The other day I came across this article on The Zombification of the West. While obviously written from an American perspective, it crystallised for me a number of thoughts which have been covertly buzzing around my mind for some while: basically we have allowed ourselves to be stuffed.
It isn’t quite George Orwell’s 1984, but we’re getting uncomfortably close. Let’s look at some of what the article says.

Slightly more than ten years ago, in the heat of the moment, the West believed a war on terrorism was useful — so, it was prepared to give up civil liberties. Then the crisis hit in 2008. The banks unjustly demanded a bailout and the West passively went along. Today, again, the West in general passively believes the narrative of its secret services in favour of state control. What’s wrong with us? Why do we give up our liberties so easily? And how can we avoid this trend toward authoritarianism?
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What did Western governments do in recent years to establish justice and ensure domestic tranquillity?

Indeed, what have they done? Basically not a lot. Or as the writer of the article, somewhat cynically, suggests …

Well, first they helped our inner tranquillity by dusting off medieval practices like waterboarding and humiliation; they simply tortured people. Next, they hypnotically repeated the unjust idea that taxpayers, not the unregulated banking sector, were the root cause of our economic problems. And to further our calm, they extended the use of secret evidence; they spied upon us and increased the installation of cameras on every corner of our streets. This process toward possible authoritarianism is still far from over. Somehow, we all seem to accept this McCarthyist paranoia. That highlights the following question: what is going on in the West? Why do we have this uneasiness inside our minds that makes all of this possible?

So what is this new McCarthyism trying to protect us from? Has anyone ever expalined it? Really explained it? No, I thought not. It seems that apart from the nebulous “them”, no-one actually knows!

We lack the time in modern life to reflect on things that are really important to us, like taking up the responsibility to help secure our civil liberties.

It’s the “God makes work for idle hands” approach. Keep us too busy and we don’t have time to think, let alone rebel.

This process of the “zombification of the individual” as one can call it, works something like this: For the past 40 years, we have been dominated by the ideology that people would be happier and more at ease if they were constantly shopping for the best deals. But there’s a catch.
To do that, most people are obliged to spend a lot of time at work. Meanwhile, the time to enjoy the mystery of life — to watch children grow, to develop one’s creativity or to learn oneself — passes.

Or as Clive Hamilton observed: People buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t like.

Most people seem to accept the status quo, give up their dreams and, thereby, their power as well. They accept the downside of materialism as the natural order of things since they’ve come to believe that possession of material goods is what it takes to experience personal fulfilment … welcome to the age of cynicism and decadence, where there is no hope for a more fulfilling future other than “buying stuff” …

OK, yes, I’m guilty of that too, although I am trying to cure myself. Honest I am!

On a psychological level, what our laissez-faire capitalistic system effectively does is construct a social reality that seduces most people into omitting their inner call for personal growth. Thus, they neglect their very own personal responsibility and, consequently, their democratic duties as well.
And so we end up in a situation where most people in the West don’t believe in fighting for civil and economic liberties anymore. They simply can’t imagine that a more humane form of capitalism and democracy is attainable
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This basically means that there is a whole lot of negative energy out there. However, people are not necessarily aware of their own inner state, especially when, on average, they have less and less time available for contemplation. And above all, it is too big of a taboo to talk openly about these issues.

And as the article goes on to say, this lack of debate is incredibly dangerous. In fact, when you think about it, it links back to Lord Neuberger’s recent comments about freedom of speech.
Remember too that Napoleon, Hitler and much more recently Mugabe all came to power by the will of the people, who they subsequently proceeded to subjugate. In other words …

Because of this cultivated resistance to growth, politicians gain in popularity when they facilitate this process of zombification. That’s why they push political discourse farther and farther in the direction of the punishing police state instead of the social state.

Whereas …

To build a vital democracy, most artists and intellectuals … conclude that one needs a soul at ease. But income stagnation and the cultivation of cynicism, consumerism and decadence throughout the West makes it hard for most of us to have the tranquillity to bolster our democracies. Instead, people passively seem to accept tight state control.

All of which means it’s not going to be easy to change things, for to do so one has to get people to see the problem and that means they have to recognise their inner resistance. That process has to start with people like us continuing to speak about such things, challenging the status quo and being a thorn in the flesh of TPTB.
Even that is not going to be easy. As the article says, this zombification has been going on now for over 40 years. Indeed I suspect it all goes back to the late-1950s/early-1960s reaction to WWII that we deserve something better. A belief that was picked up and actively promoted by Harold Wilson in the UK.
Why does everything in the UK today seem to funnel back to Harold Wilson?