At the same time, the vagaries of capitalism inherently force most of us to forget, or at least not pay close attention to, just how truly spectacular and special it is. It’s here that, for Missy, the dichotomy and intersection she was speaking about comes fully into play. Because that sense of magic and wonder we all have innately as young children – looking in awe and marvelling at things that, as we get older, just become normal – begins to fade little by little, until it’s permanently lost.
“You shouldn’t have to lose it,” she says emphatically. “But the responsibilities that are put onto you make it very difficult to enjoy any moment, when it’s getting harder and harder to just survive. At the time that I graduated from college – which was over 10 years ago now – I was convinced for a while that surely people would recognise just how evil these systems were, they would see just how detrimental they were, and that by now we would be living something closer to what I think is the way the world should be.
“Unfortunately, it’s gone the opposite way, where we’ve gotten further away from any sort of peace or sensibility, or any system that doesn’t just grossly value profits over human life. It’s astounding to me that we are so firmly on the wrong track.”
She tells an anecdote about her time in college where, in a foreign policy class, students were asked to explain the Iraq war using one of the theories of political science they’d been taught about. Except that, for Missy, nothing they’d been taught made any sense to her as an explanation for the invasion. So she went to see her professor during office hours and said as much. It’s an experience she still thinks about a lot.
“I was like, ‘Look, I can’t do this paper. These theories are bullshit. I can’t write a 20-page paper on this. I don’t think that any of these explain why we’re there.’”
Her professor replied by asking Missy why she did think the U.S. forces were there. She was unambiguous in her response.
“Money, dude. Money, and resources, and for American imperialism to have a footing in the Middle East.”
The professor then informed Missy that there was a name for this particular stripe of political science theory: radicalism. He also, with a straight face, informed her that, “We don’t teach it in university.”
Looking back, Missy remains incensed by the conversation and what it meant.
“This was, like, 2006, and it was considered a radical belief to tie anything to capitalism. It’s insane,” she spits. “It just shows how well they thought of it all. They call it ‘radical’ because if something’s radical it becomes easier for the establishment to dismiss, because it’s seen as being fringe. But the fringe thing is the most logical interpretation of the events as they are actually unfolding.”