Those are some of the ingredients which can lead to a minor case of paranoia.
When unbalanced by friendlier encounters, they can dominate your consciousness.
I believe that this describes my recent history in El Paso, Texas. So, readers of this blog might like to take that into account.
The damn thing is that I am a citizen of this country, speak the language, and was educated here; yet, I really do not really feel comfortable here....
And on second-thought:
Yes there are real devices of social control, and this is a very hierarchical society. This invisible daily oppression is largely invisible to the residents. Moreover, if you have a comfortable location in the overall set-up, it just doesn't bother you as much... Your being bothered is not at the center of your life, while for me these days I wouldn't exist if I weren't being bothered---or, so it can seem.... There is such a thing as the intellectual apprehension of inequality and injustice and the mere nuisance-factor in daily living, but if you are located at a higher level of the social pyramid, your daily problems are not so severe...
Just to be concrete, and, perhaps to repeat myself:
If you happen to be out at night, on foot, and a car appears from nowhere and shines very bright blinding lights on you, how do you feel? Scared? Annoyed? You are, so to speak, in their sights. In this country they could be armed.
thus have I been greeted by the El Paso Police Department on two occasions--occasions on which I had done nothing worthy of such scrutiny. Hyper-vigilance might be the term to describe their behavior....And those unpleasant experiences were exactly the goal of that police behavior--a kind of aggressive display of force, which for me stands part-for-whole demonstrating the true character of social relations in the USA.... As I've said before, I never experienced such aggressive scrutiny before. I've lived in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Austria, and I have been out at night many times--but never, never, never was I treated in the way I have been treated in the "land of the free".....
Moreover, some of the unpleasantness I've experienced has undoubtedly been connected to my fondness for actually going about on foot. Without a car I've been a target. And, that, too is not a human universal. It is a very specific characteristic of the country with more destructive power than any other.
Now, someone might reasonably say: But the police themselves are scared. This is a sort of defensive maneuver on their part.
And I say: Yes, I know that. I am not talking about the rationality or lack thereof of individuals. I am talking about social patterns. What sort of society has that sort of aggressive behavior? Not every one does. And you can guess the sort of society I would like to live in....
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