Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
Everyone seems angry about something these days, some injustice, some cause, some attempt to rectify some evil. I think the slight problem is everyone seems to be fighting a different fight. This is because there are so many aspects of living at the moment that seem wrong or illicit our anger & attention and no-one can seem to agree on what is most important. What order should we be dealing with all these problems? What deserves our anger and our time the most? What should be top of the shit list? Every five minutes you see something in your feed demanding outrage and subsequent action. Sign this, support this, get riled up…you can become instantly paralysed trying to work out the most worthy cause.
So much of what we choose to rally against is to with what we feel is a direct violation against us. Or Identity Politics as its currently known. What you are, where you’re from, what you or those you know might be suffering with will inevitably dictate what ‘war’ you sign up for. Every marginalised group seems to be fighting for their own corner but, regardless of the justification & necessity of your chosen battle you are essentially just looking out for yourself and your ‘in’ group. This isn’t a dig, this is just an observation as to how it is difficult for humans to see far beyond ourselves and our immediate world. We are hardwired to look out for number one and the communities we are apart of. That is how we survive.
But in relation to the above graffitied statement, what if our focus as individuals rather than as a group collective is what is really holding us back from progress? Maybe the ants have it right. And by the way I not entirely sure what the above statement on the wall actually means. Doesn’t really make a whole lotta sense to me but someone must have felt it very strongly to graffiti it in giant letters under a bridge in Willesden Green. The individual is the product of power? What power? I think it is maybe implying that there is power in being an individual and if that means not accepting everything you are told at face value and working things out for yourself rather than just being a mindless automaton who just does and says what they are told then I would agree, there is power being an individual but ultimately there is greater power in the collective.
If we were less concerned with how we as individuals were doing in our society rather than how well that society is doing as a whole then we would then at least all be working to the same goal and not be so fragmented, fighting our own corners, tugging in different directions.We know all too well from recent experience in this country how this approach and attitude pulls populations apart rather then bring them together. Welcome to The Ununited Kingdom. Nuff said.
Maybe what the human race really needs is, as they say, a common enemy. So the solution is for aliens to come and invade us, more now than ever. Only that could possibly bring everyone together and make us understand we are all part of the same ‘in’ group. Yes, we will have to massacre lots of little green men from outer space but you can’t make an omelette without breaking some aliens, everyone knows that.