pinkfloydpsw's Blog

What the powerful have always wanted is to control the narrative of their lives, to create an image of themselves in other peoples eyes, this has been very important to them for a long time. We can see this motivation played out in history when thinking of the Roman Emperors (Domitian became a hero to the people of Rome because he gave them the greatest games even though he was a dreadful human being for many other reasons), and for the very good reason that the persona (the controlled narrative) must stand in place of the real them, the beast they more likely are. In a society of persons who have little or at least much less, the only way a person, or a body of people, could accept, or allow, inequality in such obvious clear view, is to believe that false narrative, if in fact it states or suggests that there is useful purpose to the difference between their position and that of the minority that controls all things. For if the narrative was that greed enables exploitation and fuels a lack of dignity and rights, for most peoples, because some have so much of what is finite, that others must, by definition, suffer silently without that which they need for that purpose, the purpose of the narrative then we would witness a revolution of some sort I am sure.

What the common man or woman wishes to do now is the same, and some might speculate that social media makes this a reality. I would say that social media is the medium of a greater force, it is both creating the need for what I am about to highlight, as well as providing the platform to realise it. In the first instance we must recognise that in a world of tacitly volunteered information (Social Media) there is more that can be known about a person, if they are compliant to it that is, than could ever be known before this period. This poses somewhat of a problem for the person who creates their Social Profile (what I referred to in a previous post as their Digital Ego Creation) in that it opens up vulnerabilities to a wider audience. See, when we had pals just, back in the days before SM, then we could only be known, and therefore only be hurt, by that small group, and we could retreat into obscurity if needed. Now we can be hurt from afar, we can be hurt by people not close to us that know a lot about us because we volunteered to let them know our created profile of ourselves. And it is a mistake to think that any part of who you are, being “out there” on the internet, is not a vulnerability.

To control your narrative is to control what people can think, and suppose, about you. Often the really rich guy mitigates the perception of his greed by cultivating the perception of his care. This very often involves a lot of charity work and patronage, participation in groups of persons who control the resemblance of the creation of opportunities in their local areas (employment, which is a necessary evil of the capitalist, not a desire, as no business owner over-employs beyond the workforce they need as a bare minimum, ever), involvement with churches as this still has the power to appear good and moral despite the fact that it rarely is more than a real estate scam, overseas educational programmes in countries where their involvement had already caused environmental issues and poverty which they now pretend to fix, business opportunities masked as investment in poverty-stricken lands where the true motivation is cheap labour to replace local expensive labour etc etc.. the list could go on. This may go so far as controlling or implementing the bodies that judge their validity, becoming the force that overseas the work done.

The great motivation of the tyrant is to appear as the liberator, they wish to be welcomed into power, Hitler was, so were Moa, Stalin, Mugabe, Duvalier, and Mussolini. Once there, they can do what they think needs to be done, unhindered by such stupidities as the persuasion that they needed to get there. In modernity it doesn’t quite end there, to hold power requires the powerful to continue to massage the message and control the narrative, we can use two individuals in Britain in the last 10 years to highlight the point. Boris Johnson, a man who has only a vague relationship with the truth has achieved ultimate position, never having delivered on a promise, and showing a lack of moral fortitude Henry VIII might have admired. He has courted Russian favour, befriended Russian money and even had a Russian with ties to the KGB promoted to an office of the land, yet the consistently critical of the Kremlin Jeremy Corbyn has been positioned as a Russian stooge and Putin supporter. Corbyn has had no control over his narrative because he has not played the media game well enough, we are told what we should believe of him, Johnson has courted the media and employed the right influencers, we have his façade to know him and judge him by rather than his track record. It’s true that any research into these two individuals would let us know them better, but we’re too intellectually lazy as a people for that, it’s easier to just cede that power to the box in the corner of the living room or the news print in the workplace tea break room.

Adam Lambert, I don’t know the man at all but I know of him and I think I know he happens to be a homosexual. Now why do I know that (assume, I may be incorrect), and I know not one other thing else about him (obvs I know he sings for Queen)? I would say it’s because his sexuality is something he throws forward as the who of who he is, it is the first thing to enter the room, the very first thing that strikes the observer and arrests the senses as his flamboyance cannot be ignored, and this is not by accident it is very much what he must wish us to know of him. I personally think such flamboyance is a mask to hide a certain insecurity, the fact that he wears something that reflects his being something, and in these times that mask has a protected status of sorts (where it cannot be criticized). I am all for the expression of the self, but to weaponize it and make it a frontal pre-assault in every interaction with every other person, seems somewhat aggressive. But, it is his narrative, it is created by him for you, I suppose this blog is mine.

Paul S Wilson