America Has A Spiritual Problem

 From Jacobin, finally, someone who explains why America has a drug problem.

We are all vulnerable to internalizing the message that comes from centers of power: we do not care about how you live, only that you live. Moreover, this message is muddied by the fact that, under certain circumstances (citizenship status, reproductive status, ethnicity, and so on), survival is not a concern, revealed in a rising indifference to the continued existence of a growing number of people.

For many people, it can be hard to see an alternative beyond self-destruction — a fact reflected in the startling incidence of drug addiction, suicide, and deaths of despair. When people are tasked with recharging the device of their bodies at home and powering on again each morning for another round of soulless exploitation, there is an understandable allure to sabotaging the machinery itself.

In of all places, Smile 2 Is a Smart Allegory for Dehumanizing Capitalism by Elliott Piros.

And the solution proposed is not a bad one, albeit I might phrase it differently:

But however resonant the analogy, we are not like the victims of the smile monster. We do not have to accept the idea that we are vessels for profitability, that our basic survival and functionality are all we’re good for. We can imagine an alternative that the film can’t: the collective, political assertion of social life and subjectivity in a world intent on denying them.

If collectivity means recognizing the humanity of all others, and then doing what can be done to uphold that humanity, then I agree, We damage others when we do not see in them the same humanity as ourselves. We need ways to heal ourselves and our communities.

sch 5:31 AM