For a few months now, I’ve been harboring a very odd feeling. Somehow, in a way that I struggled to define, life in America in 2023 seemed more unstable, more fear-infected, of lower quality than life in Communist Czechoslovakia in the late 1960’s. It seemed like a preposterous notion and I kept trying to dismiss it. How could it possibly be? East Europeans between 1945 -1989 had almost no access to the outside world. We watched tiny black and white TV’s while Americans had a color set in every room. Car ownership was considered the height of luxury and if we *did* own a car, it was a black smoke-belching Wartburg or a shoddily constructed Skoda. There was no selection of anything: from clothing to shoes to news. One kind of sweater, one type of shoe, one channel of “news”. Fair enough, I’m slightly exaggerating here. We had TWO kinds of sweaters and TWO types of shoes.
Americans and western Europeans suffered no such scarcity. Not just that: they were free to voice their opinions and travel the world. Generally speaking, people in the West - the magical, colorful, plentiful West of our dreams - believed that their politicians and media were well-meaning and truthful.
Yet, as I observe American life today, with all its sleek toys, slick politicians and slack media (forgive the triple alliteration fun, sometimes I can’t help myself), I find to my amazement that not only was our spiritual life deeper under Communism, societal cohesion was much tighter. Here is why: under Communism the regime lied all the time, trying to convince us that socialism was wonderful, that our products were superior and our people happier than in the decadent West. Citizens also lied all the time: in order to construct a semblance of a “normal” life, they needed to snake their way through the labyrinth of Communist demands and edicts. So, yes, we all lied but 99% of the population was clear-eyed about the lies. The 1% may have been clear-eyed too, but the perks and advantages of highly positioned “firm believers” were too sweet to give up. Everyone knew the regime is one big tragic joke. To put it in 21st century jargon, we were all “red-pilled”. People made fun of the regime all the time: sometimes in subtle ways (little hints inserted into song lyrics, poems and theatrical performances), sometimes in a less subtle manner in the many taverns, pubs and bars that dotted the city…perhaps I should have mentioned that unlike shoes and sweaters, drinking holes were still plentiful. We all knew socialism was a sham. It was a big show put on to appease the “fraternal government” in Moscow. It served the 1% very well. But we knew that sooner or later it had to end. That knowledge made all of us members of “Team Reality”
That is not the case in America and the “free West” today. Our politicians and our media lie with the same relish the Communists lied. We have our own 1% that enjoys perks and advantages denied the ordinary citizen. And we, too, have a party line we’re expected to follow. Fortunately, there are no gulags yet, and no re-education camps, though we came perilously close in 2021 - especially in countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
And here is where my mind reels: unlike in Eastern Europe of the 1960’s, where hardly anyone turned on the radio or the TV set for anything but hockey and soccer and where people only read the sports pages of the commie rags, in the “free west” more than half the population DOES believe the party line. This causes a moral rot perhaps greater than that of the by-gone Commies. We all live in a sort of hallucination, in which up is down and red is black. The war in Ukraine is being fought to “save democracy”. Inflation is “transitory”. The shots “have saved millions of lives”. Censorship of “wrongthink” is a good idea, yet Trump is a “threat to democracy”. We must fight “climate change” by flying less, driving less, eating less while Bill Gates fights “climate change” by lecturing fellow billionaires in Davos, having arrived there on his monster gas guzzling private jet. We must curb our fundamental desire to have children to “save the planet”. It’s all patent nonsense, not to mention a dangerous ideology. All lies. Yet, most seem happy to go on believing. “Credo ergo sum”
No gulags yet thankfully, but the majority of the populace living a delusion is bad enough.