The world is no picnic at the moment.
Financial meltdown threatens to eradicate the very cornerstones of the global economy, war and terrorism lurk menacingly, promising loss of life and endless anxiety. Even the very planet we live on is seemingly beyond salvage.
Now, being a negative person I’m perhaps not the best gauge of the mood of the common man – I recently introduced a friend’s wife to another friend, as his first wife – but I do believe people are generally more pessimistic about the future, than at any other time. Now, you could argue that the sense of impending doom will make people feel worse in the long run than the real thing, but pessimism is damaging enough.
The speed of media has simply gotten so fast that the slightest proclamation is amplified and glorified, spreading like wildfire amongst the undergrowth of public consciousness. Paranoia has become the defining feature of our times. In the words of Jean Kilbourne, people are learning their values from the media. She probably just neglected to mention that they’re also learning their anxieties from there.
But I’m not here today to talk about anxieties. That would be too depressing. I’m here to talk about a by-product of those anxieties which has manifested itself in two places, in two remarkably different ways. In the US of A, and in sunny, apathetic ol’ Egypt.
That by-product is the sense of entitlement.
Let’s start with the US: People here expect to have things: a home, two cars, vacations, good schools, college funds for the kids, services, healthcare and plenty more. And now that people have been through 50 or 60 years of good times (people think the US has always been prosperous, but things were different prior to the 1950s), they’ve basically shot up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, past self-actualization all the way into a hitherto uncharted area: the need for fame and exposure – but more on that in a bit.
The problem is that people in the US feel entitled to their happiness, and become overwhelmed with feelings of resentment and dissonance when it’s taken away from them. This is an entitlement that conveniently ignores two things: one, that most of the world currently lives in almost oppressive misery; and two, throughout the history of our not-so-humble species, deprivation and struggle have been the norm, not the exception.
Now, it’s a valid argument that entitlement spurs us to work harder to maintain what we have (and even improve on it). But pragmatism dictates the acceptance that good times don’t last forever, and this is where I feel my fellow Americans fall short.
It doesn’t stop there, I’m afraid. As I intimated earlier, the tumble down Maslow’s pyramid has gotten even steeper for people because of a newfound love of the spotlight. In the media age, there is a growing sense of entitlement that everyone deserves to be noticed. People are now demanding to be noticed, it doesn’t matter for what.
Posing is the new humility and fame is the new respect. Just watch reality TV and you’ll see the lengths people will go to for mass acceptance. Bugs for breakfast, anyone? To paraphrase Andy Warhol, as some wag recently did, “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 megabytes. We have always been a competitive species, but instead of competing for resources, we now compete for attention.
Let’s move on to my other compatriots, the Egyptians. The prevailing attitude here is also entitlement but not particularly for attention (at least, not yet). It’s somewhat for resources and understandably so: we’re a poor country. But mostly, Egyptians have a sense of entitlement for special recognition. Egyptians are special, we always say.
Now, you don’t need a humble columnist like me to point out how deluded this entitlement is (all you need is an ability to be honest with yourself), but let me ask the elephant-in-the-room question: where does our sense of entitlement come from?
To me, from two places: a glorious past that weighs heavily on the present; and a pervasive wave of religiosity that imbues people with a sense of superiority, regardless of their actual contributions or achievement.
Let me be clear: I’m in no way criticizing religion. In the words of Christopher Hedges, religion is a good thing for good people and a bad thing for bad people. I’m criticizing aspects of religious dogma (or any ideology that considers itself above questioning). Any force for good (as I believe religion to be) can be hijacked and used for personal and political gain, by anyone in power. And it is.
The problem with “the religion industry is that it can be used to manipulate people into accepting their suffering, justifying it as God’s will. It turns a direct connection to the Almighty into a system of divine credit: work now and enjoy a cosmic payback for your suffering, later. The more the suffering, the bigger the payout.
In short, a glorious past and deluded present is making it hard to reconcile ourselves to a bleak future. Our obsession with our ancient Egyptian heritage and the over-reliance on our religious identity are becoming impediments to improving ourselves. Instead of being embarrassed by mediocrity, we’ve become content with it.
Will things ever change? God willing, but perhaps, just as importantly, people willing, too.
Mohammed Nassarwas kidnapped at birth and forced to work in advertising, in Cairo, New York and London. Today, his main concern is that archaeologists will one day stumble upon his desk, debate the value of his profession and judge him. Feel free to email him at [email protected].
