I Wonder What H. G. Wells "Time Traveller" Would Say About The "Eloi" Of Today. --Part 1

 

In my slightly jaundiced but occasionally humble opinion, we have an immense social and political problem which is in some ways more dangerous than the growing threat of fascism unleashed by Donald Trump. That is the lame, single-issue oriented and superficial state of the so-called "resistance," to fascism in America today, generally speaking.

I'll address this soon enough, but first, a caution; don't let the title fool you. This will not be a dry academic vanity piece which is intended to receive accolades. It's another one of my slightly irreverant panoramas against the blight of banality, or modernism to be precise, through the lens of a 120 year old allegory. 

"Wells' Nightmare Future"

My title's reference to H. G. Wells' "Eloi" in his story is self-explanatory for those who have read it or saw the original film with Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux.  (not the remake, which was a slovenly piece of recycled "Planet of the Zombies Meets The Resident Evil")

For those unfamiliar, a 19th Century English scientist builds a Time Travel machine and takes it for a spin.  He eventually lands in the year 802,701, (when there was no longer a Starbucks anywhere) where he finds what is left of humanity divided into two degenerate societies.

One is a fair haired race of weak, leisurely and well fed people named Eloi, who do nothing but lounge around entertaining themselves, eating, drinking, swimming and playing. (Uh oh, that's what I do every day now that I'm retired) They are indifferent to the suffering of their fellow Eloi, watch impassively as others drown, have no concept of history or passion for anything. They simply exist, waiting for fate to take them where it will.  

Living underground are the subterranean race of Morlock, who because they live underground are almost blind. (Spoiler--their weakness! Hint, the Time Traveller brought Matches. Wells had to cast himself as a "Promethian") They live on human flesh, as they are cannibals. Their source of meat is of course the Eloi, who every afternoon are called by the daily dinner siren, and march hypnotically into the Morloch's lair to be served up, without a shred of resistance. They are bred and live well because they are livestock, divested of their connection to being human. Why? Because that's just the way it is, and has always been.

(Photos-- Morlochs top, Eloi bottom: "Let's do Lunch")

Wells, who was otherwise a despicable human being in most respects, was not without some historical insight. Therefore he used these two divergent failures of humanity as an allegory for the morally indifferent and passive post Dickens 19th century English working class, ie: the Eloi, which would not engage in any serious organized political action in their own interest. The Morlochs were the Capitalists, who built their filthy, smoky and blackened society underground, a metaphor for coal mine owners and industrialists who ground up and consumed their exploited workers, feeding off of their labor like cannibals.

The Time Traveller tries to organize and mobilize the Eloi to resist and fight back, which in the movie version they do. Happy ending, the Boy gets the Girl, and our scientist goes back in time after getting his machine back, to tell his waiting friends what the future holds. The ending of the short story is somewhat darker. The story itself is regardless very relevant to our current situation, yet provides no solutions.,

When Wells met with President Teddy Roosevelt in the White House to discuss his visionary ideas, TR almost had a breakdown from the despair and pessimism of Wells' vision. "Is that how it all ends"? was his anguished response. (Immediately upon leaving the White House, reportedly in a complete rage, Wells went to a famous Bordello in Washington DC and beat one of the prostitutes half to death before being arrested, without being charged. So much for this great visionary and historian, the racial eugenics promoting war mongering utopian "father of science fiction")

Now, getting back to the underwhelming state of our so-called resistance. Embedded within that grouping I will single out the problems of the Millennials as exemplary. Mostly white, privileged, suburban Millennials, the ones who think they've got so much going on. You've seen them taking selfies as they crash their Mom's SUV into hair salons, and trampolining into the backyard pool covered in Molasses at gender reveal parties. It's actually a good thing that they are leaving visual evidence of their activities and habits for the Archeologists and Sir Richard Attenboroughs of the world to study in the future, if there is one. 

At the risk of overgeneralizing, I am concerned that to a large degree the younger generation has no idea of how to build and sustain a serious revolutionary political movement as is called for by the current situation. One problem is that they don't actually stand FOR much of anything. If nothing else, history tells us that movements based solely on oppositionism and slogans tend to peter out, and devolve quickly into fads and trends, or like the failed French Revolution, a bloodbath. (On Twitter, I hear the extinction of humanity is "trending." Is that good because people are talking about it?)

Their politics are defined by what they are against, and their lifestyle,  and frankly few people will dedicate a life's work or take great risks to simply oppose bad things or get something. It takes a mission to get people out of the barracks and into a fight. Missions by definition must have a purpose beyond stopping something. It must have a self-subsisting positive, something bigger than themselves worth standing for. I'd be happy to elaborate that point further for those who would like to pursue it.

Many young people do pursue careers, causes, friendships and family relationships in which they have positive goals and achievements, but their relationships to politics, government, and history are warped. They are the "no future generation" and are immersed in paralyzing and self-consuming cynicism and pessimism when it comes to real political change. They project deeply held resentment and victimization onto issues which they can't feel personally connected to.  Instead they substitute single issues which they can relate to, meaning accessible to them within the very small world defined by the geographical coverage of their mobile data plan and proximity to a wifi connection. (I'll have more on this later)

Too often, this takes the ugly form of generational hatred. Toward Boomers. Toward their parents. Toward those they hold responsible for ruining everything.   Especially but not limited to males. That would be many of us. (Before anyone tries to deconstruct my remarks and work up a big head of steam about how I'm echoing "Culture War" and Cancel Culture talking points, or defending "patriarchy, " I would kindly ask that they hold their fire for a few minutes. That is emphatically not what this is, or where I'm going with it. 

Generational hatred is more widespread and programmed in than you think, affecting the whole of it's victim's outlook and identity.  Sometimes It takes some work to really bring it out. Sometimes it is right there under the surface. Let's for a moment look at how this anti-Boomer rage is manifest in politics.

Take a quick look at the various political issues which energize that demographic. If I omit anything please feel free to give me a hard time.

"A Journey To The Center Of The Metaverse"

First, there are two categories of issues which define Millennial politics. Number one, is that they want stuff. You know, "stuff."  We Boomers like stuff too, but different kinds of it, things which many eons ago we used to buy that were actually manufactured here and we had to shop for in person at places called "stores" and then physically bring back to our own houses ourselves. Can you imagine?  Yes, consumerism has quite a history, but is also ambiguous, in that it has both evolved and devolved.

Amazingly, we Boomers used physical money back in the day. Since money took up space in our wallets and had mass, it almost felt back then as if money was real. Even if we got it from some fantasy world "breaking and entering b***hes" like the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, it was still cold hard cash. But that was serendipity, as we depended on allowances and odd jobs to procure money in order to experience "The Joy of Shopping". Money was also cool because we could show it off to our friends when we had it. 

Some Millennials will totally not believe this, but if we carried bills that were larger in value than the cost of the product, there were people called cashiers, not express checkout scanners, who physically took the money and made "change." Not revolutionary change mind you, but the remainder amount, which was the difference between the relevant bills in dollars and the cost. Sometimes we got coins for our change, including these things called pennies, which no one has or uses anymore. And to top it off, our "stuff" had actual pricetags on them, not those fricking Rohrschach test boxes with squiggly shit running through them that you have to have majored in cubist Art History to understand.  I won't use QR code scanning apps because I'm afraid that QAnon will get access to my shopping list. (Pardon my arrant pedantry, I'm a history buff).

Today, everything is digital or virtual, and you don't need money to get "stuff". It materializes almost by magic.  You can make three billion dollars in a week on something called Abubu's MuMu, or DoucheCoin or Babaloo Coin. Anything that the proverbial "guy living in his Mother's basement" manages to cook up after he's finished hacking Putin's Netflix account. Or conversely, you can lose it all in one day. 

You can invest in something called NFT's now, despite having less than three dollars in your PayPal account. (NFT's stand for Noteven Fucking Tangible. Ya' know, it's all virtual)  All you need to get on board for a ride on this bubble is a smart phone. And since it's not real money, you're not really actually spending anything, honestly. (If my Android is so damn "smart" why can't I get any bars or wifi in the middle of a Category 1 Solar flare huh? You'd think it would have figured that out by now. SkyNet my ass) So, yeah, a phone. That thing you are currently using to read this rant, then to later click heart emojis and the share button for me, because that's what Facebook's Al Gore Rhythm tells us we're supposed to do. (He did invent the Internet, right?)

So, using that same device which allows one to spend money which is not real, they engage in other "not real life" activity, such as clicking on "like" or "lol," or sharing some inane meme from someone called an "influencer." (Isn't that what they used to call Cult Leaders? Just asking) Then they'll  find and slap up a heartwarming meme of their own on how a feral baby Wombat adopted and raised a newly hatched Velociraptor, (life, finds a way) and raised it as its own, teaching us anthropocentric dominionists the life lesson that these critters honestly should have been separated much sooner. Ooh, yuck. (Don't you just love social media? It's where all of us anti-social types go to hangout where there's no people around to bother us.)

Oops, now it's lunch time and hunger sets in, so it's on to your Uber Eats App to get a box delivered of those "Cinnabon" rolls that smell so amazing they make you drool enough to almost drown to death when you walk by in the train station, or that place we used to go to called Malls. They aren't healthy or organic even, but at least no Vegans were harmed in the baking of those rolls. "Shit, is there anything in the checking account"? Sorry, no tip, but the driver gets 5 stars.

"Alright, food? Check. What else. Oh, it's your "gamer" pal, and you're in the middle of the 12th straight hour of "Grand Theft Auto, The Final Erection". (That's real "Doom") Got to break off though, later dude".

"Moving on, just got a new notification, a friend is raising money for their Birthday, let's tap donate and help feed the hungry Velociraptors. $10 ok? Oh hell, which debit card is it linked to? Going into the banking app now...Oh fuck forgot the password, now locked out.. Three hours later after trying all 23 debit and credit cards at the 7-11 ATM, it's all straightened out. The guy next in line was just a little upset that his Slurpee turned into blue goo while waiting."

"So, back home, now hit with the realization that somebody really needs to get laid. (God, I wish we had an App for that when I was younger. That's the one thing I'll give the Millennials) So, it's another Saturday night swiping left and right on Tinder or whatever hookup outfit is out there. Is that a huge zit on your profile pic? Oh forget it, bailing out. As Arnold said in Terminator 2, "Talk to the hand".

"Next, on Spotify, downloading Kylie Jenner's first Banjo Trio Bluegrass Album release featuring Snoop Dog. Now...you've got to be kidding,  it cost how much? No wonder she's an effin' Billionaire.  (Good for Kylie, clicking "follow") Good thing it's an electronic payment and not real money, lol. And finally, sliding over to Amazon to get some....whatever, who knows, don't really need anything, just kinda like the delivery guy. Socks! Need socks, in the cart, bing, shipped from China, allow 3 months time for delivery. Ooookaaaay."

So, that's a thing, and that's a big chunk of their life. They want stuff. They want to establish their independent identity by liking, sharing, following and owning the exact same things that all of the 4803 people on their friends list, (who they don't even know)  are also. And their very existence, their relationship to the known universe is mediated through their phone. The psychological dependency on their device is so powerful that they are known to fall off of balconies and bridges when they drop them in an attempt to catch it. The phone is their life, because it offers them an escape from a life which bores them absolutely shitless. 

And that is where we encounter the disconcerting irony that the same young people who live, breathe, and resonate resentment and victimization by their parents generation, the "Boomers," are head over heels for the 80 year old Bernie Sanders, the Boomer Elizabeth Warren, and 80 something Noam Chomsky, and 70 something Robert Reich. Because, reasons the Millennial, they want to give away stuff. They are nice, not like their parents.  They are Democratic Socialists,, which mean that they want to tax the rich so everyone can afford to buy stuff, and not just rich people. 

Politics is driven by consumerism. Thus was it also with the Eloi, whose consumerism and "lifestyle choices" led directly to them being "consumed" by the Morloch. 

So, is it surprising that at the top of Millennial' political wish list is Student loan forgiveness, free health care, free community college, free Internet service access in the middle of the Yellowstone Caldera Supervolcano, and a complimentary DVD of the new release of "John Wick 12, Escape From The Metaverse? "Wait, what? No one uses DVD's anymore, that's soooo Clinton era. Everything now is "streaming", which is why we need 5 TB of space and 64 gb of memory in our phones to watch the Squid Games while in Philosophy class. 

So, it makes perfect sense. If money is not real, we should all be able to get some more of it for free. And that is "free-dom". Other countries have lots of free stuff, why not us?   "Stuff Macht Frei," should be the slogan of our slow descent into fascism by default. 

Now I can sense some people deconstructing. "He sounds like a conservative, a right-winger now. Just like Bill Maher went to the other side, Lance is too". Uh, no. Just for the record, I'm for free stuff too. Lord knows, the Oligarchs and corporate looters have had a free ride for long enough. So yeah, big government, Medicare for all, Student debt forgiveness, free College, the whole Big Kahuna! But, that's not my identity, and not my ultimate purpose. Delivering goods and services to Americans is not why I am here on this Earth. It's not why I gave 40 years to fight for higher ideas. I'll get to that later. 

Sorry if I'm tiring you out. Just working the old attention span a little harder than usual. Think of me as being like your trainer at the gym. Wait, nobody likes their trainer. I'll come up with another metaphor. Anything but a punching bag. 

I did mention a second category of issues, now that we plumbed the depths of that one. Just checking in, you still there? Hello. Honk if you want Part 2.