Cui Bono
Many of our what are supposed to be our most trustworthy professions have become a parody of their own intent.
The medical profession aims at treatment via prescription rather than cure, driven by the inducements of big pharma (and their powerful government lobby) together with the personal incentive of revenue maximization via high turnover of fee-paying patients. This modus operandi pushes cure beyond the financial means of the general public
The mainstream news media aims at maximizing audience numbers to attract advertising revenue and so they debase their content, appealing to the most basic level of the masses, e.g. celebrity gossip, and mere sound-bites rather than engaging in investigative journalism that informs and holds authority accountable. On the contrary, this industry sucks at the teat of authority to maintain easy access to a constant stream of sound-bites. It has even become a symbiotic relationship where authority also uses the media to convey its message and influence public thought.
The financial industry … where do I start? What other industry has remained so unchanged for the last 70 years despite the great advancements in knowledge and technology? This is an industry that has grown rich on fee-based income and paid themselves well (and been a powerful influence on government policy), all on the back of nothing more than a system that has encouraged greater levels of debt on top of massive demographic tailwinds.
Each of these examples engage in their current practices because:
it is so much easier than doing what is best over the long-term;
there are significant financial incentives for self-interest over doing what is best - i.e. it pays well to do the easy thing; and
a general ignorance and short-sightedness that cannot see - or refuses to acknowledge - the end result on society of their participation in the present collective process, because often the fallout is beyond the lifespan of those who initiate these practices (i.e. they’re prepared to fuck over the world that will be inherited by their children and grandchildren for the sake of their own personal gain).
I won’t even attempt to address our education system that merely teaches knowledge - i.e. the ability to recite - rather than impart understanding, wisdom or the ability to think for one’s self. This system also restricts the addition of new knowledge to that which comes via the established order (i.e. those who are part of the education system) and so becomes insular and self-validating.
Much of the structural problems described above stem from industry and educators slipping into specialization. A consequence of specialization is that those outside of any field of expertise remain ignorant and so must presume that subject specialists know what they are doing and so each silo goes unchallenged. Subject specialization has created weakness. We live in a society that fails to see interrelationships and behaviors that freely transgress arbitrary subject-based boundaries that we have adopted and from which we have developed policies and structures based upon our derived delineations.
We have made all these mistakes without even considering individual human frailties such as lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride etc. which would obviously only compound matters.
We live in a collective clusterfuckery of intellectual ignorance, blind to the currents in which we swim.
We are at a nexus, a point in time where the rigid structures of society as we know it are straining to breaking point.
I foresee a shattering that will result in individuals increasingly defining themselves and their identity in a manner that treats historical allegiances like nationality or social status labels such as a job title as quaint notions of a bygone era. Individuals will flow around and over traditional structures that they deem obsolete. The top-down approach to governing society - even in our Western democracies - is teetering and in need of a system reset. Let the people govern, let elected officials represent.
As far as I’m concerned, it can’t come soon enough. There will be birth pains, though.