The Entire Sense of American Identity Just Got Gut-Punched

Long notorious for having the reputation of working “harder” but not smarter, Americans are inoculated (no vaccine pun intended) from an early age to believe in the Cult of Work. That the best and only thing you can do to lend your life meaning and purpose is to work it away, never imagining that such an animus could be stripped from you in a climate that has forever shouted, “Produce! Produce! Produce!” in between “Consume! Consume! Consume!” And only the former solely so that Americans could have the financial means to engage in the latter. Pulling the curtain back to reveal that there isn’t much else behind American “purpose” has proven a stark reality for the millions currently “trapped” at home (though they don’t yet know the extent of how much more real that term could become). Slapped with the revelation of what pure existence really is, many Americans are going to feel, let’s just say it, icky. As though the void inside themselves has been exposed and there’s not even the distraction of “making money” or fake friends there to mitigate it. 

Of course, there’s always Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Hulu, et. al. to remind one to keep worshipping the doctrine with various films and TV shows “subtly” touting capitalist propaganda that will, at least for the moment, keep the acolytes’ faith in the “system” up by reminding them of how it looks (and can look again, if we all just work together to remake the same shitty setup!) twenty-four hours a day on a Fahrenheit 451-inspired “parlor wall” format. Or rather, what it once looked like before the slightest catastrophe knocked down the house of cards that was always begging to be blown over. But it was something the Americans never could have seen coming–for you can’t see that which you don’t want to, especially if it’s an unstoppable force destined to prevent one from working. To close all nonessential businesses (even if office workers are given the continued faux sense of motivation to go on with the placating “work from home” encouragement). This term, as well, has likely affected the American worker’s self-esteem.

To be so swiftly labeled as a nonessential entity surely must drive home the previously unrealized point that the vast majority of work is nonessential. It’s all designed to keep the masses busy as they ignore the larger reality about existence: it means fuck-all. We’re all out here floating in the ether and work is the one thing, for most Americans, that keeps them tethered to the capitalist mantra that if you work hard (i.e. all the time), you can get ahead. Getting ahead means more money and more money equals the purchasing power to buy more shit that distracts from and dilutes the fact that life on Earth is just a cosmic glitch. It can be obliterated as quickly as most employees can be deemed “nonessential.” Yet still they cling. Still they get upset, clamoring to tear open the doors and keep working through a very blatant form of apocalypse. It’s all they’ve even known, after all. Being alone with one’s feelings and thoughts–or worse, one’s family–is far worse than the torture of frivolous work. 

In cases of a more immediate end of the world scenario (as presented via the asteroid wipeout in 2012’s Seeking A Friend for the End of the World), there are those people that would still go to work every day right until the end if they could. Because that’s how much monotonous and meaningless tasks signify to people who have never been able to deprogram from the societal message (most especially in the U.S.) that your entire worth hinges on how many hours you put in at the place that pays you. The closest the U.S. has ever gotten to a so-called European model in its approach to not brainwashing its citizens to believe work is life came in the form of certain tech companies touting a “work-life balance” to lend the illusion that all work in America is not a cult. But oh, it is. And oh, how the cult members are feeling abandoned right now. 

Sure, work is also the means to the end that is survival–paying for shit at a basic and then extraneous level. Yet it’s so much more than that to the average American. The one who doesn’t know how to take the time to appreciate, let’s just say it, real art (because art remains the only raison d’être for those who were already coping through the meaninglessness of life before coronavirus happened). The one who sees “real” art as going viral on TikTok. And then suddenly putting together that using the virus for virality might just be their best hope right now to find renewed purpose again.

Luckily, the future generation won’t have to worry about feeling this way; they will have already been injected with a different “ambition”–to sit there silently drooling in complacency without causing a stir…just like Mildred in Fahrenheit 451. So yes, goodnight not so sweet workhorse princes. This is the final nail in the coffin of Americans pretending that work has any value. For now, you must learn to find something else within yourself that lends a vague sensation of having a “reason to exist.” Before the complete transition to “sitting in drone-like reverence in front of the screen” idiocracy takes place and any carryovers from a previous generation are made redundant.