As children growing up at the height of the cold war, we thought a lot about how lucky we were to be living in a free country. The second world war was only as distant from our parents then, as the 9–11 disaster is from us now, so we were constantly reminded to be grateful for the blessings of freedom. But even in the midst of our unquestioning gratitude, there was a small, mental discomfort. When it came right down to it, we couldn’t imagine, on a practical level, what it would be like to live in a not-free country. We were taught to pity the benighted souls trapped in the eternal shadow of the iron curtain, but the child’s imagination couldn’t really understand what that meant. The practicalities of not-freedom were puzzling. Did it involve locks? ropes? chain link fences? Eventually, in that serious way that boys have when they discuss worldly topics, we pictured an “armed guard on every corner, from whom you had to ask permission every time you wanted to do anything, including going to the bathroom.” For some reason I always imagined the guard wearing a Nazi uniform, with the stylish helmet, long winter coat and rifle, always standing at sullen attention, ready to shoot anyone who smiled, or broke the rules. Yes, we were sure grateful not to live in that country. But still, on a more granular level, how would they know what we were up to, all the time?
As we got a little older, we realized it was more complicated. The kids behind the Iron Curtain, were subject to brain washing, propaganda, and other coercive psychological tactics. So effective were these methods of social control, there was no need for the armed guards. We were grateful not to be subject to propaganda, while at the same time we were taking in comprehensive media campaigns to promote the use of seatbelts, to dissuade people from smoking, and to prevent forest fires.
Then came the student unrest of the late 1960s. Our minds were blown when we realized that we too were being brainwashed, by capitalism itself! The government, the media and the entire corporate economy were colluding to make us into conventional, materialistic, grey-flannel-suit-wearing, suburb-dwelling automata, and the only way to be free was to stick it to “the man.” Which we did. But unfortunately, to our great chagrin, we discovered that “the man” couldn’t have cared less. In fact, “the man” took advantage of our outraged distraction to appropriate most of what remained of our postwar prosperity. All of a sudden it took two wage earners to afford a single home. In an increasingly scarce economy, fear of unemployment caused people to take on life-long debt to spend four extra years in school. Fear of mortality caused people to pay unaffordable premiums for health insurance that covered nothing. And we had to start pumping our own gas. Yes, we had stuck it to the man alright, and as our quality of life steadily deteriorated, the economy boomed! Then busted, then boomed and busted again and again. We followed the rise and fall of the Stockmarket as if it had some bearing on our lives, happy during the bull runs, sad during the recessions. This was, after all, the great blessing of freedom, which was somehow mixed up with capitalism in a weird way that was never really explained.
When at last the Berlin Wall fell, signaling the triumph of freedom, we all rejoiced. It was the end of communism, except…for China, which was still governed by the communists, but no one ever talks about that. Having defeated the Soviet Union and finding a way to remain in denial about China, freedom was truly ringing.
Until a handful of religious fanatics with boxcutters managed to crash a plane into the world trade center. The United States Government led by George W. Bush, promptly met the terrorists’ demands by withdrawing US troops from the holy land of Saudi Arabia, and then proceeded to embark on the biggest military geopolitical blunder since Napoleon marched on Moscow. The “battle of Iraq” was the first step in the Global War on Terror, which was being fought by us against the “evil doers” who “hated freedom.”
The irony was not lost on those of us who observed that as we fought the enemies of freedom abroad, we gave up a lot of our freedoms at home. In fact, in order to prevent another terrorist “attack” (remember, it was a handful of guys with boxcutters) we agreed to let the government read all our emails, listen in on our phone calls, create an off-the-books, extra-judicial penal system for people guilty of having their names on a list, that included torture, imprisonment and drone strikes, even on American citizens. We also agreed that armed, uniformed guards should X-ray our bags, check our papers and physically “pat us down” upon entry to schools, offices, airports and government buildings. Yes, it seems that the free world had adopted a Soviet style security apparatus of its own, not unlike the one I had imagined as a child. But at least the irony was not lost. Like the cynical Russian intellectuals, we had our own dissidents, journalists, late night comics, our own version of samizdat culture, a smirking peanut gallery of dissenters. We went about our business thinking there’s no truth in the news and no news in the truth. Some of us, in threadbare sweaters, were happy to live, euphemistically speaking, like “graduate students” that is, in diminished material circumstances, provided we had the thin gruel of irony to sustain ourselves.
It took a global pandemic to finally deprive us of even that cold comfort. If 9–11 caused us to adopt a Soviet life style, the pandemic has brought our culture closer to that of the People’s Republic of China, or even North Korea. There is no dissent. I have personally spent the last year in a government-mandated lockdown, realizing that I am not an essential worker. The quarantine has re-educated me to realize that my entire career has been meaningless, and I might just as well stay home, bake sourdough bread and let the government take care of me. The pandemic has made true believers of us all. Pfizer is saving lives, Facebook is keeping us connected, Andrew Cuomo is keeping us safe, and Dr. Fauci is our dear leader. He and the scientists know what’s best for us all. And we love him for that. I know I do. Don’t you?
Remember to get your vaccine, it’s safe, effective and it’s the best way to get us back to normal.