[dropcap style=”font-size:100px; color:#992211;”]F[/dropcap]ree market capitalism… is a pipe dream.
Why? Under capitalism the capital-holding elite will control the political elite and control the cultural mythos; thus creating, under any variation of capitalism, an unelected dictatorship of money. It is really that simple. Therefore, the inevitable trajectory of capitalism is fascism or elitist and authoritarian rule of one sort or another.
Moreover, any system where Money is the ruling deity — which is placed before all others in the pantheon — is a cult of death.
The capitalist order, on a collective basis, possesses the conscience-devoid, maniacal mindset of a exploitive psychopath – a worldview that sees all things as fodder for commodification. Capitalism is in the process of killing the oceans of the planet and casting the human race itself towards extinction. It comes down to this: paradigm shift or perish.
So what deities should be placed before the God of Money in the pantheon?
The God of Sorrow summons the Goddess of Beauty…bringing her numinous qualities into profound relief.
Yet: The angst-ridden mindset endemic to the capitalist era attempts to construct Walls against sorrow and by the act manages to only obstruct its view of Beauty.
Terrible Beauty. Merciless Beauty. Vanity-buffeting Beauty.
Devouring Beauty, wherein I forget my name… because Beauty is a Leviathan to which my will, my wishes, and the knowledge of existence, is brine passing through Beauty’s maw to her ego-dissolving belly.
Thus we are confronted with, torrents of Irretrievable Time, whereby all things are swept away and drowned in its inhuman tides, thus we are driven to erect Walls of Social Convention, constructed of the obdurate mortar of Fear, Ignorance, and state-sanctioned Brutality.
All Walls of the Mind, walls built in defence of the baffling motivations of the Other. Within the Citadels of the self-exiled Self, are garrisoned conscripted armies of reflexive Mistrust.
Within, the capitalist order, and reflected by its mode of mind, stands yet more Ramparts of Estrangement — a vast array of Walls forming a seemingly endless Labyrinth.
Yet — just beyond the barriers, Eternity is redolent with Redemption. Yes, the quality does exist and blooms as Heaven’s wild flowers in the fecund Heart. This is the genius at work in the composition of Existence: We can never touch nor possess veritable Beauty.
We can only reflect her qualities… lest we imprison her in Time and demean her with our crude designs of control. Although, our sorrow and laughter draws Beauty near to us, allowing us to contrast her deathless form with the nature of our bondage within mortal form.
When I gaze upon her, there are moments I am certain that the walls of the Labyrinth have crumbled before me. In this way, my tears, brought on by my powerlessness against inalterable circumstance, offer me the freedom of air and the grace and bounty of timeless love.
Beauty is the lodestar that can allow us to be guided in the direction of a new paradigm.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City.
Yet a bio amounts to dharma for dimwits: It defines a human being in the same manner and degree of veracity as a restaurant menu describes the various slabs of meat offered … commodified things that were once living beings.
