It turns out wearing the glasses made no difference.
In the John Carpenter film, They Live, our hero John Nada is one in many workers stumbling from hunger to poverty and piece work in an economy that is only built to exploit them. It’s a film both critical of Reagan economics and power itself, in all it’s guises. Nada comes across a box of sunglasses and once he wears them, he is able to see the subliminal messages hidden beneath advertising, on the television and to see the true ghoulish face of some people who it turns out, are alien invaders. The overlords who have made a deal with the humans in government and with wealth to steer society in a symbiosis of control that satisfies the elites and alien rulers.
Nada, played by Roddy Piper spends much of the film trying to convince others, including his new friend played by Keith David, to wear the glasses. This gives us shoot outs, examples of the alien technology and a supreme street fight between Piper and David. The duo join a resistance and try to take down the alien signal so that normal humans can see the world for how it really is. A world free the deceptions. Our heroes are blue collar, the common person, those who endure the struggle and suffer beneath power no matter how hard they work.
The humans who comply with the alien are yuppies, corporate types and government goons. Those who would and tend to serve any master so long as it profits them. The film is about class struggle, from a somewhat Left-wing perspective, when those from such an ideology concerned themselves with the worker and the oppressed, before it’s academic and elitist obsession with identity took hold. We may not have the sun glasses in the film but we have technology that gives us instant access to the realities of the world.
Ignorance is a choice. We can search out whatever information we desire, even if algorithmic forces tend to hide certain things on specific platforms. Anyone curious, with a degree of honest intrigue can investigate, or, one can simply stumble across footage and testimonies of those on the ground across the world, Despite this, ideological bias and other forms of bigotry or conformist inclinations steer the minds of some away from nuance and critical thinking and instead rewards emotion and simplified narratives. The murder of a child, or gang rape of a girl can be contextualised, or hidden according to an ideological and narrative need. In some cases, to speak up on behalf of the victim can draw punishment from authority, and many in the public seem fine with this.
It’s with the mass murder of children and families, the corruption of elites don’t go unnoticed, instead are twisted into arrogant dismissal, to censorship enforcement that a decade ago would have seemed conspiratorial to even conjure up. We now live in the post whistle blower-age. There is no need for the Snowden leaks, Wikileaks, Vault 7, or the countless papers or exposes which have revealed the sinister machinations of government. Now, they mostly tell us, techno-fascism is on the rise with corporations like Palantir, to the numerous private equity firms and AI obsessed companies which both boast and lie with no consequence. So long as investors are happy, and in many cases this includes numerous common people who want money, a return on their investment. They simply do not care.
Government often are the best customers, who need the technologies and infrastructure to kill with and for the surveillance of the populations. Consumer facing models are not as profitable, difficult to satisfy fickle markets and competitions, instead governments need data to be sifted through, contained and controlled while the lives of every person is to be monitored. Call it security, safety, for the naive, in truth it is both profitable and authoritarian. In the past a police state such as that of East Germany was expensive and complex, now, it can be privatised and assisted with tech companies whose investors are happy, as well as the government and corporate customers.
Others are dependent on government whether trough employment, contracts or welfare that they are incapable of articulating dissent, and if they do, it’s to vote for the other side of the equation through the limited heights of party politics. Is it that most do not care, or are simply apathetic. Or, the many who do care are scattered and their concerns and dissatisfaction is lost beneath the winds of rhetoric and digital deceptions.
Perhaps instead we are in a post-truth age. Despite the courage and frequency of leaks and whistle blowers, there is an increase in the debasement of truth and an ever reliance on gate keeping. The modern fixation with podcasts and social media has steered people to rely and trust those who, in some instances never proclaimed reliable expertise, though because of their digital status and downloads, popularity ensured authority. Having on guests who are close to power and who dabble in wild and outlandish conspiracy, blends the basis for fact and fiction. Instead it becomes a listening environment that resides in the realm of infotainment, but in the age of short term memories, most of it is forgotten and disregarded by the time the next thing arises. This allows for political and corporate power to invest in these platforms and massage messaging and manipulate opinions through limited hangouts, where some dark truths are revealed in order to curtail further investigations. Or, to provide a human face, a likeable entity which seems disarming and relatable.
Once a host is familiar and trusted, they tend to become the guide as to where trust may be laid. And as social media and short form content has had it’s part in the erosion of critical thinking this has led to an adherence to such authorities. The naive belief that a person can claim to have been cancelled, while they are on the biggest media platform on the world advertising their Netflix special, or that a podcast host can be a challenge to power and authority while platforming in the positive representatives of the CIA or running presidential candidates, while never really challenging them with questions that may expose their corruptions and deceptions. Podcasts have become the Late Night without the randomness that it once had.
A lot of Westerners live in a household that is at best one part blue collar, and one part white collar. With many members of the family working corporate or government jobs, while aspiring for what was once considered a yuppy lifestyle. The belief that a house should be an investment, that all can be put on credit and living beyond ones means is an addiction that is so widespread it is now normal. It also serves power, and as those in the film They Live desired, it ensures servitude and concentrates wealth. With every bubble and currency that can be debased endlessly because borrowing will never end, the wealthiest often are bailed out, inflation ensures that holding debt is not a fear and the worker and shrinking private sector (not dependent on government contracts), can be taxed until they no longer exist. Eventually only government, private equity and mega corporations will remain.
This will provide a satisfying homogenised economy and society for some. It was after all the desire of the aliens and their human goons. It ensures the State has more power and control over most things, and billionaires grow their wealth. It destroys independent lifestyles and anything that is non-conformist. We can see and know this is happening, and yet, even though we have better vision than any films sun glasses may grant us, it seems that most now want this? Or, are so apathetic and debt laden or defeated that they accept it. Which is fine for individuals in the now to do, but disregards the world children and the yet to be born will inherit.
Such a system is based on development and waste. Even the non-market forced ‘green’ sectors and smart technologies have consequential outcomes. From the pollution of horse manure in the cities to the choking smoke of coal, petrol-chemicals and microplastics apocalypse and what the new technologies bring to the now and beyond. The hedonistic treadmill is running faster and it appears that many are never satisfied, and want more. More what?
The awareness of enshitification, shrinkflation and destruction of food to fast fashion and the cannibalisation of all culture is more than post-modernist ideologies. It’s finance and debt economy that has left classical economics in the last century which now suits endless government growth and corporations that can make money without actually turning profits or delivering services and products that anyone wants or needs. To put debt into investments, whatever that happen to be, crypto, NFT’s, art, Pokemon, real estate, wherever the human fancy decides. Bubbles to swell wealth, to then be invested elsewhere, and on and on. Is it sustainable?
The question is, how many parking lots can be made, and high rise apartments, data centres and rare earth ripped from the ground until all are satisfied? The wealthy now, live at the expense of not just many of us, especially those in the developing world, but those to be born in the future. And, those who are inside the hierarchies of government the power and allure of politics provides them with a lifestyle that transcends those they are elected, anointed or ordained over to rule and command. We don’t need a secret alien conspiracy to conjure up this reality, they are simply a metaphor for very human people who do not care about consequences or the rest, and if they do, they see themselves as human gods with an omnipotence to oversee the rest of us with both benevolence and disdain. Whatever the case, they always profit. Always want more, and the government never stops growing, neither will the debt or the wealth of some.
Perhaps the fictions of the past all gave us fragments of a reality, censorship, surveillance, spectacle, wars, debt, prohibition, degraded food, automation, killer robots and so on. But, you wanted this? Many seem to be working towards this outcome. To trust power, to adore authority, to embrace corporate monopolies and the great monopoly of the state, is a choice. Put the sun glasses away, they are not needed. Piper and David got the signal down, but people kept on with the status quo. In the end, most really don’t care. Tomorrow, that’s someone else problem. The yuppies and aliens won?
