In an age of neoliberalism, private media, dwindling education and higher literacy, we find ourselves being more and more trapped and alienated by commodities. Since the 1960s, rebellion was sold by Hollywood intellectuals as vapid nihilism, sunglasses, drug use and consumer identity. In which words, ideas and expression took precedence over action, organisation and popular democracy.
The jaded petit-bourgeois intellectual became marketed as “The Rebel Without A Cause.”
This gave rise to centrism, the idea that having ideas is wrong. That when you take a position on something, and stand for ideas outside of the media regimented overton window, then you lose. How true change is no change, and how real freedom is meekness to authority.
An ironic twist in which the 1984 quoting centrist intellectual will, in essence, embody the notion that true thought is no thought, and that true consciousness is no consciousness.
It takes a special kind of idiot to look at two arguing politicians, and say “The truth can be found somewhere in the middle.”
Men of truth such as Tony Blair, who told the public that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Men of truth such as Al Gore, who told the public that climate change could be resolved by purchasing his carbon credits.
Men of truth such as Barrack Obama, who promised to combat racism and war, only to become the father of drone warfare, and to crack the whip at Ferguson.
Men of truth such as Donald Trump, who promised to end corruption in DC, only to openly collude with Nancy Pelosi in order to carry out bipartisan violations of the US constitution.
Men of truth such as Bernie Sanders, who spent his career promising peace only to participate in the genocidal horrors of Yugoslavia, causing even his own staff to resign in shame.
Apparently, the truth, lies somewhere in the middle of these fork tongues. It is no wonder that centrism began in the drug-fueled madness of the 1960s, you would have to be under very strong psychotropic influence to believe such a thing.
Rather, it is culture that becomes the new rebellion. In a world of reality television, commercial pop music, and self-help books, it is the people who read Dostoyevsky, who listen to Shostakovich, who make citations from Lenin and Marx, who become the true rebels.
If you ever want to know how to challenge the powers of tomorrow, then talk to a rich person about Lenin, and watch how nervous they get. Ask your local canvasser about Karl Marx, and see them trip over their words. Talk to a campus liberal about Stalin, and witness the outrage. If you want to know what truly frightens authority, then look to the East.
It is the clean cut and socially approachable people who will help strangers, behave politely, maintain civic pride and encourage culture and education that become the rebels of an age in which alienation, vapidity, xenophobia and obedience to the market is status quo.
If you want to rebel against tyranny, then read a book, hang a portrait of Stalin in your home, wear clean and respectful clothing, help an old lady cross the street, give money to the poor, hold the door open for a neighbor.
Make the world feel less estranged to itself, disarm the frustrations of a misinformed and indoctrinated citizenry, listen to two words for every one word you speak, introduce kindness and gentleness into a culture which encourages distrust and vindictiveness.
The rebel of yesterday was a pretentious middle class intellectual with a motorcycle and a leather jacket. The rebel of today is a good citizen in a world in which neoliberalism is decaying the advancements of the modern state through budget cuts and austerity, who seeks to turn the modern state apparatus into a feudal piggy bank for landlords and bosses.
Culture is the new counterculture. Embrace what is foreign, embrace what is fascinating, embrace inquiry, temperance, good will and decency, introduce these things into every dilapidated casualty of the hippie movement, and save them from themselves.
To every hippie I say: Put down the Buddha, and pick up the Red Book. Quit funding drug habits, and start funding homeless programmes. Quit hiding in the cheap esoterica of world denying spiritualism, and put yourself on the line. Expose yourself to the consequences of authority, and enjoy the fulfilment of virtue and bravery. Wear scars, not hemp.
