Power comes from the bottom up
I promise you: you can do it. Before I say anything else, just know that you can.
I’ve been trying to pinpoint the root of the existential dread creeping at the back of my mind, and I think I’ve finally figured it out. Sure, I’m upset at the state of the world, feeling powerless to change things that are so clearly wrong. I’m frustrated that that feeling remains as I zoom in closer to my immediate life.
In the United States, we like to sit back and trust that “the system” and its laws are structured to prevent the kind of corruption that gave rise to the robber barons of the 1800s. After all, we learned our lesson from that, didn’t we? Companies shouldn’t be able to form a monopoly, the rich shouldn’t be above the law, our society should advance but not at the expense of ethical business and social practices.
But none of that seems to be true now. Now, it seems that the system has loopholes that those with the means can exploit, despite laws that attempt to prevent it. They can create holding companies and shell companies that distance their owner from their business’ practices and obscure monopolies from detection (and prosecution, at least for a long while). While, as a society, we are richer than ever before, the wealthy are now so rich that the legal consequences of breaking the law can be just a cost of doing business. And when you can afford any penalty, you can tune the money-making machine to just keep printing – by buying companies, avoiding paying taxes, influencing politicians to reduce regulation, reducing and outsourcing costs – and bank the rewards until, if, someday, someone breaks through their class ceiling and manages to overturn your apple cart when you weren’t looking.
It’s easy to feel powerless. But the reality is that in a system that relies on your money and your involvement, you can choose where (most of) your money goes. You can, for example, stop giving your money to people you don’t want to have it. Can you do that with everything? Probably not. But you can do it with many things, you’ve just been, in a word, brainwashed into thinking it’s not possible.
There are lots of people who will tell you that you have to be present in the social marketplace, you have to be where people are, if you’re not on FancyPlatformABC, well, then, you’re choosing to doom your enterprise. These people represent, wittingly or not, the system wanting to keep you in your place. Whether it’s a Facebook executive or your friend that’s telling you that Facebook is where the party is, both are trying to get you to stay engaged. Social media needs the “social” part. Online retailers need you to value convenience over everything. Both are designed to make you feel like you have no choice but to participate. You are their battery, and they don’t want you to be anywhere but installed.
The great con they’re getting away with here is the idea that you can’t live without these things. In a recent review of Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine, Elizabeth Lopatto ultimately argues that you go with the known devil because there’s nothing better, as if your participation is compulsory. The convenience of having any song at your fingertips is more important than the fact that the very service that gives you that capability is making it harder for generations of musicians to make songs that you will/would/could want at your fingertips. Similarly, in a blog post championing RSS as the way to start a movement that pushes the Internet towards a better state, away from social media/consolidated web publishing platforms, Cory Doctorow contradicts his opening premise that “nothing you do as an individual is going to make a difference.” You shouldn’t bother to, say, recycle, because “no matter how hard we all wish it were otherwise, the sad fact is that there aren’t really individual solutions to systemic problems.” But movements start with single actions. That there is no “better” solution doesn’t justify you choosing something known to be damaging.
And that’s what it ultimately comes down to: your choice. You can, for example, delete your Facebook account. You can delete Instagram. There are alternatives out there that are not owned by terrible people – not owned by people who try to present their hot-or-not.com website as some altruistic outlet for common discourse for the public good. You can still find people to discuss things with (if that’s what you want) and you can still find people with similar interests, probably even where you live. Go to Mastodon. Go to Reddit. Go to the park. Go to the library. Learn to fix things, learn to make things, read books, daydream. You’ll find that you can still discover new things, and you’re likely to be subjecting yourself less to – and giving less power to – the worst elements of our society. You can also stop spending money at Amazon, and shop at your local bookstore or hardware store instead. You can stop using Spotify, opting instead for Bandcamp. You probably can’t completely cut off every wannabe-oligarch, but every bit you can do helps; that’s how movements start.
Will the entire world be at your fingertips still? No. But you haven’t really needed the entire world at your fingertips most of the time anyway. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s possible. It might be a daunting transition. It might be hard to remember what it was like when you had to wait; when your impulse couldn’t be immediately fulfilled. But in those precious idle cycles, you will have your own thoughts and ideas.
And that’s how you beat a seemingly unbeatable system: not by complaining about it in the public square, but by not participating in their grift. Change will never come from the top down. Power comes from the bottom up.