a bankrupt and apathetic course. polling showed people very angry about taxes, crime, and the poor state of education. yet, 67% of voters didn’t bother to vote.
which is why i resonate with erik’s line “dedicated servants of the machine.” i think people are cogs in the wheel, blindly and blissfully living the life that culture and the elites want them to, “growing used to their chains,” accepting their fate, doing what is expected, keeping silent.
they are comfortable with mediocrity, their own and everyone else’s, from how their government runs, to lousy and poorer quality products and services, to unsolved societal problems, ceaseless and unchecked corruption, and a financial and debt crisis that threatens to be end days for modern society sooner, rather than later.
they plug into the matrix by doomscrolling social media, mindlessly staring at their phones, weakening attention spans and focus, and spending hours and hours being brainwashed by netflix and the streamers. consumption junkies, in other words. (note: for the record, i am not innocent of this, but i’ve worked hard to pull back, deleting my social media accounts and removing all streaming platforms from my devices, for starters…)
it feels like we’ve given up the fight, and are now content to just remain plugged into the matrix, and stay blissfully unaware of the depth of the problems, happy to remain locked in our chains and ignorance.
to his comment about ‘deep down, we all know something is off,’ he is probably correct, although it doesn’t feel that way to me. people seem oblivious to the state of things. or at least aware but doing nothing. maybe they feel powerless. which is exactly what the elites want.
living in downtown chicago, although they’ve tapered off recently, people protested nearly everything, but they never seemed to protest poor student literacy rates, a nearly 40 trillion national debt, or high levels of crime. why aren’t more parents angry that their kid struggles to do math…especially after graduating high school?
that said, i believe there is a growing percentage of people waking up, although i think this block of people remains small. and still mostly powerless. you see it affecting politics on the fringes, but still not in a way that will affect real change.
yet, anyway. i hope someday people wake up and become aware of the depths of corruption, fiscal mismanagement, and depths of as yet unknown long-term impacts of AI and other technologies. government is broken, yet most people seem not to bother. will that change? is it too late to change?
this is where one inserts copy about how the roman empire fell. all the ingredients are there…