Alternate Reality Shows

Present reality shows are reflections of the society that created them.

-Obsession with zero sum competition.
Nearly every show focuses on eliminating others, often by isolating and removing the ‘weakest.’ This weakest is usually the one who made the least ‘friends’ or who may have been good, but simply lacked the right demographic appeal.

-Popularity is strength, money, virtue…winning.
There is often a host and/or judges, but this doesn’t change the fact that it’s a popularity contest. Approval of the collective body is what separates winners from the losers.

Whether on a tropical island or in a Hollywood studio, these shows are high stakes versions of the typical school or workplace social life.

This fundamental lack of imagination is the hallmark of reality shows as we know them.

What sort of alternate reality show would Subtle people come up with?:

I know what alternate reality show I’d create.

I’d make a show that organizes groups of people into different types of governments and social structures and then observe the dynamics that develop over the course of several months. I’d explicitly keep the ‘losers’ on the island to see how the society deals with them. No voting out undesirables. Real societies have to find a place and role even for those on the margins.

Better yet, I would have society ‘teams’ in direct competition. Thus, groups that alienate their less competitive members would have to deal with the formation of an entire disloyal caste if they chose to be heavy handed with domestic policy.

For me, at least, this would be pure fun. Fun with a purpose. I don’t think English really has a commonly used word for something fun done for a higher end.
Meanwhile, ‘entertainment’ seems synonymous with something that is gratifying but pointless.

Transforming Money Into Power

When peasant-minded people get money, they spend it on things. Then they need to go out and get more money. This is the story of a peasant life. To a peasant, exchanging money for things is the purpose of capital.

A noble minded individual must satisfy the needs of survival like anyone else but they are most interested in transforming capital into forms of power, influence, and legitimacy.

Every aspect of our society indoctrinates us into a helpless, reactive, consumer frame of mind.
In short, we sit around like sheep waiting to purchase products and services that pop out of nowhere. Everything about our lifestyle and world view is impotent and reactive. The consumer is a peasant.

What can we accomplish if we stop limiting ourselves and begin to consider the true potential of money?

Let’s consider a 20 dollar bill. Our first impulse is probably to think of things we could buy with it. This is the consumer mind in action.

The noble sees the 20 dollars as a measure of force. Though a modest amount of capital, it is still quite powerful if used judiciously.
Think of it: you can have another person do whatever you want done for perhaps a couple of hours as if you had just cast a magic spell!
Now that is power! That is exerting influence rather than passively waiting for a coercer to tell you what to do.

As peasants, we are taught to exchange money for things without any thought of the power relationship involved in the purchase. We do not ask ourselves whether the purchase represents the net gain or loss of power. This is why we remain easily herded peasants.

A noble on the other isn’t just interested in perceiving money as power. They want also to use power efficiently and effectively.

Instead of “What can I buy with 20 dollars?” the noble asks “How best can I move the world with 20 dollars?”

This is the question I pose to myself and readers in the forum for this blog.

Noble and Peasant

Noble or peasant are about much more than economic status, they are separate cultures. They are opposing states of mind.

A peasant culture is primarily concerned with the basics of sleeping, eating, eliminating, and mating. There’s only survival and not survival. Life begins with the needs and cravings of the body. Higher purposes are unfathomable. The whim of the present moment rules all. Instant gratification is the highest satisfaction.

A peasant is a conformist, following the lead of the herd. They have little idea of the individual or sense of injustice. If they are ordered to work harder, they do it. If told to charge a trench bristling with machine gun nests, they do it.

The greatest defining traits of the peasant: reactivity and passivity. They are inert creatures waiting to be moved by other forces. Their station in life is to be manipulated and exploited by their overlords.

A noble culture acknowledges the basics of life but goes on to address the single biggest question: What meaning can life have against death? Maybe it can’t but to honestly consider this question forces us to assess the value of our time alive and figure out which things are most important. Indeed, survival itself cannot be most important if we must soon die anyway. Thus questions of purpose define the life one of Subtle and noble mind.

To a noble, instant gratification quickly becomes routine and even onerous. A balance that includes even a measure of asceticism and austerity seems like self torture to the peasant. But in truth, the right amount of deferral before gratification yields the greatest rewards.

A noble is willing to cooperate with a collective, but only if it is the right collective body. And only so long as cooperation does not mean mindless conformity and dependence does not mean enslavement.

A noble minded person might not be wealthy, but lives as if wealthy, seeking a lifestyle low in stress and abundant in time. The noble sees time as the single most important resource and perceives its possession as a necessity rather than an indulgence. Work is demeaning if it means arbitrary subordination to bosses. Passive sources of wealth are much more valuable than a job.

The peasant even when wealthy chooses to live like a peasant, in a pressure cooker of a life following people’s orders and slaving away as many hours as possible. Labor is the source of identity and subordination to authority part of every aspect of life. Passive sources of wealth are almost beyond comprehension. No amount of them creates a place in society like a job does.

The Critic’s Responsibility

This blog is preceded by 6 Heretic’s way, Kingdom of Introversion, and other projects to be found at my central web page.
All are meant to challenge and question the default modes of thought that define our collective reality.

It is tempting for any critic to remain forever in a mode of criticism.  To have that thrill of being on the offensive against a sleepy, seemingly immovable incumbent force.

Such a person runs the risk of becoming the shallow sort of protester.  The sort of rebel defined by rebellion, quickly destroyed by a glimmer of success.
To the fashionable person of protest, success is selling out, loss of a trendy platform that sets them apart from everyone else.

Surely it ought to be another way around.  Surely a better system or way of thought ought to inevitably replace the old order as surely as factories replaced cottage industry.   Surely a better model triumphs by definition.

As I see it, criticism comes with responsibility. The honest critic must know what they want to build in place of what they tear down.

My Purpose Here:  I hope to set out to take the first steps to transforming nebulous ideas into tangible form.
I want to discover if I can be an honest critic.
It is reconstruction that requires true imagination.   I’m getting tired of tearing things down. Now that I have done my share of refuting the dominant values, I can now concentrate on affirming the values that I hold close.  I look forward to the first plans for reconstruction.