Lessons from comics: Rat Park

I should preface this by saying that even though I am not technically writing about it, I am having a hard time thinking about anything other than Eric Garner's homicide and the lack of an indictment. I'm not sure I have anything useful to say about it, but maybe this will relate.

I have written about Rat Park before, but I am still thinking about it:

http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/#page-1

The last line of the story is this:

"What if the difference between not being addicted and being addicted was the difference between seeing the world as your park and seeing the world as your cage."

I know that it is possible for people in similar situations to have different attitudes and perceptions. There are many variations. People with similarly poor economic situations can be blessed by good social networks, or be emotionally isolated. Genetics and upbringing can make a huge difference in terms of temperament and resilience. Of course I think about that. Those things can be factors.

When I first read Rat Park, I didn't think of it in terms of viewpoint like that anyway. I was thinking about physical environment as determined by economic status, but also by social planning. I was visualizing playgrounds and libraries versus pawn shops and boarded up buildings. That is also a very reasonable thing to think about.

Now I am also thinking about how authority figures treat you. I am looking at all of the different things black people get shot for, and all of the ways that society tries to justify it. Even if you are well-off, and even if you have good family support - well, maybe the world actually looks less like a cage and more like a death trap. It would at least appear as a hostile environment. That may not always result in addiction, but it's a rotten way to set up a world.

I know that there are drug and crime and race problems and they do not perfectly overlap, but I think I can tie this in to Monday and Tuesday's posts, and maybe there will be a point even if it is not the only possible point or even the most needed point.

Although we covered that the new Killjoys were not exactly heroes, there is something about them that is more sympathetic than Better Living Industries, and I think that comes from the power imbalance. They never do that much damage to BLI; how can they? It's too big. Maybe we all relate to forces you can't beat, and understand the desire to take them on. But then as they fight, they turn dark too. Maybe it's because they forgot what they were fighting for, but maybe the fighting methods are corrupting.

I see the misery inequality causes, but I also see that the structure stays in place because some people are happy enough to not be at the very bottom that they accept being near the bottom.

I can't accept it because people matter. Killing people is an awful thing. Hurting people is awful. Exploiting them for your own economic gain is awful, and yet all of those things get accepted.

Corporations find it very easy to decide that individuals don't matter much, because if you let the individuals matter it really cuts into profits. Governments accept certain losses of individuals because it keeps their power consolidated.

Individuals may accept it because it is easier that way, or again, because they aren't on the very bottom. If you are not miserable, and you can convince yourself that there are good reasons for the suffering of all the people who are miserable, then it's easy to feel like the system works. Not only does that perpetuate misery, but it keeps us from even trying to imagine how good things can be.

We need to care about each other, and we especially need to care about the people on the bottom rungs, because if we can get to a place where they are all right then it will follow that everyone else will be all right. I may never find a way of saying that convincingly or eloquently, but I'm not letting go of the hope.