Your Question, My Question, Whose Question?
Democracy, as it has developed itself in the recent centuries, has transformed from being a liberating system to a grievance redressal mechanism system. Every new beginning in a democratic system acts upon the previous year's pent-up questions which remained unattended in the previous years due to the invisible-isation in that contemporary narrative.
But here, it is only in 21st century that major changes occurred with respect to narratives and the way we see Political Reality. 20th Century Politics was simple. A moral argument, a moral line of questioning used to get popular support and then a new way of life came into being.
It is only in 21st Century that Narratives are seen as narratives however moral or immoral. The morality does not entail reality. In some way, reality has been bypassed. The political reality builds itself upon the success of the narrative.
What Harari calls Story Telling. Narratives are actually Storytelling. Storytelling always had the element of willful suspension of guard against real and fiction. When you watched a movie, it begins with you watching a movie to enjoy, to consume it, but the success of the movie relies on the fact that how much did it consume you. Narratives are Political storytelling, where the Citizen knows that he is being told a story, specially the 21st century Citizen, but the art and craft of storytelling is considered "Political Merit" in the 21st century. Earlier, Political Merit was considered a Philosophical job. To comprehensively put forward the cause of people and the marginalized. The well-comprehension was considered good. Now this has been perverted. It does not matter whether the Narrative actually had any objective evidence to exist, it is just the well he can articulate and manipulate, the citizen willfully surrenders his senses to this snake-charmer and disregards his own question. In this regard, Narrative has not much to do today with reality but to attention economy. The Narrative's relation to reality is not considered merit anymore. But there is a relation between the Narrativization and Attention. Your attention, even in your sleep is being sold to Narratives that do not raise your genuine concerns.
Another angle to look at it is, the De-ideologization and the rise of invisibly accepted Ideologies. Big word, but what is it really? Let me help. Have you ever heard anyone saying, "I do not believe in these labels, Socialist, Communist, Feminist, Leftist, Conservative, these labels are inadequate in defining me." You must have. These are some of the Catch phrases of this century. Catch phrases tell us a lot about the times we live in.
"Please do not judge me" is another catch phrase. The reason this is in place is the breaking up of modern value system and the ideologies that were considered absolutely good. What characterizes the leftist progressive ideological system in 20th century is tabooed today since most of the crimes of the 20th century, 21st century man thinks is because of Left. So, right was wrong and now Left is not right, hence we find individuals not wishing to be labelled. This also stems from the Narcissistic Identification with the Self. To be labelled today seems like slavery. To be unlabeled feels like free. But the point of ideology is, either you choose it, or they choose you. So the unlabeled ones are usually those who identify too much with the Hegemonic ideologies and structures today. They will not call themselves socialists, but they wish not to be mediocre in society's eyes, hence, they might identify with the label of "Aspirant". And they think this is not ideological. So the term exists, "De-ideologization on one hand" like No communists, no feminists except in college campuses, And along with that "Rise of accepted ideologies that are invisible".
Ideologies are mostly invisible only. "They know not what they are doing" is an ideological act according to Marx. But then, current ideological paradigm is contradiction par excellence. they know, they are aware. But they will deem this as non-ideological. They think, their contribution to the economic system is not ideologically motivated but is as an independent "Free thinker". They see Progressive ideologies as lenses, and their own actions as eyes. But, Eyes are themselves manipulated to see only certain kind of reality. This is the essence of Ideology.
So, on one hand Politically, Democracy is suffering with the problem of Narrativization, and our personal lives are suffering in the De-ideologization framework. it seems like the man has unlearned the concepts of 21st century. Unlearning dictates much of our social consciousness today. We are hell bent in correcting things. We forgot Ideologies that promised freedom because they brought violence visible to eyes. This is like throwing the medicine because it makes you vomit alcohol. We threw away morality and narratives' connection to truth out because we thought Morality enslaved us into a one-sided reality.
But, we forgot that Reality is often one-sided. It is not a story that has a compulsion to be democratic to each character. Reality is in Favour of the rich. Here, The rich gets more dialogues to say since the poor has been rendered mute. Even if he speaks, he speaks what he has been taught to speak, not his grievances. So Democracy here has Transformed, I stand corrected, From A liberating system of the rich to the Grievance redressal mechanism of the rich. This "Of the rich" is the keyword here.
Where does Depression comes in? Depression comes as a product of Democracy. Since Democracy is democracy for the rich, There is obviously an other being created here. Rich and poor conflicts, why they do not happen today like they used to happen in 20th century? Because everyone is convinced today by the Narrativization power that "They are either already rich or they can be".
So, the resentment resides within the self only. The class consciousness is deliberately erased and Class conflicts has morphed into a blame game. You are to be blamed if you are poor. Why are you poor? Since you have freedom, the burden to be productive and rich is on you. If you cannot get food, we will give you. But do not dare to say that we are poor. Poor status has been snatched and morphed into BPL cards to give food. Take this BPL card and please do not call yourself poor. Because the turning of Phrase, "I am Poor and I exist" entails a burden on people in power to do something to change it. When The poor shuts up and takes the bribe of PDS, he becomes just a statistic, a Silent Statistic.
Here lies a collective Depression of consciousness. The relation with state, Conflictual as it had been in 20th century, ceased to be so in 21st century. Nowadays, no negativity of conflicts exists. They are made deliberately mute. Ever saw those newer segments on News channels, Where fun game shows and "Positive News" has replaced the Grievances of the public. The Media is muted off by Power. So you see a silent spring of Depression taking over. We analyze it in the Context of Byung Chul Han's Achievement Society in the next section.
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