You think those in power value you? Think again

It’s funny how people will say they believe one thing, then react far differently when tested by reality. Take, for example, that cliché we’re taught in school: “There are no stupid questions.”

That’s what teachers would have you believe... until you ask a question that they think really is stupid. Then, they’ll say you’re wasting the class’s time. Or the class itself will break out in laughter, mocking you.

You quickly learn to feel guilty for asking, and to feel stupid yourself for believing them when they told you “there are no stupid questions.”

So, you stop asking questions in class.

Maybe you stop asking questions at all, and let them indoctrinate you — which is, in some cases, what they really wanted to do in the first place. In so many cases, the invitation to ask questions was never sincere. It was merely meant to give you the illusion of power, of value, but as long as the questions you asked were within the narrow parameters they’d set.

And as long as you didn’t ask questions to which they didn’t know the answer. That was the ultimate sin. Then they’d either pretend to know, or accuse you of being wrong (even though you knew better). Or maybe, as in this scene from Finding Forrester, they’d ridicule you for having the audacity to know something they didn’t. And saying so.

Scenes like this don’t just happen in classrooms. They play out in society all the time. One mistake, and you’re “canceled” by the left or “fired” by the Trumpists. It’s really no different. They both want to believe the worst in you, and they both want you to sit down and shut up for fear you’ll rock the boat with some kind of original thought that might, just might, help solve a problem they’re unable or unwilling to even address.

Inside the box

Those in power say they want you to “think outside the box.” But that’s a load of malarkey, too, as much a bait-and-switch game as “there are no stupid questions.” Because those who think outside the box, by definition, are challenging the confines set up to contain dangerous ideas. Ideas that threaten the status quo, and those who have profited from it.

Here’s the cold, hard truth: No one in power really wants you to think outside the box... unless they can steal your idea and claim credit (and profit) for it themselves. Black musicians thought outside the box and invented rock ’n’ roll. White producers and record labels got the publishing rights, and the profits, while passing the music along to white cover artists like Elvis and Pat Boone who made a mint off it.

Some people fight the system. Many more collapse under the weight of it, some believing that their talent alone will be enough to earn them a place at the table. Fat chance of that. They either quickly become disabused of the notion, or they try harder, banging their head against the proverbial wall until their skulls cave in.

“I need to try harder.”

“I must not be good enough.”

They think there’s something wrong with them, so they become perfectionists, hoping to create an opportunity by force of will, by not making any mistakes.

When that opportunity doesn’t come, they have two choices: guilt or blame. When it comes right down to it, they’re both the same thing. Guilt is just blame directed inward. It’s built into the human psyche for one reason and one reason alone: It signals a need to change behavior, in order to achieve different and (presumably) better results.

Scarlet letter

But what happens if you get better, and the results stay the same?

What if society tells you there’s nothing you can do to make yourself better, because you’re inherently flawed thanks to your skin color or sexual orientation or gender or because you were too stupid to succeed by gaming the system the way they did? Too lazy to hold a job. Too worthless to be born into money. Or because you made one stupid mistake. Thirty years ago.

Hey, it’s scarlet letter time! Oh, he smoked a joint in college. She cussed at someone online. You’ll never live it down, because they’ll never let you forget it. They think it’s your entire identity, and you can’t help but wonder if they’re right.

The guilt/blame doesn’t go away. It just stays there, burning itself into your soul until it becomes a part of you, circulating through your being like some endemic toxin. You want to get rid of it, but it’s got nowhere to go. It just goes around and around in your consciousness, touching and changing the core of your being until you’ve got no alternative but to vomit the bitterness of it all out onto the world at large.

Then they blame you for that, too.

Wannabe syndrome

Another falsehood: “We want you to succeed.”

No, they don’t. Well, maybe succeed enough so they can make some money off you, but certainly not succeed enough to challenge their authority. Their profit stream. Their supremacy. They want you to know your place, and not to question that place. They only want you to question yourself, to think you’re less than worthy, so you’ll stay under their thumb, under their control.

And they want you to worship them in the vain hope that you can someday become like them. Pseudo-royalty one-percenters, Instagram influencers, celebrity chefs, and reality-show centers of attention. You can’t condemn them because to do so would be to condemn your potential, wannabe self.

But do you really wanna be that? Do you really wanna be them?

Or do you just want to have some of the advantages they do? Do you just want life to be a little bit fair? Well, forget about it, because the saying that “life ain’t fair” doesn’t go far enough. Life is, by definition, unfair. The good die young. Nice guys finish last. Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. And people win by putting their fellow human beings in boxes, cages, whether it’s at the border or in their own minds.

Outcasts

Those who build those boxes, who won’t brook being questioned, come in myriad shapes and sizes. They may call themselves Republicans. Or Democrats. They may have created Amazon. Or Facebook. Or Instagram. The may run a fan club. Champion a cause. Oversee a church, mosque, or synagogue. These are boxes they’ve designed to contain you, to keep you from asking questions.

But they’ll ask you... for three things: your money, your identity, and your loyalty. They’ll pretend to listen to you until you ask a question they can’t answer, or one that threatens their authority or their imagined omniscience.

Then they’ll question your identity. You’re not really one of them, so you’re somehow inferior. You’ll be labeled a RINO or an apostate; an imposter or a poser; you’ll be put in “Facebook jail” or kicked out of the “in crowd.” Because there’s something wrong with you. Because you dared to question. To think outside the box. To have your own unique identity.

They love to tell you that one, too: that every human being is special, endowed with unique gifts and talents; that we all have something to contribute.

All of that is true.

But they don’t really believe it, because the only things they really want you to contribute are your money, your fealty, and your hard work in support of what they believe. Anything else is a threat. Uniqueness is the nemesis of conformity.

Stoning prophets

Jesus said it well: “I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.”

This is how people who question the status quo are treated, sometimes just by daring to be themselves. This is the true fate of those who think outside the box. And when all the inspiration and insight that birthed their now-vanquished hopes has transformed itself into pent-up guilt and loathing, when their song of hope has become a fierce lament, they find themselves condemned as villains and malcontents. They are told they don’t belong, and that they never did.

And this last thing may be true. Perhaps blissfully so.

The pity for those like us is that our questions will go unanswered, the box will be fortified, and the windows on the world outside will be boarded up and blacked out, just like in a Vegas gambling house.

Don’t ask questions. Know your place.

This is their casino. You’re being played. And the house always wins.