Heart Reading … Day 47
Capitalism is Invisible Cannibalism
This doesn’t seem like the start of a typical Heart Reading. But this phrase, “capitalism is invisible cannibalism” wouldn’t leave me alone all day.
During my lunchtime salad that I ate mindfully I looked at the beautiful cloudy sky and tried unsuccessfully to come up with words to express the feelings it gave my heart. I also watched the stunning sunset with my daughter hours later; every time we looked up it captivated our senses anew.
The word majestic came to mind but then left me frustrated thinking about kingdoms and greedy territory grabs over thousands of years. Experiencing the English language as tepid, lukewarm, adequate—with words that don’t evoke quite enough sensation for my experience — may be a “me thing.” But it got me curious again about white culture, particularly with the scent of a steak (cow) being grilled by my neighbor.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had many animal meals throughout my life. In fact, the definition of peace and harmony for my parents could easily have been a Saturday night meal of shrimp cocktail, steak and baked potato, a side salad and two Manhattans each.
This takes me down another rabbit hole of understanding my white North American culture as assigning one’s authority to others in positions of power — news reporters, “anchor men” and the media as a whole, or bosses, or doctors, etc. And not questioning this authority, just striving to keep up with the Joneses was what, from my perspective, my parents understood to be their civic duty.
Isn’t this a form of cannibalism? The definition of cannibalism is “to consume another individual of the same species as food.” If white-minded people are all Jonesing for each other, vying after what each other has in a completely unsatisfying and never ending forms of competition, pitted against one another and figuratively eating each other’s energy in an attempt to sustain themselves, how can this facade of culture not be equated with cannibalism, if it can be called a culture?
I am indeed churning and fermenting (technically fomenting) on this notion; which could be one form of culture (like butter) if it weren’t a rant. Cultures evolve slowly, customs and traditions take time for one generation to convey to another. I’ve grasped at so very little of what might be construed as my culture. If white North American culture is so ambiguous and amorphous, blaze and basic, maybe it should be retired, laid to rest — before others’ cultures are harmed irreparably…
Now for the heart reading……
I’m singing the song from Day 7’s heart reading while holding my face in my hands. Breathing.
What emerges is a smile and a reminder of the Bhutanese model of Gross National Happiness. They don’t elect leaders, they elect qualified administrators. How revolutionary. This is a lovely notion to calm my heart and help me decide to not consume any news tomorrow.
