It's a Cult

If you’re new here, welcome! I’m Barbara Ellen McMahon, author of the novella, Mrs. Rochester. It’s a sequel to Jane Eyre. This time, it’s Jane who’s locked in the attic and there’s a new governess. It’s available on Kobo, where it’s been getting rave reviews. If you enjoy my writing here, chances are you’ll love Mrs. Rochester.

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(In) the 1960’s and 1970’s capitalism stepped up a notch… we saw the “free market” mindset extended to every part of our lives. Competition and individualism were regarded as the defining characteristics of human relations and citizens became consumers whose democratic choices were best exercised by buying and selling.

— Sarah Wilson - This One Wild and Precious Life —

This puts a whole different spin on the whole “vote with your dollars” thing, doesn’t it? Instead of protesting, instead of becoming an integral part of the democratic process - volunteering down at the riding office, working to ensure everyone has enough to eat and knows how to access the help they need, voting with our actual votes, we’ve been purposely downgraded to consumers, all of our activism encouraged to take the form of “shopping for a better planet.” And it all keeps the capitalist machine humming along. That’s because protest really works and that scares the hell out of those in charge. Shopping, they can manipulate and steer. Protest? They can’t control that, so they encourage us to shop.

We need to stop looking at shopping as a solution for anything except maybe “what’s for dinner?” and even at that, most of us already have the supplies we need in house.

I think it’s interesting that, as a way of encouraging us to consume less, we’re told to “shop your closet” or “shop your pantry”. Most of us have more clothing, food, craft supplies, books than we’ll ever get around to. We used to be exhorted to “use it up”, but now we’re told to shop, only at home. Is it because we’re so addicted to shopping that stepping away entirely seems impossible or, at the very least, really scary?

So are we at all ready to do things differently, to imagine a better way? Some of us. We are the artists, the menders, the ones who embrace a simpler life.

We have a long way to go. And I think the biggest thing we need to change is the idea that we can have as much convenience as we do now, only greener, and everything will be OK. Like, if everyone just switches from gas-powered cars to e-cars everything will be fine, right? Well, no. More of us need to switch to mass transit. Corporations need to allow people to work from home. We need to live in smaller homes and get more communal in our pursuits. We need to shop for food more frequently so less of it goes to waste, and for everything else much less often.

Our governments are mostly concerned with getting themselves re-elected and not what’s best for the community and the earth. And we tend to follow in lock-step, especially now. Just let me get through this year or this quarter. Just let me get by till payday. Then maybe I’ll have time to think, to do some good in the world.

There was such hope in the middle of the first lockdown (I live in Canada. Our government gave out financial supports). People had a chance to breathe and think. We started imagining better ways to live, a more just society. And then the cult of capitalism doubled down and all that went away and we were soothed out of our activism by cheap shit and overnight delivery. We can always be soothed out of our activism by low prices and more convenience. And I don’t know what can happen to wake us up from our addiction to cheapness and convenience.

I read a quote (but didn’t make note of the source) that says “Capitalism is a cult, only most of us can’t see it because we’re in it.”

In the middle of it, it all makes sense, seems like, if not a reasonable way to live, the only option. Step back a pace or two and the madness of it, the tragedy of it are apparent.

The fact that some have unimaginable wealth while others go hungry and unhoused - why do we let that happen? We should be freaking out, scrambling to make sure that everyone has what they need. Why do we believe that poverty and the suffering that goes with it are OK? Maybe because we’ve been brainwashed to believe that you must work to earn your place on this earth and anyone who can’t or for whatever reason, won’t, deserves punishment, shame, banishment. We’ve been hypnotized into believing that some peoples’ lives are worth less than others, that they deserve to be thrown away. If we could see clearly, we would never allow the injustice.

But capitalism has us fooled. It keeps us docile, keeps us earning and spending, laying waste and oppressing. The suffering continues because capitalism needs there to be a suffering class to point to and say, “ Look what happens when you don’t play by the rules. Look what happens when you don’t work hard enough or choose the right field.” Or just, whatever. Prosperity alone isn’t enough of an incentive. There must be a suffering class that we can point to, one that no one wants to join. Watch out! You could be next!

And I’m in that suffering class. Not because of poverty, though, were it not for Alan and the bakery, poverty would be mine and because of me, it’s a threat to us both. Chronic illness and disability put me in the suffering class. Watch out! Don’t let it happen to you! Although no one knows why it happened to me, the cult of capitalism makes us all (including myself) believe that I must be somehow at fault, that I’m bearing the consequences for some unnamed bad behaviour.

And here’s where it gets really weird and culty. Because the individual reaps what they sow, we’re told. You’re poor because you don’t want to work. You’re disabled because you don’t try hard enough, ill because you just don’t want to be well. Actions have consequences on an individual level, but at the macro level? No consequences at all. Climate change? Don’t blame capitalism. War, oppression, humanitarian disaster? Those people brought it on themselves. Capitalism is good we’re told. How can anything bad come from a benevolent system? Besides, it’s just the way things are. But you, sick lady? How dare you try to accept your life, your body as it is?

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Don’t forget, my book, Mrs. Rochester, is available on Kobo. Your purchase helps to support an independent author.