A good hard look on today's world and social political system through the eyes of George Orwell's little pigs
It is very fitting that my first blog post should be about the first book I have ever read, and that is Animal Farm, by George Orwell. Very few books are so current as the ones that speak of the structure of capitalism and the veins it stretch in every human who is, knowingly or otherwise, a part of the working class
As previously mentioned, this was my first read ever. The irony in that statement is not lost on me, since the book was gifted to me by my uncle, a factory owner who surely believe that I would read it as Orwell had intended, as a critique of the Soviet Union and socialism itself. Little did he know that I would revisit it time and time again at many stages of my life, and that at some point I would read it for what I truly believe it is, a crude critique of the capitalist system. The biggest irony of all, one he nor I would had imagined, is that I would be reading it as an aware member of the working class, not the majority that believes that through hard work and self sacrifice we do have a chance to become part of the 1% richest of the world (Oh, the meritocracy).
"The idea of public transport, homelessness and squalor were alien to me inside that six block radius where I grew up, for it did not contain such things"
I, as many of my upper middle class friends have, grew up in a bubble, a neighborhood at the center of one of the biggest metropolis in Brazil, Sao Paulo. I was completely unaware of the real world. I was sheltered and guarded, I was driven and picked up from everywhere I went, and I would be ashamed to say if it wasn't completely out of my realm of options at the time, it wasn't until my sixteenth birthday I was allowed to walk the four blocks from my home to my school. The idea of public transport, homelessness and squalor were alien to me inside that six block radius where I grew up, for it did not contain such things. We had armed private security on our doorstep, private schools and tinted windows to keep all those things out.
As I write it now, the comparison I make between people who make ten thousand bucks a month and the little pigs from Animal Farm, who wished they were in power, seems obvious to me, but the sole purpose of writing about Animal Farm now is the knowledge I have in my core that most people have no idea of what I'm talking about, as I didn't almost ten years ago. This belief that to have money and power one must only apply hard work to whatever they do is preposterous. We are, and most likely will always be, work force for those who play the strings in our lives.
Major company owners and politicians who work for and with them. We are market reserve, replaceable, and the only way to keep us from rebelling against the selling of our lives, which is what we do every time we leave home to give hours of it to improve the profits of another, is to create the illusion that, one day, you may be the powerful one. And because of this I watched this people, the poor unaware, cast their votes in order to protect an elite they'll never be a part of, to protect bankers and their profits, protect media outlet owners and their power of control, all that in the middle of a pandemic that is plaguing our land, at the cost of, as of today, more than 500,000 lives in my country alone.
“We are market reserve, replaceable, and the only way to keep us from rebelling against the selling of our lives, which is what we do every time we leave home to give hours of it to improve the profits of another, is to create the illusion that, one day, you may be the powerful one"
They voted to privatize institutions that exist to keep our country from becoming another United States, where you have to mortgage your home if you break a leg in order to pay for medical care. They voted to keep their idea of poor people away from airports and Disney World, their cultureless go to place of choice on the holidays, completely ignorant to the fact they are, themselves, the target of the policies that those politicians they voted for create. The 1% elite of the world does not fly commercial, darlings.
In Animal Farm we have the regular pigs, the ones that live knowing their place in the world. We have the people, who rule the little pigs. And the pigs who wished they were people and for little more than they had before turn themselves into foremen of their own kind. Unaware of the stupidity and ignorance in it, they are all set out to become bacon in the end. The Brazilian pseudo elite, people who make six digits a year and live under the illusion they have power over their own lives and choices, have and will continue to become bacon as well. They'll keep believing the lies and distractions they are fed, the major one being that through the powers of meritocracy they can thrive. And as they dream, the country's and people's riches are sold, the land is devastated and lives will most surely continue to be lost in record numbers.
How to change it? Something tells me it has to do with education, but I don't think you're ready for this conversation yet. In the meantime, go watch some of Rita Von Hunty's videos to find out more about the topic (wherever you may be, they are all subtitled in English).
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