The Hollow Men Encounter The Spirit of Capitalism

And We Recoil In Horror 

Before The Reality Is Anything More 

Than A flickering and Fleeting Perception, 

Which Can Be Easily Denied, 

and Swept Aside

“We are the hollow men, the stuffed men”

In January of 2020, Noam Chomsky, who happens to be the most influential intellectual alive, as well as the leading dissident in the West, if not the world, and who recently ranked 6th, in terms of influence in all of Western history, right below Plato and the Bible, gave an interview with the veteran journalist, Robert Scheer. In it he said, very pointedly and matter-of-factly, that, “The United States has created a global dystopia.” That should make every thinking person stop and pause, at the very least.

When Robert Scheer asked Chomsky whether the new global dystopia is more like that which was depicted by Orwell or by Huxley, Chomsky replied that it is a blend of both. In Orwell’s dark, visionary warning, the totalitarian system relied mainly on force, though universal surveillance was, of course, omni-present. Huxley was George Orwell’s French teacher. When Orwell brought his book, 1984, to Huxley, Huxley replied, You’re wrong – it will be more subtle than that. Huxley’s depiction of the world that he saw coming, but urged us to prevent from unfolding, was a totalitarian system that relied, not on force, but on controlling the public mind. We now have a global dystopia that is a blend of both of those dark visions.

We certainly have the use of force to back up the global dystopia of technocratic and plutocratic elite rule – we have Guantanamo and we have secret CIA black sites around the world, with the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and other draconian and literally fascist legislation now in place, such that anyone can be picked up off the street, or taken from their home, and silently taken to an interrogation centre, a CIA secret prison, or an internment camp. And of course, we now have the drone assassination program, which is quite literally a form of extrajudicial summary execution – the hallmark of fascism.

Since that pivotal date of 9/11, the Magna Carta has been cast aside, essentially taking us back 800 years, to the rule by decree of the ones on high. If we no longer have sovereignty over our person, over our body, and we now do not, then we have no rights remaining at all, for this is the fundamental human right, upon which all other rights rest, and from which they derive.

But the greater part of the elite’s control, comes not from force, but through propaganda, and from controlling the public mind. Above all, we live in a prison of the mind. To use the words of William Blake, “the mind-forged manacles” are, more than ever, the pervasive norm. Dissent is not only being systematically suppressed – it is disappearing. The voices of dissent are still millions, but the pall of unthinking obedience and conformity has spread like a plague, and continues to spread. This is the pandemic we need to fear the most.

That was a summary overview of the state of the world as of a year ago, in January 2020. We have further devolved, in the unfolding of the plutocratic global dystopia, since then. And still, the people remain blithely unaware of the greatest of dangers facing us now.

What Marx and Weber outlined over a century ago, is the material economic conditions which gave rise to capitalism, and the cultural conditions which cemented them – respectively. Now, we are well beyond what Marx and Weber described. Now, we are in the realm depicted by Orwell and Huxley. In that context, which should be chilling to every thinking, feeling, or minimally sane person, reflection on what is going on, and how we got here, is critically important.

I will not go into a full discussion of the message of Weber’s major work, nor even a Reader’s Digest version. I would urge everyone who has not read it, however, to read it right away; and everyone who has read it, to read it again, and very thoughtfully. But fear not, the discussion that follows below does not require any knowledge of Weber’s writings. All it requires, is a little bit of common sense. And I pray that there are still a few among us who have, at least, a remaining sliver of that, if not a good deal more.

The central gist of Weber’s thought can be summed up in one line, in a quote from the equally brilliant philosopher and polymath, Alan Watts: “People who mistrust themselves and others, are doomed.”

There is your Cole’s Notes version of Weber.

And still, we have not gotten the message.

*

Weber’s, The Protestant Ethic & The Spirit of Capitalism remains the most important text in sociology, and it does so for good reason. However, unpacking it, as the academically fashionable term puts it, or interpreting it, or even digesting it, truly getting it, and really understanding its meaning and significance, is something that eludes most scholars as well as the general public. 

There are two main reasons for this, one rational, one irrational. The rational reason is that Weber couched his words, pulled his punches, remained, I think, deliberately lacking in clarity, and refrained from putting his central thesis in the utterly bold and crystal clear words that it deserves. 

In short, his thesis was and is brilliant, and in the central crux of it, correct; but he resisted making the case or depicting the matter in the no-holds barred, fearless and bold fashion which it merits and screams out for. He was, therefore, more insightful and more accurate and penetrating than Marx, but lacked the forcefulness, fearlessness, and hence, the power of persuasion that Marx had, and still has for many people. Weber was a bit of a timid rabbit, in short, when he should have been a lion.

That being said, Weber is clear enough, despite his meekness, to be clearly enough understood by anyone who really wants to understand what he is saying. The problem is, most academics, and most people generally, do not. We live in a culture, a society, that is steeped in denial, submerged in denial, and the voices of sanity calling out to us to recognize and throw off our shackles, our chains, our blinders and our prison, are muted by our wilful deafness and unwillingness to hear. 

We are numbed and inured to our prison, and find a strange comfort of familiarity, and illusions of security and safety, within it. At least, we think to ourselves, in the dim recesses of the pre-conscious mind, “We’re all in this together.” How touching. How utterly charming. How deceitfully we speak to ourselves and one another, endorsing and in fact screaming out, for our prison and our chains, as only Huxley, Orwell, Zamyatin, Fromm, William Blake, TS Eliot, Henry David Thoreau, Hanna Arendt, and a few others would understand.

We are The Hollow Men, as TS Eliot described. We are locked in a world that is ruled by mechanistic thinking, cold utilitarianism, regimentation, bureaucracy, over-centralization of powers, as Thomas Jefferson would deplore, reject and rail against, and actively resist and revolt against; an unacknowledged culture of elitism, and its attendant evil twin of authoritarianism; an excess of organization, as Aldous Huxley described; and the dehumanization, loss of feeling, empathy, and humanity, and loss of capacity for critical thought, reflectivity, or even rational thought, which this confluence of pathological factors represents and invariably engenders and entails. 

In short, Weber is not widely read, outside of academic sociology, and more importantly, the import, and the central gist of his message, is seldom heard, digested or internalized, either inside academia or in the broader world. In a word, we do not read or understand Weber, be cause we have chosen, unconsciously, and out of conformity, obedience to authority, and habit, to be deaf. We do not hear him, or any of the many voices of sanity, because we do not want to.

Not that it needs to be said, because it is happening routinely already, but this problem is easily and simply solved, by one simple, universal maxim: Always crucify the messenger.

We don’t need any sad, unsettling reminders of how vacuous and soulless we have become. Simply crucify the messenger – if he or she reaches a threshold where they can no longer be easily ignored. That solves everything, or so we seem to believe.

J. Todd Ring,

February 4, 2021