Open the newspaper Pull up your customized, electronic news aggregator these days, and you will find a media reality awash in tales of populist rage. Content for a time as the symbol of homespun simplicity, an American Gothic accoutrement, the pitchfork has regained the currency it once carried in the bygone days of agrarian populism. For instance, here it is in the hands of Stephen Colbert.
The Colbert Report: Stephen’s Angry Mob Will Crush AIG
The nature of the protest hasn’t necessarily changed. Then, as now, populism sought to assert the rights of the downtrodden against a corporate culture that had infected the political system, narrowing the spectrum of debate to economic solutions that perpetuated the consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few. Unfortunately, we are rapidly losing touch with the utilitarian spirit that once defined the movement, as citizens are, in increasing numbers, no longer rooted in the land. In fact, the contemporary uproar over the failure of AIG and the financial system writ large only underscores the failure of the populist revolt of the 19th century to create meaningful change in the complexion of the American landscape.Cities grew as they absorbed rural residents in search of manufacturing jobs; small farms were swallowed up by the rise of consolidated agribusiness. Corporate culture grew beyond political boundaries to become the latest incarnation of Colonialism. This is an obvious oversimplification, but the gist of the issue is this: as our lifestyles became more comfortable, and our retirement funds continued their upward climb, we lost sight of our civic obligations. We were too busy acquiring useless junk to adorn our nests of leisure and diversion. In so doing, we surrendered a vital measure of control to corporate interests. Now as media outlets search for a new straw man to raise each week, and the public hungers to widen the circle of scapegoats at whom to direct our frustration and vitriol, we fail to see the real culprits behind this historic collapse.
It’s us, folks. There is actually an ‘I’ in A.I.G.
Contemporary beacon of Agrarian thinking Wendell Berry manages to frame the case with elegant simplicity in his essay, “The Total Economy.”
“What is not sufficiently clear, perhaps to any of us, is the extent of our complicity, as individuals and especially as individual consumers, in the behavior of the corporations. What has happened is that most people in the country, and apparently in the ‘developed’ world, have given proxies to the corporations to produce and provide all their food, clothing and shelter. Moreover, they are rapidly increasing their proxies to corporations or governments to provide entertainment, education, child care, care of the sick and the elderly, and many other kinds of ’service’ that were once carried on informally and inexpensively by individuals or households or communities. Our major economic practice, in short, is to delegate the practice to others.”
The griping, grousing and rage is all useful, as long as it does not occlude our vision of the painful truth here. We ought to be angry at the destruction of our landscapes and communities — our home places. We ought to be fearful of the burden that we pass to our children, but not in the context of some petty partisan sniping over the price tag of a bailout. Who will bail out our stressed ecosystems and dangerously narrow food system? Who will bail out our friends and neighbors when we have lost the traditional idea of a neighborhood to a sprawling myopia of malls and big box stores?
As much as corporate greed and selfishness has produced this swamp of worthless derivatives, we are complicit in the wreck of the financial system by the very same motivations. In our reckless consumption, we have enabled this mess.
The time has come to put the pitchforks down and pick up something more useful. Pick up a library book and learn something new about the world. Pick up a neighbor during a time of distress. Pick up the phone to call your elected officials, and make your voice heard again. Pick up a mirror, and look deeply at the world you have created.
