Don't waste your time reading this… Really, don't. Ben Norton
In the “coming-of-age” stories of most middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual, overeducated, white males, given the dearth of, you know, actual significant life problems most have experienced (those very problems that are the bread and butter of the thrilling tale), death is most typically the particular variety of events appealed to. In the absence of hardship, one can easily construct “hardship” from the ubiquity and omnipotence of mortality—or, even better (read: worse), if one wishes to take the illustrious “indie” route, from the banalities of existence (i.e., the problem of having no problems). This man’s life has been. So. Hard. We must empathize, no, we must sympathize with, pity, him. For this is the attention he desires; this is what the commercial art in a commercial society in a commercial culture tells him he must do: He must “share his feelings” (as if we care; as if they are important); he must “express himself” (as if the capitalist, patriarchal, heteronormative, white supremacist commercial art in the capitalist, patriarchal, heteronormative, white supremacist commercial culture in the capitalist, patriarchal, heteronormative, white supremacist commercial society didn’t already do that enough). Maybe the young him wakes up one day and finds his goldfish upside down in its cage, er, fishbowl, and thus comes to a sudden realization of morality *tear drop*. Maybe the dog of the teenage him is, out of nowhere, hit by a car, and he comes to the realization that, not only are we mortal, transient, we may very well die unexpectedly tomorrow *TEAR DROP*. Maybe the grandfather of the young adult him passes away—because everyone does die, after all, and, again, in the absence of the genuinely arduous circumstances, and in the absence of, you know, any
degree of critical thinking, this shell of a “human being” must come to some breed of realization *MOTHERFUCKING TEAR DROP*. So, let us then analyze the journey… let us dissect his, nay, His, methods, his ways, his process. His journey, his methods, his ways, his process… to Enlightenm— scratch that, to Bourgeoisdom. He’ll help us find Bourgeoisdom, in Bourgeoisland, on Bourgeoisplanet, in the almighty Bourgeoisiverse (take a picture while it lasts—that’ll be… uh, that’ll cost whatever you can’t afford, though). Stories are predicated upon conflicts, he thought to himself. So… So… Sooooooooooo…
How can I find, construct, conflict?
And, in a typically bullshit highfalutin approach, the tale thus becomes a kind of metastory. I’m a philosopher, you see, and my life “conflicts” have been wholly insignificant, as they were situated within a life too privileged to even merit mentioning. Ergo, read me wax poetic, read me philosophize (I’m a philosopher, you see): I’ll show the world to you, I’ll open your mind. I’m.
That. Good.
He chooses an event in his life that depicts the brutal, vehement, seemingly perpetual hardship that crushes his feeble Atlassian™ body under the Brobdingnagian onus that is 21stcentury suburban America. Ben Norton was hit by a car, while riding his bike, twice… but he got hospital care in both instances. And, in the former case, when the avaricious, miserly, infinitely immoral health“care” industry billed him $22,000 for being in the hospital for 27 hours—during most of which he was simply lying asleep, alone in his room—a mixture of his father’s corporate “health” “insurance” (which of course only agreed to pay half—we should call corporate “health” “insurance” “half health insurance,” ‘cus they virtually never pay more than half… after you pay your deductible, of course) and ex-military health insurance—which agreed to pay the rest. If he had been less economically privileged, if his father didn’t have two different health insurances—if his father hadn’t previously been in the military, killing Muslim kids! (we’ll get to that in a moment)—he would have been, excuse my language, up shit creek without a paddle. He would still be paying incremental payments (at high-interest, of course, because private industry— with an administrative overhead over fives time as high as the government’s, which is already too bureaucratic—has gotta stay “PRODUCTIVE”!!!). Prime subject for an autobiographical story, no? Boy gets hit by car while on bike; boy is forced to go to the hospital (true: he didn’t even want to go… but he did black out and have a
concussion, so he couldn’t really tell the EMT’s that) realizes (he already realized, but this makes it a better story) the System is rigged for the wealthy. But, again, it falls flat on its face when we see that, in the end, in the tension-ridden, highintensity climax… Ben, like a large U.S. corporation, gets bailed out: “Too Big to Fail.”
No surprise.
What it comes down to, in the end—spoiler alert here—is, in most “coming-of-age” stories, characters don’t actually “come of age.” We must ask ourselves: What the hell does “coming of age” even mean? You’ve lived a certain number of years on this planet; ergo you have now “come of age”? What number of years exactly? That, of course, depends on the culture in which one is situated—and is thus arbitrary (not meaningless, but arbitrary). A “coming-of-age” story means absolutely nothing if the character in it does not “come of age.” And, if one has finally actually “come of age,” how can one write about how one’s ridiculously insignificant problems—how late one was for class last week; what faux pas one made in the company of respected elites; man, how much one ate at that buffet (conversely: drank at that party) last night and, damn, how much one’s stomach hurt afterward!; some—when the privilege to commit this insignificant errors is predicated upon the slaughter of children across the planet.
You see, from 2004 to the end of 2012, Ben’s government has murdered 3,105 people (including almost 200 children) from drones in Pakistan alone. Wait, let’s reframe that: from 2008 to 2012, 2921 Pakistanis have been murdered by U.S. predator drones. Approximately 98.5% of these are innocent civilians—bystanders guilty only of being born in the wrong part of the planet. That’s circa 2877 people, in five years (that’s ca. 1.5 people a day, btw), from just drones (that is to say, this isn’t even accounting for you know, human-operated planes dropping bombs; or soldiers dropping bombs and shooting bullets; or violent, far-right, oppressive, U.S.-backed militia butchering civilians). The CIA targets rescuers (of previous attacks)… and funerals. Yes, you heard that, the fucking CIA targets fucking FUNERALS of past fucking drone victims. Would this make a good story? Of course it would. You can’t make villains like this up. (And, remember Twain: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.") Understanding this… THIS is “coming of age.”
COMING OF AGE.
COMING. OF. AGE. MOTHERFUCKER.
And, this is the point—after all the tripped-out, “experimental” poetic, braggadocio bullshit balderdash (oooh, an Eye-talian word… how exotic…)—this is the where the author begins his philosophizing on all the amusing anecdotes with an enthralling, invigorating in medias res. While his country murders innocent children, protecting his fucking “freedom” to fucking say fucking whatever the fuck he fucking wants.* Because, if his country didn’t kill all those innocent Muslim children, who would defend his right to say “fuck” so much?
After all, when one has no substance, one must make up for it with spectacle.
SPECTACLE.
(Ain’t “fuck” spectacular?????
?!?!?!?!?!)
FREEDOM
*Within boundaries, of course. This isn’t anarchy, after all.
FOR SPECTACLE
™
But, really, in the end, who cares? Really? I thought the goal was for this not to end up some kind of sarcastic indie approach that ultimately ends up being a futile exercise in narcissistic wankery?
And, wait, where’s the
LOVE?????
?!?!?!?!?!
You can’t have a
Coming
Of Age
Story without
LOOOOOOOOOOVE!!!!!
!?!?!?!?!?
(Maybe if he were breaking up with his boyfriend, if he could reflect on a patriarchal, heterosexist, heteronormative society, perhaps this “coming-of-age” story would be much more interesting… But, don’t forget, This mo’fo’ is
-
Middle-class ☑ (check)
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Cisgender ☑ (check)
-
Heterosexual
☑ (check)
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Over-educated, ☑ (check)
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White ☑ (check)
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Male ☑ (check)
And it is ultimately uniqueness upon which the artist feasts, and not uniformity.
And it hardship that narratives require, not comfort, not privilege.
But, in the end, it really doesn’t matter…
And, no, not in the bourgeois, Woody Allen (don’t get me wrong, I love him), “Well, we’re all going to die, so nothing ultimately matters” way—a privileged breed of anomie that is, in the end, nothing less than pathological. What I, he, whoever the fuck it is, really means is…
That absolute last thing this world needs right now is another middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual, over-educated, white dude writing about his “first world” problems. Children are dying. Their parents are dying.
Being killed. For natural resources.
And the planet, our planet (all of our planet) is going with them. For natural resources. (A (not-so) friendly reminder: Just 2°C left)
So don’t waste your time reading this… Really, don’t.
Middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual, over-educated, white male solidarity.
The author’s a prick. And he doesn’t mean that in an ironic, comedic, pseudo-self-disparaging-but-actually-narcissistic kind of way. And I don’t mean that in an ironic, comedic, pseudo-self-disparaging-but-actually-narcissistic kind of way.
Really, don’t.