Feudalism's Revenge Part 2

Freudian Phantasies of the Near Future

In this essay, the second of a two-part series, we witness an astonishing reversal, as democracy’s apparent victory over modern society is quashed up by an impending feudal catastrophe. Mothers of sensitive or neurasthenic men may, as before, wish to examine the contents before passing it onto their little soldiers, removing those pages which they consider to be unsuitable…

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Democracy. It’s easy to celebrate it from below, isn’t it? Chartism, Peterloo, the Suffragettes – all that Ken Loach-y stuff where it never stops raining and everyone’s forever popping off home to die of consumption. Viewed from the perspective of those whom it dispossessed, however, democracy’s a total car-crash. Not only does it render feudalism’s hitherto unbounded Masters into electorally ensnared Politicians, but then, as if that weren’t bad enough, it transforms their hitherto docile and unquestioningly obedient Serfs into “The Masses,” that is, a semi-literature, prematurely enfranchised rabble who’re always too busy rutting, boozing and fighting for you to ever properly be able to catch their attentions and persuade them that their interests would actually best be served by voting for you – as a Politician now, of course – and letting you “take care of them,” for the duration of a short Parliamentary term.

Can you even begin to imagine how maddening that must be for our contemporary elites, harbouring all the same urges as the Masters of old [“You will be taken care of, scum, or you will die…”], but now forced to parade about like a lot of silly asses in the garb of a Politician [“Hello madam, we’re from the government… would it be possible, do you think, for us to talk with you abou… oh yes… yes; yes of course… no… no, no… only for a few minutes, of course… yes, you’re very busy… yes, I understand entirely … well I’ll try and keep this short, then… ahem… so what we were hoping to talk to you about today was how – only with your permission, you understand – we’d like to bring some proposals before Parliament that have the express aim of taking care of you…”]?

Think about it counterfactually for a moment. Picture yourself as the scion of an immensely wealthy, privileged and well-connected British family. You were educated at Eton and Oxford. True, you only graduated with a third in PPE, and, in all honesty, you’d probably struggle to pour piss out of a boot even if someone told you there were instructions printed on the sole. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that whilst you were there you spent a goodish chunk of time hanging out with other, similarly vapid scions from other similarly wealthy, privileged and well-connected families, all of whom were just as keen as you to develop answers to all the world’s most pressing problems…

… Vegan electricity! Organic quantitative easing! Compostable concrete! Recycled pilchards! Genetically modified haemorrhoids capturing and storing methane gas! …

Entering the labour market soon thereafter, you swerve any actual engagement with the actual world, leveraging your family’s connections to secure a string of well-paid advisory positions with various, high-ranking government ministers. Working behind the scenes in Whitehall, you connect with many other likeminded morons, all of whom are just as keen as you to develop answers to the world’s most pressing problems…

… Babies made out of falafel! Carbon credits for non-binary parrakeets! Digital runner beans! Eco homes built from quinoa and soy wax! …

Before long, Conservative Party HQ are paying for you to have your head varnished in media-friendly light teak waterproof gloss, an important rite of passage that can only mean one thing: the Prime Minister feels you’re ready to appear on TV as a government spokesperson, no doubt because he’s heard you’re as keen as he is to develop answers to the world’s most pressing problems…

…Meat that photosynthesises! Windmills threshing greenhouse gases into rye flour! Solar powered gas boilers! …

You become a regular at Davos. Klaus Schwab considers you one of his closest friends and allies. Whenever your respective people can make it work diary-wise, you wrestle with Tony Blair on a specially designed, massage oil resistant foam crash mat in his private gymnasium. Bono sometimes pops by, just to watch (although sometimes you play “winner stays on”). In a sure sign you’re being groomed to take over a major ministerial portfolio, the Conservative Party select you as their Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for a safe Conservative seat (CON +16,547) in a part of England that, apparently, the locals refer to as “South Yorkshire” (“Look it up,” you tell your special advisor during an early general election campaign strategy meeting, “It might be significant”).

At last, you say to yourself. A chance to persuade the great unwashed that you’re ready, willing and able to take care of them. You’re excited, rightly so, and you turn up to your first hustings event prepped and ready to deliver a two-hour PowerPoint presentation. It’s your hope – indeed, your expectation – that its contents will inspire The Masses to become as keen as you are to develop answers to the world’s most pressing problems…

…Farms repurposed as nature reserves! Sex factories harnessing renewable energy from the force of thousands of incarcerated testicles slapping against thousands of gap-year volunteering arse-cheeks!

Oh yes. You’ve got all the answers haven’t you, smarty pants. But do The Masses care? Not one bit. Society, the climate… planet Earth: they’re all dying, right now, right this minute, and you’ve only got about four minutes and 23 seconds to save everyone from disaster. And what do The Masses plan on doing about it? Nothing, that’s what. It’s almost as if they aren’t actually bothered about developing answers to the world’s most pressing problems. Certainly all they seem to want to heckle you about, slide after slide, are laughably inconsequential local issues like mass unemployment, rising levels of homelessness, hyper-inflation, widespread food shortages, children starving to death on the streets, civil war and a state-sponsored pogrom against the unvaccinated; issues which, in any case, are more properly addressed to their respective parish councils, town clerks or the organisers of local Neighbourhood Watch schemes. Spiritually bloodied yet intellectually unbowed, you continue to lecture them right through to your final PowerPoint slide – slide number 152, to be precise – not because the audience is captivated – they aren’t – but because you enjoy the sound of your own voice; it is, after all, the voice of the only person in the room who appears keen to develop answers to all the world’s most pressing problems…

… Wheelchair friendly political re-education camps! Sustainable snuff films planting a tree for every corpse they generate! Post-colonial cucumbers! …

“Oi, mate,” one of these provincial inadequates – white, of course – interrupts just as you’re discoursing on the environmental harm caused by salaried jobs and how the government intends to replace them by 2030 with a state-sponsored programme of stay-at-home knitting, sourdough bread making and online pottery classes; “Oi, mate,” he micro-aggresses, “I’ve got to be able to pay my bills; I’ve got to be able to survive, haven’t I?” Enraged at his impudence, you feel like pointing out that there’re more important things in life than survival, particularly his, but thankfully, wiser counsels prevail.

And why must you be thankful?

Because as amazing as it would no doubt seem to your feudal ancestors, you depend on these people. Once every four years or so democracy requires that you, the scion of an immensely wealthy, privileged and well-connected British family who, lest we forget, is already in receipt of pretty much all of the answers to pretty much all of the world’s most pressing problems, must chase around after these ill-bred peasants and plead with them to lend you their votes so you might then take care of them properly.

… and it’s at that moment, just as you’re reflecting on the unfairness of it all, that you realise the truth: democracy’s nothing but a tawdry pantomime; a tawdry pantomime in which people with appalling names, like Karen – white, of course – from ghastly sounding places you’ve never heard of, like Doncaster, who claim to own things you don’t even believe exist, like Nail Bars, get the opportunity to stand up at hustings events and call people such as yourself names, like “shithouse” …

… and just as Karen’s unexpectedly standing up and calling you a shithouse, you realise that democracy also involves the local South Yorkshire media standing about, tittering away to themselves and filming the whole debacle for the nightly news …

… and as you’re stood there watching the media tittering away to themselves and filming the whole debacle for the nightly news, you realise that democracy also involves women like Karen doing other, similarly unexpected things, like climbing up onto stage, grabbing a microphone and then not asking the question a member of your campaign team had pre-prepared for her – “Why are you so amazingly, awe-inspiringly keen to develop answers to the world’s most pressing problems? P.S. You’re well hunky, can I have your autograph?” – but instead recounting a story that everyone in your campaign team had expressly warned her not to recount; a story about how her 92 year-old grandma – white, of course – died of hyperthermia last winter because the government  - “your c*** of a f***ing government,” as she puts it – took away her gas boiler and replaced it with a giant hamster wheel, which the local council told her she’d have to start running around in if she wanted to keep warm; and besides, even if she didn’t want to keep warm, they added, the only way she’d be able to generate enough electricity to power that environmentally harmful toaster she seemed so fond of would be for her to run around in that hamster wheel all night for at least eight hours, they stipulated, at high-speed, they insisted, probably just as fast as Usain Bolt, they speculated, and if she managed to do all of that, they continued, she might be able to generate just enough electricity to lightly toast one side of a bagel come the morning, not that they were going to guarantee it, they hedged, certainly not in writing, they shrieked, are you mad, they asked, that was more than their jobs were worth, they laughed; and so it was left that they’d come back in a week or two to see if her corpse were ready to be composted and its carbon resources harvested to pay back all of that costly environmental debt she’d gotten herself into with the council on account of her having insisted on being able to use an environmentally harmful toaster whilst she were still alive; and apparently Karen had found her grandma only the next morning, and…

… and although you’re not really listening to her, because she’s called Karen, and she’s from Doncaster, and she owns something you don’t really believe exists called a Nail Bar, you suddenly realise that democracy also involves the scions of immensely wealthy, privileged and well-connected British families in thinking on their feet and spotting opportunities to slip media-friendly sound-bites into hustings events regarding the government’s “build back better” campaign; so you cut into her incessant, self-pitying babble just as she’s starting to cry for what seems like the umpteenth time, and you start off by giving her a bit of the old flannel about how hard it must’ve been to find her grandma dead in a giant hamster wheel like that, what with her half-frozen body still spinning around and around, almost as if, you add, in an attempt to lighten the mood and draw a laugh from the rest of the audience, her spirit had lingered in the room and was still hellbent on having that toasted bagel for breakfast, haha, but no, you go on, suddenly serious again; no Karen, if you were to be as honest as everyone here tonight would want their local constituency MP to be, you say, throwing a coquettish look out towards the audience as you do so, you’d have to say that it was actually quite selfish of her grandma to have been asking for luxuries like heating in the first place, particularly given how hard the government’s been working to [ever-so-slight pause for effect] … “build back better” ever since last year’s 11-month long climate change lockdown; but if it’s any consolation, you go on, the Environment Agency’s Chief Executive – a good friend of mine, you remark chattily; we often play squash together, you add – has been saying for years now that the delicate ecosystem of Shropshire’s great crested yellow newt is under threat from climate change, so surely, you go on, throwing that same coquettish look as before, only now towards the media, and thinking as you do so that if this next little soundbite doesn’t make the local evening news and seal the deal on Karen’s ballot paper then you’re not the politician you thought you were; surely, you say, the death of a selfish old grandma who insisted on running around in a giant hamster wheel all the time just to avoid spending a little bit of her citizen’s wage on an extra jumper or two is “a price worth paying” if it saves the life of even one Shropshire great crested yellow toad…

… and then you realise that democracy also means learning to cope when The Masses react in unexpected ways, because for some unfathomable reason, your little sliver of ad-libbed brilliance hasn’t calmed Karen down at all; quite the opposite, in fact, because now she’s calling you a c*** and a w***** as well as a shithouse; and then, just as you’re looking around the room a little nervously, unsure how to react because Karen’s shouting incoherently, you suddenly realise that she isn’t actually shouting incoherently at all, but in fact asking you a question, specifically, whether it would interest you to learn that that 11-month climate lockdown you seem to be so f***ing proud of cost her and her family – white, of course – their home, because thanks to t***s like you in your little b****** sucking c*** bubble down in Westminster, her husband – white, of course – and her were forcibly stopped from going out to work by the army, and all because the temperature of the f***ing country had apparently risen 0.3 Celsius above what those sanctimonious, salaried c***s in SAGE deemed to be safe for human existence – 0.37 Celsius, Karen, you try to interject with all the prim, iconoclastic righteousness of a BBC fact checker, but she’s not interested in the truth; sadly, you remind yourself, people like her never are – and now they’re having to live in their car, she says, and there’s not a night that goes by without her wishing she had the mental courage to f***ing hang herself…

… scarcely feasible in the make and type of car you’re likely to be able to afford, you find yourself thinking; and just as you’re about to put that point to her, you remember that democracy’s also about communication and dialogue and nudging people like Karen into understanding that our collective, democratic ability to find answers to the world’s most pressing problems is far more important than her footling little personal tragedies, so instead, you try to coax some tenderness into a voice that, frankly, has had just about enough of Karen for one lifetime, and you reach out to put a compassionate hand on her vulnerable arm, hoping that at least some of the media’s cameras caught the fleeting moment of attempted tenderness that ensued before Karen backed away, her face registering utter revulsion, and then you put your hand back down by your side and you quietly remind her that she’s only angry about losing her home because she owned one in the first place, and if she votes for you in the upcoming election, you promise that you’ll fight as hard as any local constituency MP the length and breadth of the country in order to ensure that people like her will never, ever have to worry about owning anything ever again, and what’s more, you add with a flourish, you can guarantee that she’ll be happier because of it …

… but then she starts crying again, and calling you a c*** again, and, frankly, you start to wonder whether she might not have a learning difficulty, but before you have a chance to pursue the implications of that thought and whether it might or might not help your media relations team to smear Karen as an anti-vaxxer, you suddenly realise that democracy doesn’t just involve the local media in standing at the back of a hustings event and tittering away to themselves, because apparently it also involves them in starting to cluster around you, invading your personal space with cameras, microphones, booms and all sorts of other recording devices and letting plain but sensible looking female political correspondents, all of whom seem to be sporting unnecessarily low-cut tops, ask you all sorts of impertinent questions, like whether you’re planning to stand aside from the election contest what with having been so insensitive to a recently bereaved daughter, and, more generally, having made such a colossal ass of yourself…

… and then you realise that democracy is also about responding nimbly to unexpected questions whenever they’re put to you at hustings events by plain but sensible looking female political correspondents, all of whom seem to be sporting unnecessarily low-cut tops, so in less than ideal circumstances, what with Karen now standing just a few feet away from you, sobbing uncontrollably and, every so often, whimpering that you’re a *****, a **** and a *******, you respond as best you can, and you say, no, not at all, not at all, uhm, the thought has, er, never crossed your, ah, mind, haha, because [“…cold-hearted f***ing c***…”] … er, hmm… ahem, er, because, you see, you’re passionate about, uhm, South Yorkshire and it’s been a, er, long held ambition of yours to, ah, represent a run-down, ex-coal mining community like, um, Liverpool, and that, er, what impresses you most about Geordies, as they like to be known down at the rugger stadium, haha, is that they’re all so, uhm, authentically poor [“…psychopathic sh*t weasel…”] … er, hmm… yes, authentically poor, uhm, and not just, you know, er, putting it on for a laugh, but, uhm, actually really passionate about being poor, haha, and, ah, you know, despite the many chances that the government has, er, given these people to succeed in life [“…shithouse w***er…”] … ahem… as you were saying, despite the many chances they’ve been given to, uhm, succeed in life, and, ah, to better themselves, they’ve, uhm, always wanted to honour the memories of their fathers and their fathers before them, all of whom were, ah, desperately poor too [“…delusional f***ing d***head…”] … yes, quite… ahem, so they’ve, um, steadfastly remained in the gutter themselves, and you can, ah, absolutely, wholeheartedly respect that kind of personal [“…heartless b******…”] … uhm, you can absolutely, wholeheartedly respect that, er, kind of integrity, haha, even though you might not be able to understand it yourself, or, you know, haha, even condone it, really…

… and then you realise that democracy is also, in the end, about polling stations, and poll clerks welcoming voters to polling stations, and voters popping ballot papers into boxes, and tellers counting the ballot papers that have been popped into ballot boxes, and presiding officers whispering the likely results into candidates’ ears, and returning officials announcing the actual results… and then it’s also about your campaign team manager sidling up to you to confirm that, yes, the presiding officer was right and that, no, no noughts had been left off your count, and that, yes, you did receive only 367 votes – on a 72% swing away from the Conservative Party, he adds, but without being able to look you in the face at any point – and that, yes, as a result, you’ve lost your deposit. (“Forgive them father,” you plead with a grim-faced Tony Blair later via Zoom, “Forgive them father, for they know not what they do”) …

… and then, in the end, you realise that democracy also means ill-educated, appallingly common women with names like Karen, from ghastly sounding towns like Doncaster who own things that you still, even now, don’t really believe exist, called Nail Bars, being able to thwart the scions of immensely wealthy, privileged and well-connected British families as they attempt to gain democratic office and implement their answers to all of the world’s most pressing questions…  

… and it’s only a few days later, as Tony Blair’s throwing you to the massage oil resistant foam crash mat in his private gymnasium and Bono’s rushing over to massage your inner thighs (“But it’s my back that hurts,” you protest), that you realise what should have been obvious to you all along: that democracy isn’t working; that it can’t help you to answer the world’s most pressing problems; that it doesn’t work in the best interests of The Masses; that it doesn’t keep The Masses safe from themselves; that it doesn’t help you to…

… take care of them.

Perhaps now we understand why, in the deepest, darkest recesses of these peoples’ souls, there are leftover resides, remnants from a different age; feudal desires that have lingered in the half-light of the unconscious for many centuries, repressed but never forgotten; unconscious, id-like dreams in which democracy’s Masses appear altogether different; in which a succession of crises render them a little more Serf-like, a little more obedient, a little less impudent; a type of democracy in which the Karens of this world are all morbidly obese, vulnerable, bed-bound, diabetic, wheezing asthmatics who’d need a specialised team and a mechanical winch to get up before they could even think about attending hustings events; a type of democracy in which morbidly obese, bed-bound, diabetic, wheezing asthmatic Karens who’d need specialised teams and mechanised winches to get up would no longer call their Masters shithouses, but, on the contrary, would be grateful to them for taking care of their complex medical needs via a free at the point of use healthcare system; a type of democracy in which morbidly obese, bed-bound, diabetic, wheezing asthmatic yet oh-so-grateful Karens would unthinkingly trust their political Masters to take care of their complex medical needs via a free at the point of use healthcare system, and, as a result, would quickly learn to unthinkingly trust those same Masters to implement all of their other answers to all of the world’s other problems; a type of democracy, in fact, that would be almost entirely feudal in its outlook.

Serfs, not citizens. Noblesse oblige, not citizenship. Confession, not debate. Corvee not wages. Lineage, not meritocracy. Outlaws not intellectual dissenters. Dispensations and indulgences for the rich, not equality before the law. The Lord’s bailiffs, not the state’s police. Banalities, not rent. Tithes, not taxes. Forelock tugging, not freedom of assembly.   

Sometimes, of course, the details of these Freudian phantasies vary: Karen losing her Nail Bar business during a lockdown crisis; Karen losing her home thanks to an inflation crisis; Karen’s Nail Bar business taxed out of existence due to a climate crisis; and so on and so forth. But however much they vary, these dreams always have the same ending: Karen getting finagled into a position where she can be taken care of by the state … and then taken care of by the state.

That’s why the government’s recent policy of incentivising young people to take a vaccine by stuffing them full of discounted fast food is about more than just an ill-judged, poorly thought through initiative. It’s indicative of a wider repetitive compulsion that’s taken hold across government more generally, wherein the treatment of one crisis via government intervention will always – accidentally, of course – proliferate crises that, in their turn, will require further government intervention that will always – accidentally, of course – proliferate crises that, in their turn, will require government intervention that will always – accidentally, of course – proliferate crises that, in their turn, will require government intervention that will always – accidentally, of course – proliferate crises that, in their turn, will require government intervention that will always … and so on and so forth, the state slowly but surely abrogating to itself ever more of the interventionist powers it regards as necessary to take care of citizens during the course of multiple, unending crises. Thus do we find power’s unconscious desire to “take care of people” slowly leaking into the social realm, each successive crisis taking away just that little bit more of a person’s individual autonomy, independence and self-reliance:

… Karen the Nail Bar owning victim of an obesity crisis, now too fat to move unaided and thus entirely dependent on, and oh-so-grateful for, healthcare that’s paid for by the state…

… Karen the morbidly obese Nail Bar owner, subsequently the victim of a financial crisis, now too indebted to continue running her own business and thus entirely dependent on, and oh-so-grateful for, the state’s largesse…

… Karen the morbidly obese, bankrupted, former Nail Bar owner, subsequently the victim of a climate crisis, now too poor to afford the ground source heat pump her mortgage company insists she must install before agreeing to re-mortgage her home and thus entirely dependent on, and oh-so-grateful for, the state’s sheltered housing programme…

… Karen the homeless, morbidly obese, bankrupted former Nail Bar owner, now so emotionally and psychologically damaged by successive crises that she struggles to get angry about anything and is just oh-so-very-very-grateful to the state for everything it’s done for her...

… “Thank you, NHS,” wheezes Karen, the multiple crisis survivor, “Thank you, Boris; thank you, SAGE; thank you, Professor Neil Ferguson; thank you, Sajid; thank you, Greta; thank you the Bank of England; thank you, AstraZeneca; thank you, the mob that stabbed and then mutilated my selfish, unvaccinated son’s corpse; thank you, The Samaritans; thank you, Alcoholics Anonymous; thank you, my wonderful pawnbrokers; thank you, mental health crisis intervention teams; thank you, the World Economic Forum; thank you, the outreach team now looking after my homeless daughter; thank you, Rishi; thank you… Sire… 😊😊😊…”

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Feudalism of our near-future.

Perhaps you think I’m exaggerating. So let me finish by asking you this question: If you were an over centralised governmental apparatus; and if you were sliding ever closer towards a form of benevolent authoritarianism in which Parliamentary democracy was regarded as some kind of luxury; and if you were quietly signing contracts with private tech companies so as to better develop a digital vaccine passport system that could one day segue into a Chinese style social credit system capable of rewarding the compliant and ruining the recalcitrant; and if you had a digital currency to develop so as to better keep tabs on everyone’s spending; and if you had computer automated vehicles to roll out so as to better understand where everyone’s driving, when they’re driving there and what they’re doing when they get there; and if you had a Green Agenda to push that won’t do a single thing to protect the environment but will cause irreparable harm to small and medium sized homegrown businesses, pushing their bankrupt owners and redundant employees back into the normative disciplinary clutches of salaried jobs at large, bullshit globalist corporations; and if you had unpopular, post-colonial pedagogies to foist on children and students so as to better cultivate their hatred for their own heritage, their own identity, their own success in life; and if you had Net Zero Carbon targets to chase so as to better win bragging rights amongst your G20 pals whilst simultaneously handing every last drop of geo-political power you ever thought you had over to the Chinese: if you were that type of government, then what type of citizen would you rather be dealing with 10-20 years from now: those who were self-reliant, resilient, rebellious, critical, sceptical, truculent, autonomous, individualistic and capable of taking care of themselves… or those who were morbidly obese, bankrupt, ill-educated, dispossessed, broken, ground down, indoctrinated, apathetic and generally incapable of doing anything other than letting the scions of immensely wealthy, privileged and well-connected British families take care of them?    

…

Exactly.