Gaslit

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OK - reading a couple of recently-acquired books at the moment, one fiction, one economic philosophy. The fiction is a novel called "The Memory Police" by Yoko Ogawa; the other "Capitalist Realism" by the late Mark Fisher. I mention both in the light of our current political 'reality' and the on-trend social predilection for 'gaslighting' all and sundry via whatever media channel is deemed sufficiently safe from which so to do. I'll also chuck into the mix The Guardian's revelations regarding Baroness Mone (Conservative peer of this 'realm') and her family's (currently alleged) benefitting from - guess what, folks - the PPE fast-track VIP-lane to personal enrichment that the Tory government cooked up in record time, to milk the Covid pandemic for all it was worth.

In "Capitalist Realism", Fisher sought to challenge the orthodoxy of the entrenched political dogma that has set in tablets of stone that capitalism is the one, true way, echoing the words of Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek: '... it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.' The very notion that there are alternatives to, or more globally beneficial variants of it, is now so heterodox that positing any alternative, however credible, is basically a heresy against the modern, utterly secular, religious cult of Mammon. That this is utterly risible and easily disputed by any even vaguely rational mind, counts for nothing against the gaslit mythologies that the establishment, with all its wealth and total influence, brings to bear on reinforcing those myths, lies and half-truths, through their in-pocket agencies of media and monetary influence.

In "The Memory Police", categories of things disappear from the unnamed island of the story: roses, perfume, photographs; leaving a void in the minds and memories of most of the inhabitants each time one more thing is erased from the collective consciousness. However, some of those living there are blessed - or cursed - with persistent memory of all the disappeared things and much more. These people are pursued and dealt with - we know not how - by the Memory Police. Modern politics and its reportage - think union-bashing, protesters-as-traitors and immigration as scourge - are the very essence, the distillation, the crux, of the notion that freedom of thought is anathema to a society built around privilege and secrecy, girded by wealth and power: reality is filtered and altered in real-time, expediently.

Listening to our current - this month's? - Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak in PMQs this afternoon, we were greeted by yet again more barely disguised gaslighting: Tory policy these days seems to favour the modus operandi of the Memory Police, a concept that has disturbing, modern historical roots in the Third Reich or the Soviet Union, where reality was bent to serve the diktat of the ruling elite. Anyone who believed or still believes that "... it couldn't happen here..." should really take stock of where we really are in the framework of social and political history: these people are not your friends nor your saviours, but your rulers. Think on...

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