Noise #100
Pulling the plug on manufactured insecurity
For years, I’ve found it stunning just how many industries blossom by making people wither. By encouraging them to feel fundamentally small, constantly threatened, deeply insecure. And by subtly convincing them that they only become whole by purchasing this, following that, eating those, hating them.
Endless dollars flow from the cultural message that we are inadequate as we are. Whether we’re billionaires, beggars, or in the vast space between, such messages inject the belief that our only antidote is another shot of poison.
Manufactured insecurity (as a fascinating recent New York Times editorial calls it) is invisible if you don’t know to look, and everywhere if you do. Via the Times article:
Manufactured insecurity facilitates exploitation and profit by waging a near constant assault on our self-esteem and well-being.
and…..
Manufactured insecurity encourages us to amass money and objects as surrogates for the kinds of security that cannot actually be commodified — connection, meaning, purpose, contentment, safety, self-esteem, dignity and respect — but which can only truly be found in community with others.
and most importantly…..
We all need protection from life’s hazards, natural or human-made. The simple acceptance of our mutual vulnerability — of the fact that we all need and deserve care throughout our lives — has potentially transformative implications. When we spur people on with insecurity because we expect the worst from them, we create a vicious cycle that stokes desperation and division while facilitating the kind of cutthroat competition and consumption that has brought our fragile planet to a catastrophic brink. When we extend trust and support to others, we improve everyone’s security — including our own.
I have no words to sharpen that last beautiful message, part sword and part sewing needle unto itself. So here’s my musical reaction, Noise #100, instead.
Thank you so much for being part of Current Dissonance through these first hundred Noises. I’m thrilled to share the next hundred with you, and a thousand more after that.
Michael
(Noise #100 by Michael Gallant. Copyright 2023 Gallant Music LLC. All Rights Reserved.)