The Games Elites Play – Part II

Are you in the saddle? OK, let’s skip the foreplay and take off where we last tied off – where was I?

Oh yeah, elitism requires an exaction on fear to perpetuate it’self.

This naturally leads us to consider; who has the antidote for fear? Stands to reason, right? If fear predominates, then the group that is able to successfully ameliorate it by slaying the dragon, is able to successfully garner a cachet of loyal adherents – it’s the standard medicine man, shaman or rain maker con job, that’s how he maintains a tenuous hold on power in a tribal society – he’s the medicine man! But look closer, he’s also the guy responsible for giving rise to the disease!

Here the trick takes its cue from medicine, follow me here, the shift in the mind is only a few millimeters! What it cannot cure, it will attempt to alleviate by numbing away. That’s the reason why every order of elitism needs to deliver on an effective means of successfully transforming the history of tragedy into fostering personal growth and salvation – give me 10% of your salary and you will be saved! – keep to the system and the system will keep you! – vote for me and I will deliver you to the land of milk and honey! 

In this homily sugary narrative of how to hit the home run, the whole idea is to send a surge of sentimental warmth through the reader, to even impart the belief, they too are empowered to confront evil and sorrow and if possible even fashion a road map of how to get to the other side safely – the nirvana – land of milk and honey – the place where the river meets the sea. Yeah, Mom’s a drunkard, Dad ran away from home, and the devil is running around me, but somehow by keeping to the yellow brick road that has been carefully lay out by the great leader, what really matters is, I still have a means of surmounting personal tragedy and making a life for myself! I can do it, because, you’re always there beside me to see me through thick and thin! 

The whole idea is to promote the simplistic notion or some pop psychology which attempts to make sense of organizational and personal success i.e setting the rules of the game – once people get into the snake and ladder mentally, they weave themselves into the act of turning the hamster wheel rather than the goal, doesn’t even matter if the goal brings about a cataclysmic end or leads them no where, that’s not important – remember, the narrative takes care of that inconvenient kink in the surreal footage by eliding the end, instead the means to the end is magically promoted as the goal itself – the success of any game needs to sustain the illusion, if a better tomorrow is to come about, it ALWAYS takes sacrifice! Nothing is ever proffered at the expense of nothing, it has to emerge from some great sacrificial act – some super duper passion or jihad like mega swan dive.

The circularity of the argument guarantees the first protocol of what I refer too as the economy of wants (this is a very important term, if you forget everything here, just take this with you, its the 90% that makes up the 100% and it will hold you in good stead, better still write it somewhere and carry it in your wallet. I guarantee you, you will not find this any where in the internet, bc I must have read abt 100 books just to eek it out! I kid you not!), the very elements which permits the status quo ante to sustain itself by creating a ecological balance between two competing demands; how does one continue to solicit loyalty from a group? How can that group be allowed autonomy without threatening the oligarchy of the elite? 

In order for this economy of wants to pivot on its linchpin, it needs to regularly pay out utility – hey, man, if you’re turning the hamster wheel every minute, hour and day and you get nothing, then there’s no point – so the house rules are designed in such a way that appeals to probably two cells somewhere in your buttocks – it rewards you intermittently very much in the way, the magic numbers on a one arm bandit lines up, only the trick is you get cumulatively less than what you pay out through a given period of time, that fulfills two important functions: firstly, it creates the conditions for false hope to foster customer loyalty and secondly, it feeds the addiction by leveraging on the prospect; this remains the only means, there is no other way except this way!  

While you’re busying yourself with the selfless act of turning the great wheel of life, you don’t have time to figure out why you’re enriching the coffers of your pastor or why he needs to go around in a fancy sports car or even feels the need to play Donald trump – as I mentioned earlier, the whole idea of any system that attempts to sustain elitism requires the suppression of the goal and instead the promotion of the ideal that the act is the goal it’sef – the greater the circularity, the more efficient the economy of wants. That to say, it attempts to fashion an economy where everything is designed to promote the belief, if you keep to the system, the system will keep you – pay your tithes and the blessings will come in fast and furious – hold back and the shit hits the fan and you’re out in the cold. 

That also means the icons of power along with the whole politics of pecking order etc, kicks in – it stands to reason; for society to evolve coherently from anarchy to hierarchy, it needs to leverage on the science of division of labor – the goal is to ensure clear delineation of roles and goals, the economy that supports the oligarchy of elites will simply collapse with out!

Only because in the case of the elite sustaining economy, there’s a fatal flaw in the equation; those at the base of the pyramid (the majority) ALWAYS need to serve those at the apex (the elites) – to accomplish this, the delineation of roles and goals needs to be able to define each individual in relation to their respective class and how they may even fulfill the function of keeping. “our way of life” intact. 

As I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t need to make a lot of sense. Infact, I can even establish it empirically as a matter of cold cut fact; IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH NONSENSE!

Don’t believe me?

Consider this: if I asked you to go next door and strangle the neighbor’s son, you would probably call me a mad man and should you be dumb enough to carry out what I requested of you. We may even end up sharing a padded cell in the IMH.

However, if I said to you, our way of life has been threatened and you will be preserving it by partaking in some noble enterprise called war. Then magically, the act of killing is transformed into a selfless act of patriotism – in this example, the act of killing remains the same, but where the magic kicks in is how it’s able to supplant the logic with a philosophy and rationale to make sense of nonsense. Now you know why throughout the course of human history every enterprise that requires sacrifice is never for a country, leader or class. Instead it’s always couched in fuzzy wozzy terms for the fatherland or motherland – here the state has been mystically transformed into an extension of the family – the nexus is key, as it effectively bridges the divide between individual and state and instead promotes the false believe the state is a member of the family!

In its more refined and polished form – the elements which make up the economy of wants can assume a variety of shapes and forms – if you don’t have a credit card, you’re poor – you’re not truly free and emancipated unless you own car – if you still stay with your parents, then you will never be your own man, you need to own property. Here the whole idea takes the form of reductionism – that’s to say, life is represented as binary – you’re either wired or you’re out – in or out – an elite or a grunt.

In this subtle repetoire of what is and isn’t organizational and personal success –forms the reason, why once upon a time in Easter Island, rival factions exterminated one another in a ceaseless competition, not for territory, power or even influence, but rather for an egg of a sooty tern! Yes they fought endlessly over fucking quail eggs! Doesn’t even matter if they nuked the whole island ecologically by cutting down every single tree while they were engaged in doomsday competition to fashion even larger and more ostentatious structures – as with all economies premised on ‘wants,’ which attempts to preserve the oligarchy of the elites, the system of competition needs to be effectively ritualized even if it leads to the illogical end – doesn’t even matter whether it’s the imperial exams that once spawned the Mandarin class. Or even the Samurai’s who were threatened with obsolescence with the advent of gunpowder – if anything threatens to undermine the economy of wants, it needs to be effectively removed. 

The process of ritualizing competition is designed in such a way, whereby the elites always win. Even though at any given period, they form the minority, they still manage to win only because part of the competitive process has to be slanted firmly against the favor of the statistical majority – Samurai’s are only allowed to carry the katana and the wakizashi, commoners aren’t – only knights are permitted to don arrow stopping armor – only the high priest is allowed to enter the holy of hollies – only those who graduate from the ivy league can make good decisions.

The perceptive reader will note that in order to sustain this economy of wants, the elites have successfully fashioned an economic structure whereby; they don’t ever need to deliver on the goods – that’s the beauty of the perfect con job – it’s always over the brow the hill, at the end of the rainbow and if anyone is clever enough to question where Atlantis is? 

The mere threat of sanctions or retribution is enough to solicit compliance. For example, if you don’t give me 10% of your salary, then I will kick you out of church. If you get kicked out (ex-communicated), you’re effectively doomed, your soul will wander in eternity, never ever knowing one day of rest – as laughable as that may seem, such beliefs held a tenuous hold on the psyche of pre-Renaissance man and accounts for the rapid rise of the church as an economic super power. Of course, these days the hook, line and sinker needs to be spruced up to take into account of the internet age, but look closer, the set pieces remain one of the same reality.

Truth of course is very different. Unfortunately, it’s false to all human experience to find growth or development in tragedy and endless sacrifice. In fact, the dull truth is that suffering and pain is tautological. The only thing that suffering teaches us is that we are capable of suffering, but when one is busy turning the great wheel of life in the hamster cage, how is one supposed to know it?

Well, it was supposed to be only two parts, but as you can see for yourself, it’s spilling into a three parter – stay tuned for the next instalment, it may not be a page turner, but I guarantee you, it’s certainly a life turner.

Darkness 2007