The State of the System Discourse.
Some time ago I pointed out that a "crisis", by definition, is a temporary situation, which inevitably ends with an exit from the crisis itself. Consequently, what we have been going through for the past 30 years cannot be considered "a crisis", but rather "a system".
That the system has the aim of impoverishing the masses or enriching very few, that it has the annihilation of the ecosystem as a side effect, is something that has been discussed too much, and the discussion is part of the system itself. That the system continues to act by filling the dictionary with absurd, illogical or paradoxical terms, such as "permacrisis" to say that it is a permanent crisis (in this case, it would be a system) or "polycrisis", to indicate the fact that the crisis is total – and therefore there is no healthy part of the system that gets us out of the crisis – which is therefore a system, we know it.
But it's not the what that matters to me in this post – it's the how.
The method used to strip the masses of any security, economic, social or even cognitive, was anxiety. The enemy is upon us, the crisis is upon us, the catastrophe is upon us, extinction is upon us. Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety.
The communication of news was based on inducing anxiety in people, predicting catastrophes, invasions, rapes and other horrendous events, creating a precise strategy.
When faced with anxiety, or stress, there are three reactions
- fight (fight)
- flight (run away)
- freeze (motionless and hidden)
To keep the masses at bay, therefore, the third solution is the ideal tool. Not for nothing, the news is full of tragedies, crises and threats, which exclude both flight and fight. You can only remain still and hidden.
The strategy has worked for many years, but it is starting to show its limits.
The problem with this technique is the following: in fact, it induces depression.
We are facing an epidemic of depression the likes of which has never been seen in human history.
And that's a problem for the anxiety-based system. It was based, as I wrote, on the idea of putting individuals into a state of freeze, with the aim of preventing escapes from the system or internal struggles against the privileged classes.
But it also started from the assumption that the person was normal at work, that he produced normally, that he was punctual and active, that he was creative, that he was motivated.
All things a depressed person can't do.
Sowing an epidemic of depression, that is, using anxiety as a weapon of mass imprisonment, is having an effect that the system could not foresee. It was thought that the “freeze” state was reversible, or at least that it was easily reversible. Instead, it will take decades to bring these masses back to a state of normal activity.
The first symptom is the collapse of productivity, followed by the disappearance of creativity. Companies post ads and can't find staff. But let's think about it: did you really think you could benefit from a working class that struggles to get out of bed in the morning because they are depressed?
Don't they get out of bed and respond to your job advert?
The number of marriages has obviously collapsed to a minimum, the number of children born has ditto, and the question you should ask yourself is: but did we really think that a world of depressed people wanted to make long-term plans, when the average depressed person is incapable to even manage personal hygiene?
Even in the world of art, cinema and entertainment, the society we live in is literally devouring the carcass of fathers. The USA is no longer able to escape from the spiral of superheroes, shootings, violence and pornography into which it has entered. Europe continues to propose imitations of French films (A fucks with B, B fucks with C, C fucks don D, in the end they all fuck together), or Italian ones (the shit that is there is beautiful and everyone should love it because if it exists then it is interesting), German films (we had Zyklon B but now we have cinema which is more effective), and so on. Fashion continues to cycle to the point that with a large enough wardrobe it is possible to wait for old clothes to come back into fashion. Honestly, we don't see art anymore.
Music is now made by computers, computers write it, losers who are made to do their homework sing it.
And no one knows how to get out of it.
The story of the boiled frog goes around. You put it in the water, raise the temperature very gradually, until the frog lets itself boil alive. The trouble is that if you try to do it in practice it doesn't work. As soon as the water gets TOO hot, the frog will try to escape.
But society gave the frog a depressant. And the frog doesn't run away, it hides in the boiling water. The trouble is that if you want to wage war, if you want Europe to have a defense, the frog needs to enlist. If you want the economy to grow again, you need the frog to go to work. If you want to be among the leading nations, you need a creative frog.
You thought you could eat the frog at the end of the process. In reality, you will no longer be able to find the frog, and when you reach it you will discover that it has no fat.
To exist, this economic system needs people who do a little more than they should . The epidemic of depression they caused to keep it stable, instead, has produced a system in which everyone does the bare minimum.
This is the state of the system in 2024. An epidemic of depression affecting approximately 1-2 sigma of the population. Lazy workers, repetitive creatives and scripts, few soldiers and even fewer parents.
One in 4 absences from work is due to depression ( https://www.fondazioneveronesi.it/magazine/articoli/neuroscienze/assenze-dal-lavoro-una-su-4-per-depressione )
The world seems to have become like that customer who enters a restaurant equipped with everything, but has no appetite.
Is it the end state? No. Only millennialists believe this bullshit.
The truth is that a West in this situation is of no use, and soon it won't even be of use to the masters who caused this disaster. If curing depression is possible, curing it on a scale as large as this has never been done.
The problem with permacrisis, that is, with the system you are part of, dear Lagarde, is that after the permacrisis there is the permafine. And only after that, someone or something replaces you. For this reason, not even permafine is the final state of the system.