Virtue Signalling

 

In a society where we are increasingly separated from each other, by the use of technology and now by the threat of viral illness, it will surely become inevitable that in the gaps between us, misunderstandings and mistrust will flourish. 

There are a lot of doomsday merchants around, broadcasting the woes of the human race. We are on the brink of self-extinction as a species, say some scientists. The coronavirus is systematically attacking the weakest among us, apparently - physically and economically. Those with the weakest systems will fail, and fall. This is a culling of the human race. Natural selection, in a world which has normalized a lot of unnatural behaviour. 

Amongst these contemporary n+1 conundrums, is the increasingly widespread belief that we have incrementally brought this crisis on ourselves, through our self-serving greed, ignorance, self-indulgence, apathy and stupidity. For example, by eating so much meat we have created cruel and unnatural animal husbandry practices, like factory farming and mass injection of hormones into animals and birds, to fatten them up artificially for human consumption. 

We then ingest these hormone-infused animal products. Is it any wonder that our own physical systems are affected? On a moral or spiritual level, we are consuming the body of animals killed in terror at the brutality they have faced. Can we be really at peace, knowing that we are literally feeding off such a process? Does doing so increase or decrease our health? Advertising and self-justifying promotion by the meat and poultry and dairy industry CEOs does not alter the fact that eating red or white, mass produced meat fried in animal fat reduces our immunity and vitality. 

While facing the prospect of changing our eating habits, and confronting the shallow materialism to which we have succumbed, we ourselves fall prey to all kinds of prophets and cult leaders, across the religious and political spectrum. They target our known vulnerabilities, and promise us prosperity, abundance, happiness and safety in exchange for our investment in them and their institutions, parties, businesses and corporations.  But trusting in these prophets brings personal loss. 

I think of cartoons when I think of this situation. In ‘The Wizard Of Id’, the wife of the great man is asked how she manages to get the white clothes she washes to look so white. ‘I rinse them in white paint’, she replied. 

I think also of the brilliant ‘Asterix and The Soothsayer’, where an out-of-work, materialistic mendicant briefly enjoys the generosity of the superstitious and gullible people of the ‘little village we know so well’. ‘When the storm is over, the weather will improve’, he remarks, and it seems to them to be an utterance of profound wisdom. 

The global systems on which we have relied, which mass produce fried chicken and one-size-fits-all clothes, and which exploit both the workers who create the products and the consumers who use them, are breaking down. Viral illness, also globalized, and apparently uncontainable, is affecting the supply chains. It is as if we are being sharply awakened from a complacent dream of world domination and prosperity thinking which the younger generation at least don’t want any part in perpetuating. Not if it makes us oblivious to the trouble we are in. 

Niccolo Machiavelli commented in ‘The Prince’ that ‘everyone sees only what we appear to be, and very few know who we really are’. Do we know who profits from our losses? Or do we simply believe what is presented to us? Being pure of faith, and childlike in our trust? Can we be sure that our food is processed humanely, and prepared hygienically? Can we be confident that the decisions made on our behalf will benefit us, and not harm us? 

Are people who look good to us, their public image tailored to appeal to the masses, branded as beautiful and sincere, ticking all the brand boxes as family-friendly, authentic, passionate, and so on - really what they seem to be? How can we tell? 

One of the ironic advantages of being increasingly disenchanted by the hypocrisy and the criminality of the behaviour of those global perpetrators whose activities are exposed as fraudulent in this era, is that scepticism painfully replaces our sentiment. It seems like a loss, because we can no longer sit pretty, unshakeably certain that the world around us is progressing in ways that we agree with and feel fortified by. We had inhabited an airbrushed, whitewashed ‘reality’. 

A long time ago, near Bethlehem, speaking of whitewashing, Jesus accused the pompous Pharisees of his own era of being ‘whited sepulchers’: 

‘Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean’. (The Bible, The New International Version). 

In a dissociated world where we do not approach each other to observe each other’s activities closely, or are not able to do so, due to legal protocol or privacy measures, or ‘hands off’ arrangements which distance actors from their actions; the outward appearance of beauty, a curated combination of heraldic blazons, seems to suggest meanings to the observer which are easy to believe. Symbolism is employed, because images speak louder than words. Especially if no one is within actual hearing distance, and everyone who is close enough to see how things operate is signed to non disclosure agreements. Or in societies of people whose primary literacy capacity is visual. 

What is actually being celebrated at a wedding with thousands of guests?? Is it real human joy, or the social status of the families of the adorable couple and their professional associates? Rent-a-crowds? 

What is actually being commemorated at a funeral where there are a large number of monks? Is it honest grief being expressed, or the self-serving affirmation of personal status pursued by those who enact the rituals? Professional mourners are paid to weep and wail, and the love and family feeling of the family and their social position is measured by the spectators at this event by the pitch and volume of the wailing, calculated in decibels as well as rupees. 

The number and cost of gifts, flowers and cards at birthdays, christenings, weddings and funerals is now a measure of both love and money. 

Who can distinguish between them?