Abolish the Parasite Class
It’s hard to get the word out there these days. They’re arresting the most peaceful of protestors in the street, so that ups the stakes. Social media is a wall of white noise and everyone is so overwhelmed by the incessant content bombardment that it wears down the spirit of even the most caring people.
I had an early Sunday drive alone. About one hour in, enjoying a rare bit of headspace, I marvelled at the freshly spray-painted message on a motorway bridge:
ABOLISH THE PARASITE CLASS
Not only did I admire its aesthetic merits, but it landed. It got me thinking. It wasn’t one of 5,000 updates on a feed, and it towered overhead, urging consideration. You don’t hang 40 feet over speeding cars in the dark if you don’t mean it. That intent creates resonance. Resonance finds a way.
This uncompromising call to action followed a conversation I’d had with friends on Saturday afternoon at a pub in Manchester. I’ve spent nine years of my life living in that city, and I love the place, but the skyline is now riddled with buy-to-let only high rise totems of crony capitalism. You’re doing well if a pint of ale comes in under £7. Renting and buying property anywhere near the city gobbles up an unreasonable portion of anyone’s income and saddles them with dangerous levels of stress. On the surface, this is sold as progress. More nice bars, eateries, cafes, and entertainment experiences, glossy fronts where there used to be litter and pissy, dank loading bays and side streets. But this is pay-to-play, and so few of us are invited to the table.
Meanwhile in the medium-sized towns, particularly in the north, businesses shut down and move out too frequently to keep count. There’s a tangibly rotten collective psychology throughout, and the people don’t point the finger at the greedy elite, but only ever at their neighbours, at newcomers, and the most vulnerable. The ‘others’ who are fed to them via the media, bagged and washed, ready to eat scapegoats.
Even within particular regions there’s extremes. Quaint towns with middle-class money surround bigger, struggling, post-industrial working-class towns bereft of jobs and disposable income, decaying and increasingly overrun with empty shops.
This class divide was always here, but never so stark. Not in my lifetime.
So when this message over the motorway grabs me by the throat, I sigh and nod because it’s hard not to desire a revolution. A collapse. Something to jump-start the souls of those who cry for something kinder.
My days of sending myself into social-media-triggered negative thought spirals and cutting myself off from creativity and joy are gone. I’m largely offline, arranging calls, working hard to maintain a baseline of relative optimism so I can contribute to the fight via my work. The fight to elevate creativity’s role in our communities, so we can solve problems, not contract them like terminal sicknesses, as I attempt to get by in these anxious times.
It isn’t ignorance. It’s an acknowledgement of who rules these online platforms, and why that particular branch of rage was playing right into their hands, doing me so much more harm than good.
I won’t be abseiling down motorway bridges in the dead of night, but I’ll be operating in the physical world as much as I can, thinking differently about what rebellion means and might look like in today’s world. I’ll be telling stories, bringing people together through creativity, curiosity, and passion. Considering how it can be fun, additive to my overall flow and mood, helping me out if bed in the mornings, not making me want to stay in it.