“Survival of the suckers” is not a thing — Part 1

(please do not read if you suffer from anxiety in relation with Covid-19 and its possible socioeconomic aftereffects)

I do not know how old I was but I was a child when I watched Logan’s Run. It is an underrated movie about a dystopia in which people are put to death when they reach the age of 30 because of the scarcity of resources. It was one of those rarest movies that affected me deeply and became a building block in my character. Back then, my concern wasn’t about me; it was about my parents and my fear about them passing away too early. But in time that fear grew in me and gave me an uncomfortable awareness.

Nowadays, I often feel the urge to watch it again while witnessing the terrible decisions made around Covid-19: “Who are we going to leave behind?…” This question is leading to a systematic crime in some countries. Some choose to leave the elderly behind, some choose refugees, some choose minorities, some choose poor, some choose unemployed…

Who are the people making those decisions?

It is easy to blame the states, politicians and corporations in such difficult times. Because they are the only ones around creating noise in times when we need to hear credible and helpful information more… But what is our role in all that? Some of us just vent and get angrier, some ignore the noise and the crappines, some try to spread some optimism via sharing stories of good people helping others…

Both ignorance and optimism is a part of self-care: We have to put an oxygen mask on ourselves first. Yet we can change the future only if we take some actions today. I do not mean a rebellion but we have to take control of our power back from those people who do not use it responsibly.

Because if we do not act on it we’ll be the ones who are normalising these behaviours. How come it is so easy for our senators to bail out big industries and corporations before securing their own people’s health and safety needs. Their decisions are driven more from economic than humanitarian necessities. Knowing that they are not the people who are putting their lives at stake, they are OK with some sacrifice. They lie to keep up appearances, pretend to be in control and powerful…

Since the economic wellbeing is more valued, corporations prioritise profit in spite of their employee’s job security and society’s well being. That is what they always did and what they know. Many of those corporations abuse their own people who have no other options but work daily. Some are more publicly acknowledged doing so, some are not. For-profit entities are not emotional beings apparently, no matter how hard they try to show some compassion, this is the most authentic they can get:

That compassion also manifests itself poorly when it comes to their own employees, their people: They have excuses, policies, hard decisions, unpaid sick days, priorities to ask more from you, more than what they pay for in these unprecedented days….

Look around and try to observe the professional people whom you’re in touch with in your personal and professional circles… Who do you think would thrive in this new brave world and who miraculously will not be hurt financially? What are their qualities that make them so resilient? Are they the goodies, lazies, smarties, nasties, bossies, lovelies, or…? No clear commonality patterns there?… How about demographics: Are they young? Do they work for a SME or a corporation? Are they well off? Are they white? Are they predominantly male?

Let me ask a more simple question: are they the best fit to do the work? Ask yourself whether you trust them at all.

Hello White Male World!

No matter if you’re the best at what you’re doing -and especially if you’re not a white dude- you’re vulnerable during these days. I will bluntly oversimplify the reasons why the “Survival of the Fittest” rule cannot be implemented in the professional world nowadays… There will be some detours, just bare with me…. Here is the first one:

Ishtar, Danu, Hera, Nana Buluku, Durga…. What happened to all those goddesses with different racial qualities? Monothiestic religions and their prophets replaced them with little room for diversity: Moses, Jesus, Mohammed… All middle-eastern men unconventionally portrayed with a fair skin. That happened.

Independent from diversity issues in representation, the religious idea of having ‘one superior existence who created it all’ eventually led to a concept of an ultimate power: Omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Such a strong definition was beyond human imagination which made us feel more fear than awe in relation to God’s existence. We felt the need to obey this existence and live up to its expectations to be an acceptable fit for life and even for an afterlife with no questioning. While us, the insignificant common people learned to obey, the existing power bearers like kings, sultans and other reigns found a way to be associated with that power and they claimed to be the messengers of God & protectors of religions.

Since we have lived with the same conditioning for ages, neither the revolutions nor the democratic fights could’t change this formula yet. It still exists in many countries, cultures and companies: If you want to be powerful, you should make people scared of something/someone so badly that they’d need you and your power to keep their nightmares away. It can be anything: famine, hell, a virus, a crime, expensive prices, stains on your shirt, communism, Hillary Clinton… then you build a structure to enhance and feed that fear as your sustainable source of power. This structure can only be successful if you have obedient and selfish people around you who would do anything to please you -in life and in afterlife with their local/domain power.

In the professional world, these suckers’ jobs are easy: they use their power position to suck the life out of us and keep us busy with bullshit so that we cannot come together and tear the walls of fear apart. They usually do it by making us feel insignificant in a workplace setup in which we keep spinning like a hamster on a wheel but have no significant contribution to anything meaningful. Yet we cannot just leave the building, since we need that pay-check and all buildings are full of suckers.

“Specifically, their game plans involved manipulating communication networks to enhance their own reputation, to disparage others, and to create conflicts and rivalries among organisation members, thereby keeping them from sharing information that might uncover the deceit.” Snakes in Suits

The Suckers Club is pretty crowded

Once the rules and structure are in place, it is easier to maintain the status quo. As long as the power bearers (and their successors) are like-minded (and even family or lookalike) they can support and enjoy each other’s company. The rest are stuck in between their fears to be left behind and their aspiration to have more power and affinity towards power bearers.

In times when we have to convince ourselves that we have to obey what a Sucker says -because that is the only way to provide a better life for us and our families- the definition of that ‘better life’ is towards the means of Power, which ironically makes us wanna be a sucker ourselves. We never think about how being purposeful, healthy and happy can make our and our family’s life better than money can. Maybe because there is no Forbes cover with a yogi…

In time we get used to it and become oblivious to our own values, we just accept ‘evil’ as a part of our job description and even be proud to excel in it. You do not need to be an evil to serve the evil, you just need a fair compensation!

In my opinion this behaviour and our justification makes us equally responsible for all the evil happening around. We all suck up to survive, we all use the same excuses to be assholes.

But what if we start thinking about getting rid of this useless status quo which evidently doesn’t protect us from our fears around getting poor and weak? What if we just stop being pretentious and put our attention to the things which really matter… But if we join forces?

“Conflict commands attention. And attention equals influence” Nancy Gibbs

… Click for Part 2