Ship Of Fools

Using all the good people for your galley slaves
As your little boat struggles through the the warning waves
But you will pay, you will pay tomorrow
Save me, save me from tomorrow
I don't want to sail with this ship of fools
-World Party

George Pontmercy is a character from the novel Les Miserables. He was a colonel in Napolean’s army and attained the title of Baron. Unfortunately for him, by the time of the events of the book, he is bereft of all the titles and glory once bestowed upon him.

This happens. When a given regime is removed, most of those who attained stature or admiration in that regime lose everything. One day you’re a celebrated thinker, the next your name is slandered in the establishment media by those whose ideals are in line with the existing power.

Nobody wants to give up all the prestige they have acquired through their long efforts. The truth, the sad truth, is that most of those who attain a degree of power and prestige do so not by an arduous search for truth or a desire to serve others, but by being of use to existing power structures. Not all do so consciously, and not all malignantly. Nevertheless, we tend to fall into the easiest paths forwards simply because they are easy. We seldom seek to question if they are the morally purest routes. In making our way in the world we just seem to believe that those who blazed the trail before us blazed the best trail and that we only need follow them to make a better world.

Of course, for most of us, we recognize at some point how greasy the trail is becoming. The further we go in our pursuit of self-interest the more we realize the compromises that need to be made. This is not to say that those who reach the top do not make tremendous personal sacrifices, working long hours and sacrificing their social lives and life's small pleasures. But everybody knows that the way forward on a career path can be accelerated by less than scrupulous means. Many of those at the top are at the top not merely because of hard work and talent alone but because of an egoic compulsion to reach the top by any means necessary.

Which is why those who reach the top will do anything in their power to insure they stay there. They realize how fragile is their grip on power.

To this end, they must ensure that the existing power structure to which they owe their position stays in place. The greasy things they did to get ahead were done to assist a corrupt system that would reward them for their services. Should that system be swept away, their service to it will be called out by whomever is now running the show, and all their faithful service, like Colonel Pontmercy’s, will mean less than nothing. Their sacrifices will be forgotten, their loyalty will be a subject of derision among whatever new elites take power.

What we are witnessing now is a turn of fortune for those in positions of power and those with a wide platform to influence the opinions of the masses. They are witnessing their Waterloo in the form of a pandemic, a reversal of fortune that will give rise to change and submerge all who supported the system that brought us to such a defining defeat.

They will not lightly step down from their positions in a system that gave them so much in the way of ego-enhancement. They will do all they can to persuade people aboard their sinking ship that they need to stay, because to do otherwise would require them to remove their captain’s hats.

Change is coming. Change has been coming, but you’ve most likely been kept in the dark about it because of those people with a voice and power who have no interest in letting you realize that it is coming, who are unable to admit to themselves that their elite status is about to be stripped from them.

We will not be able to convince our so-called leaders of that, though, until the deck is below the waterline. Nor will they be of any assistance whatsoever to the average passenger as this crisis and those that ensue are occurring. Their job has long ceased to be to care for the people aboard ship, but instead has been to keep an un-seaworthy vessel going through their rearranging of deck chairs and upbeat spin. When the change has become so obvious that even they realize its inevitability, they will scramble to find new positions with whatever new vessel will come next. Some of them will prove useful to serve the transition from the old to the new, but the greater part of them will be too discredited to play any part in whatever succeeds the system that has led us to this point.

Here's what we need to be aware of: big change is inevitably coming, those who were part of the old (failed system) will do everything they can to prevent that change from taking place or you from recognizing it, and by the time they admit it you will have already been crushed by the change rather than playing an active part in making that change something better, not worse, than what we now have.

It is the goal of those who see the change on the horizon (it’s become exponentially easier as the result of the corona outbreak) to alert you to the fact that all those in power are completely useless in reacting to it. It is our goal to point out how utterly corrupt they are and how they belong to an old vessel that is no longer able to weather this or any other storm. It is our goal to provide guidance in the times to come. Like the crew on a sinking ship, we must remind people not to panic but to work together in an orderly fashion. The worst possible thing people can do in a crisis is to go their own ways and abandon others in their pursuit of self-preservation.

We will require clearheaded thinkers willing to adapt to new situations rather than those locked into old paradigms that no longer fit the current reality. We will need leaders who are willing to lead by example and remind people of the better aspects of human nature. And we will need a fair amount of heroes, who have a greater love of humanity than they do their own self-interests. And despite what those who sit high in the current system have drilled into our heads, there is a certain amount of rationalism, independence, and heroism in each of us.

Those who were part of the system that led us to the catastrophe must be swept away. They can never be anything other than part of the problem, will never be part of the solution. They will not go lightly, will cling stubbornly to power and prestige the way an old nobleman clings to claims of royalty and legitimacy. The way a drowning man clutches to whatever wreckage is within reach.

The contrast must be made clear for those looking for leadership and truth. There are people out there now who are demonstrating integrity when it does nothing to further their careers. There are those speaking truth when all it gets them is derision from those who hold power. There are those demonstrating leadership skills in an era that no longer knows what that looks like.

Seek them out, if you want to make it off the sinking ship.

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