America's new religion:
Denialism
As I sat in a car which winded
and wended through the traffic,
just avoiding enormous trucks
traveling at high speeds, I noticed the grayish-brown haze that had
replaced the sky. So, that is what we are breathing. El Paso
continues to seek fulfillment as a mini-L.A.
Please don't tell me it is
beautiful or healthy. Please do notice it. But, no, that would be
too much to ask. We must deny the existence of all that is ugly and
unpleasant.
Please don't tell me the frigid
piercing air of the AC is pleasant.
It is merely necessary to avoid
the greater unpleasantness of the oppressive heat which overwhelms
the skin like a heated blanket, suffocating and
inhibiting all life.
Don't tell me it is pleasant to
squeeze yourself into the cramped space of a vehicle.
Don't tell me it is pleasant to
sit in a moving vehicle gazing at endless cheaply constructed boxes
surrounded by trees of advertising with their banal and uninspiring
messages. A landscape of overwhelming uniformity and blankness.
All that I see is ugly and
inhuman.
Worst of all, the trip is needed
to get a bit of relief for an old person who needs a doctor's help to
thrive.
Why should we have to travel so
many miles so uncomfortably—and at personal expense (an expensive
vehicle and wasteful gasoline)?
We needn't. It is not
necessary, and it is not good.
But all of this is invisible
thanks to the religion of denialism. The problem doesn't exist. This
is the greatest country in the world.
Don't dare mention it. That
would be rude, bad manners. You would be threatening the livelihoods
of those around you. And we daren't imagine that people could
change, that other jobs would be available with a different system.
Put that thought out of your mind.
Don't mention the hierarchy
within the doctor's office. A pretty, young girl who meets you. Her
job is to be a mediator, but she's not studied as he did. His job is
to share his knowledge. But don't say and don't notice the role of
the society in imparting that knowledge. Taxpayers, teachers,
parents, anything social must be invisible. Deny that there is
anything social, please, if you want to get along.
Don't stop to wonder why he is
doctor and she is a mere receptionist.
It must be because it is right
and just. He worked, and she did not.
No other explanation is
possible.
Don't notice. Don't think.
Don't imagine. Deny. Play with your smart phone when you are bored,
and allow your mind to be filled with the images displayed there.
Let that fullness be your chief pleasure in life.
With apologies to Philip
Mirowski, who has written a marvelous book about how
Neo-Liberalism denies the existence of the economic and the ecological
crises, and clouds the mind of the ordinary citizen in order to
prevent any change—except, of course, changes in a direction
of which neo-liberals approve.