Gin Epidemic, Religion and Social Media,
Gin, Religion and Social Media as the Opium of the Masses
Societal malaise and challenges in new age of inclusion?
Interestingly, two quotes stand out and then refer us back to many, many, more things said and often lost in pretentious rhetoric
From @Bill Gates — “Our children will change the World”
You are late Mr Gates, change is our only constant; some things appear to have precedents and cause precedence
From a BBC Correspondent travelling Lake Malawi talking with a gentleman whose crops had failed due to the current drought parching southern Africa — “People are hungry. And there are few fish left in the lake because there are too many fishermen”
Give a man a fish and feed him for a day……. Teach mankind to fish, have no sense of social responsibility or order and he will clear every damn thing worth eating from the water.
Yes, Bill, our children will change the World. The same as our parents changed the World. Our grandparents and great grandparents also changed the World. And we have been busy using Microsoft to organise a few changes in our generation. No?
This is in no way to disparage Bill Gates or Gilbert who is doing his utmost to ensure he keeps his dignity providing for his family[1]
It is the manner we look at change; organise to have change be as positive as it can be where the generational perspectives are different.
The first wave of globalisation, possibly the spark to the age of Humankind, the Anthropocene, when we felt the benefits of Global trade in commodities did not have the mass communications we have developed in the last fifty years. Certainly not the mass participation of people in what is now social media. We share pictures of the plates of food we are eating around the planet. The fact we are on the road in this or that country. Maps uploaded to show the airport lounge from which we quietly tweet our latest ‘like’ of a fluffy cat doing somersaults. We are connected and include our chosen connections in all things fluffy. And possibly superfluous? This is slightly facetious, as clearly we have seen social media used to good effect in mobilising people behind causes. A number of, shall we say heavy handed, regimes and governments fear the use of social media for people mobilisation. Is this new? Possibly only the scale is new since we have seen connects of real quality before create momentum within societies and then cause change.
The questions being posed here are to use the new age of tools to best effect rather than becoming the appeaser of conscience?
Why is this a question worth feeling out? Does social media cause greater engagement? With Facebook’s new set of buttons where ‘like’ can be nuanced, LinkedIn being about jobs and often ensuring the egos of those who may employ you are smoothed (and now it seems, testing arithmetic) and Twitter and WhatsApp flagging what we are doing — ‘wayshowing’ — then where are the actions to realise fundamental Rights? Social movements causing tangible inroads on food insecurity in Southern Africa presently? Organisation to place pressure on the powers-that-be to address the cost and cleanliness of water for those in informal settlements around the majority of large urban conurbations of Asia and Africa? Picking up on the posting of atrocities across Central Africa? Where are the social linkages to ensure everything is not the stark them and us the ilk of Donald Trump, Maria le Pen and who ever is fostering reaction to violent protests across India, Indonesia, the Philippines
Quite possibly, as we post and consume, we only reinforce the message with those already in similar mind-set to you. All the (social) media are commercial, for profit (someday) operations where algorithms are designed to promote further usage, show the advertising industry there is traffic and we can deduce what individuals and groups like so you, the advertiser, can target. Yes, the platform providers allow challenges just keep people fresh and using; but the social media platform owners know which side their bread is buttered (or margarine or what particular fad is put on what particular slice of nutrition; however this or that group can be sold nutrition. The nuances continue in segmented marketing).
Karl Marx had said ‘Religion is the opium of the masses’ — ‘Die Religion ist das Opium des Volkes’. Interesting how easy it moves across from German to English. Marx did not see religion as a palliative but rather as the universal basis of consolation and justification; as a means to express human meaning and a way to deflect action on the tangible elements addressing human suffering in the here and now –
‘It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.’ from Marx’s critique of Hegel’s original paper.
Paraphrasing from Marx, then — The expression of suffering on social media is the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Social media is the recognition of oppression and the desire to realize rights. But can we say social media is: ‘the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people’?
This is where the second theme comes in since social media, in the majority of instances, is the palliative, salver of conscience to say ‘I have done my bit’. Click the button to show my sympathy, if not empathy, with a cause or situation. Time to move on. Rather than the heightened awareness of a hallucinogenic, it is the down side of, the divorce from reality where we saw earlier, before Marx’s time, moves by a government to subjugate the will of people.
Following further Marx’s line, then the call is to give up social media and the illusion of doing something, to re-engage on direct action on (local?) issues. Is this not a step back in some respects from the global calls we can, must launch in order to meet challenges now facing us in the Anthropocene age? It is a matter of balance and knowing we have to challenge ourselves, not allow the algorithms placate our being but, to discard illusions of doing something by retweeting, liking or wayshowing to another set of evidence supporting causes fellow social media followers already are aware of. Rather we now ‘throw off the chain and pluck the living flower’ to quote Marx again (if plucking the flower is not seen as environmentally insensitive).
Why gin? Invented in the 1600s when the Dutch distilled juniper berries, it was cheap and laws passed in the 1690s encouraged distillation to increase incomes of landed gentry. In England, centred on London, the surge in gin consumption saw a surge in per capita consumption up eightfold from 1700 to 1751 when it reached between eight and nine pints per person. Adverts proclaimed ‘Drunk for one penny, dead drunk for two’. Pharmacists sold it to women to soothe the nerves; hence becoming known as Mother’s Ruin.
Issues in London were unprecedented migration with concomitant social ills of overcrowding and poverty as people sought a better life. The better life did not appear and, along with an economic ideology known as poverty theory then the subjugation of the ‘inferior orders’ was undertaken.[2] Cheap distilled spirits, gin, were key ingredients to keep reality from the mind. The Gin Epidemic then ensued. Social reformers saw the symptoms and sought to remedy the over consumption of cheap spirits. They did not address the causes of the social malaise and when action was taken it came about because wider, economic, factors with regard to manpower and England’s productive capacity were not endangered. Social action only resulted because the ruling classes saw there needed to be action to protect their own interests. Thus the Gin Epidemic came about to placate people, keep them from the harsh realities and taking action collectively beyond drinking to together and then actions to stop such heavy consumption were enacted because people were used, used, as the industrial revolution took hold. Next steps in English history — the Corn Laws and the battles between landed gentry (high food prices as they sought to keep the status quo and fight against new draws on their labour) and new industrialists (low food prices for their minions on the machines in new factories).
Returning to social media, the here and now and into the future.
We still struggle with inclusion on many levels. We still struggle with changing how governments or aid and development agencies continue to allocate and account for aid and development assistance. Things have improved; but not because of social media. We definitely still struggle with delivering food to those disenfranchised by geography or lack of infrastructure. Again, we are better; but not because of social media.
Economics is such we need concerted action on the global stage to truly impact state, let alone local level, wellbeing of the economy allowing inclusive growth for people. Where is the social media lobbying on these fronts? It is not there. We have our religion, and, perhaps, some have their gin, as we are deflected from the real issues by the marketing of politicians expressing concerns over the symptoms of the underlying causes. We press the like button and move on. Meanwhile the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is redefining how overseas development assistance is assessed to include ‘more costs on peace and security costs and certain “costs countering violent extremism”’[3]
People are disenfranchised by a lack of inclusive growth, by a lack of infrastructure, physical and increasingly access to the Internet where micro and small businesses can, must, complete (when people are not posting on social media) in congested conurbations where logistics are the deciding factor on who to buy from and how to supply markets; people.
Are we getting what we want or what the powers-that-be decide to give us?
Are we now in the new age of religion and gin? Salving our consciences and taking palliative care to press the button. Or do we have the means to challenge our own minds and those around us (physically and through the power of Ethernet networking)?
Do we now have the means to have people involved in making things happen for us? For community; however defined. For people, currently disenfranchised, whom we can stand up for?
Act to make real things happen for real people.
You decide.
[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35612023
[2] http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/5/401 The Gin Epidemic: Much ado about what? Ernest L. Abel
[3] https://www.devex.com/news/oda-redefined-what-you-need-to-know-87776?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRoksq%2FJc%2B%2FhmjTEU5z16ewlX6S%2Fgokz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTsNkPbjYDBceEJhqyQJxPr3DJNUN0ddxRhbkDQ%3D%3D
