Hiding From Shame, Addicted to Optimism: 

The Tyranny of Our Collective Comfort Zones

By Phil Rockstroh

April 11, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- The technologies that

inflicted upon the world the ongoing tragedies in both the Gulf of Mexico and
Japan serve a dangerous addiction, an addiction to blind optimism, a
habituation of mind that allows us to dwell within provisional comfort zones
but renders vast spaces of the world into deathrealms.

After each catastrophe, there ensues a scramble to contain the damage leveled,
as, concurrently, the apologist of the present system explain the anomalous
nature of the event. Yet, this much should be obvious: Attempting to clean up
the mess, after it occurs, as oppose to altering the way of life that incurs the
damage, is analogous to an addict believing a few days in detox will serve as a
solution to his addiction.

In the same way drug dealers are reliant on an addict's unwillingness to reflect
on the carnage created in his life, as well as, the havoc reaped in the lives of
those near him, engendered by his addiction, the small group of hyper-wealthy
elites who benefit from the current system rely on collective cognitive
dissidence (or, as it has been termed, the fear of fear itself) to dissuade the
public at large from peering deeply into the pernicious situation.

One of an addict's biggest obstacles is his optimism i.e., he is convinced he

can figure out somehow, someway to use his drug of choice in a less
destructive way…and, by reflex, rebels against the deepening sorrow that he
must change.

When large, powerful corporations create messes beyond their ability to

control the damage wrought by their institutional cupidity, those in charge
spare no expense aggressively confronting the problem…that is, of course, by
means of public relations blitzes aimed at the general public, while tsunami-
sized waves of campaign contributions flood the coffers of elected officials.

Apropos, a school of thought has developed in which framing the perception

of a catastrophe supersedes all other considerations. An after the fact
casuistry, possessed of crackpot optimism, similar to the following, is
affected: Dated technologies were at fault in that particular mishap, but, not to
worry, in the near future, new innovations will safeguard against similar
calamities.

Sure thing: The future will be bathed in the benign light of new technological
wonders; our dread will be washed away by sparkling clean coal. Magical
technological innovations will soon render nuclear power so safe that the only
danger to the general public will be posed by the risk of being smothered by
its profoundly huggable properties.

Such are the free market capitalist's versions of End Time belief systems, a
variation of the type of magical thinking that induces an individual to scan the
empty sky, waiting for Jesus to float earthward and redeem the ceaseless folly
perpetrated by mankind.

If we are willing to accept being lulled back into our comfort zones by such
fantasies (that are as craven as they are preposterous) we might as well wait
around for hazmat crews of leprechauns riding flying unicorns to arrive on the
scene and clean up the messes that corporate capitalist greedheads inflict on
our increasingly besieged planet.

In a manner similar to how the indefatigable salesmen of the consumer state

sell optimism, but, in reality, deliver anomie, the propagandist of the neo--
liberal paradigm promise peace and prosperity -- yet their shock troops,
comprised of the political and media elite, instead level class warfare at home
and perpetual war abroad that renders landscapes blighted and mindscapes
shell shocked.

Among their most pernicious contrivances has been to convince the

passengers seated aboard the runaway train of the corporate state that the blur
of landscape out the train's windows is caused by their own poor vision and
the impending crash will be due to their negative thoughts. The implicit
message imparted is: "If only you would have thought more optimistically and
worked harder, you'd have been one of life's winners and you would have
been cruising above the impending carnage in your private jet. How sad for
you, loser. And, by the way," they lie, "did you know socialists are manning
the controls of the doomed train?"

While these practitioners of the art of weasel word wizardry insist they sell
hope, in reality, they sell shame.

Growing up in the deep south, being raised, as we say there -- not brought up,
but raised--like corn, hogs (or Lazarus or zombies from the grave) and
socialized there, shame is a subject with which I'm well acquainted; it has
taken me a lifetime (and it remains an ongoing process) to sort through and
shake out the shame-based sensibility acquired there.

"If you think that I am dumb, There is another universe of stupidity that I can
show you!" -- comment posted on my FaceBook page when a stubborn,
inconsiderate fact would not yield to his rightist umbrage. 
What is the origin of such an outlandish, inadvertently self-satirizing
statement?

Shame (its flip side being southern pride) arises, descends, converges and
intermingles from manifold influences and multiple traumas: The bizarre-as-a-
talking-serpent concept of sin passed down through Calvinistic belief systems;
the legacy of degradations inflicted from being on the losing (and morally
wrong) side of the Civil War; as well as, the degraded social milieu that
circumscribes the lives and fates of large numbers of the permanent white
underclass residing in the region.

Shame stains southern sensibilities like red clay on Sunday whites.

A large number of the blustering, willfully ignorant, southern men that I grew
up around, whether they are khaki clad, country club smoothies or leather
jacket-donning punk rock belligerents, were twisted inside out, kicked and
stomped insensate by shaming authority figures before they shed their baby
teeth. If one listens closely, one can detect the voice of shame-bearing demons
hissing in their every utterance.

Yet the knowledge of the origin and source of their suffering remains buried
deep within these men. To acknowledge shame (even to oneself) is considered
a tacit admission of having something to be ashamed of i.e., "If you ain't got
nothing to be ashamed of, you miserable peckerwood, then you wouldn't have
no need to feel it." So, more or less, the line of thinking, rather train wreck of
pathology, passing for thought, goes.

Accordingly, a strong impulse arises to explain it all away -- to claim the

entire episode is a misunderstanding, or to dismiss their feelings as being
trivial, or merely an indulgence of weak-willed, thin wrist losers, or impugn
the motives of those who find grievance in the situation. This mode of mind
has made multi-millionaires of the black magicians of rightwing talk shows,
experts at performing emotional sleight of hand tricks that displace the shame
of their listeners on a host of targets.

The cordiality of my fellow southerners is as facile as it is fragile. In southern

culture, a great deal of psychic energy goes into distancing oneself from
shame. Brooding beneath southern culture's superficial charm and gentility is
the unspoken threat: "Be nice, now" that often translates to, "ya'll do as I say
-- and there won't be any trouble."

More often than not, it is all made personal. Affronts are long remembered
and resentments cultivated, and being confronted with information outside of
one's realm of experience and field of reference is regarded as condescension.
Being made to feel "less than," by insults, real or imagined, can bring on a
noxious cascade of shame and its concomitant host of desperate evasions and
violent displacements to mitigate the feelings of unease engendered.

This is how it was explained to me on FaceBook recently by a feller named

Frank who was addressing the issue of his loathing of liberal/socialist tyranny:
"My facts are correct. The far left is nothing more than the new set of
communists looking to take over. Just a call me a southern god fearing
commie killer who cannot wait to put more notches on his weapon if the day
ever arises again. I did enjoy killing them so. Your sheep I will never be.
That's a fact. [R]eal Americans have better things to do that listen to your
drivel. I'm out of here."

Just what kind of demented cultural circus produces these crack-brained

battalions of killer clowns for Liberty? A culture with a brutal and rigidly
enforced (but furiously denied) class structure that inflicts constant
humiliation, yet, because of its nebulous structure, remains hidden from view.

Therein exists the allure and tenacity of neo-confederate hagiographic

nonsense. Pride is held near, and clutched closely to oneself, because the
corporate state has left the white underclass bereft of little else. It is painful to
admit to being powerless and devoid of a means to change the trajectory of
one's fate. One feels demoralized and diminished as a result.

Moreover, nationwide, under the present system, riddled with vast economic
inequity, the negative repercussions for disobedience and failure are more
than most people can endure, economically as well as psychologically. In a
culture where success is deemed the end all/be all of all things, failure is
devastating. In a corporate structure rigged to benefit a privileged few, and
upward class mobility is merely a mind-fogging, cultural myth -- then failure
is altogether likely.

Combine this, with the pernicious, puritanical/Calvinistic notion that failure is

due to flawed character, and you have a troubled population…staggered by
self-doubt, roiling in the unfocused rage of the humiliated, and primed and
stoked for demagogic displacements.

While nice liberals retreat to their comfort zones, the forsaken laboring class
constructs insulating walls of resentment. In the US, more and more, the
criteria that forges personality and informs our condition is wrought by the
calculus of enclosure: guarded gate communities; isolation in motor vehicles;
the insular pixel fiefdoms of the internet; long work hours, often spent in
cubicles, comprised of meaningless labor, and cut-off from both the norms of
nature and resonate human contact.
These conditions create an existence as redolent of the aromas of existence as
plastic covered cheese-food. In cultural terms, it is as if the people of the US
have become mummified in plastic packaging wrap… have been rendered --
Body Bag People.
Of course, one yearns for the void to be filled. But with hearts and minds
mortared closed, sealed off from the shock and humiliation experienced from
the daily economic exploitation of a hidden, intractable class system – what
penetrates these self-constructed prisons is loud, stupid, even fascistic in tone
and theme e.g., violent video games; the empty spectacle of steroid-fueled
professional sports hype; the exercise in Rock and Roll imperium that US
militarism has become; fundamentalist sermons that long for the blood and
thunder of Armageddon. In short, all the Sturm and Drang necessary to pierce
protective walls, yet, at the same time, insure one remains ensconced in one's
comfort zone.

Yet the sense of powerlessness is not mitigated for long, a nebulous sense of
unease nettles. The world appears to bristle with threats…a low-grade hysteria
is maintained and ceaseless war is both convenient and inevitable. Yet all the
ramparts and fortifications of the national security state still do not create a
sense of safety; instead, its siege mentality increases the interior void of the
US populace, and, as a result, the vitality of life is barred entrance.

Blood sacrifices must be made to the god of the inner abyss...corpses are
tossed into the void.

Over the top? Given the fact of the hundreds of thousands of corpses the US
empire has lain under the native soil of nations from the Persian Gulf to
Central Asia (and now North Africa) in only the past decade up to the present
-- which, in combination with a government that practices and a general
public that is indifferent to the use of torture -- the image limned above
doesn't seem hyperbolic in the least.

At what point, does it become incumbent upon an individual to seize back his
identity, to reject being defined by the exploitive, dehumanizing demands
imposed (and small bribes proffered) by corporate/governmental elites?

The ongoing tragedy in Japan reveals how dangerous it can be to refuse or

defer the challenge.

Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York
City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit
Phil's website or at FaceBook.