Writing For Money Vs Writing for Social Change

Most of what you read is just propaganda, the truth always challenges you

I had an individual leave me an oddly hostile comment this morning in which he accused me of “being in it for the money.” I thought I’d take a few minutes to address the idea.

It is true that some writers are “in it for the money,” but that phrase can mean a lot of different things. On the most basic level, anyone who does anything has to earn enough to pay for the basic necessities of life.

Writers who are only “in it for the money” generally don’t discuss social justice issues except to deny that they exist. There’s plenty of money out there to be a spokesperson for some immoral entity. There’s a shortage of money out there for people who want to speak on behalf of the impoverished and oppressed.

The reason for this should be fairly obvious. Oppressors have the funds at their disposal to hire a public relations team. The marginalized and the oppressed can’t afford to hire a public relations team because they barely have enough money to support themselves.

Part of the problem is that the general public goes through life in a perpetual zombie state. People don’t like to think. It’s too hard. They’d rather doom scroll their cell phones as they walk off a curb and straight into traffic.

Yet, it’s kind of stunning how much social programming is done by allowing the indifferent masses to make absurd assumptions. I guess nefarious forces have learned to capitalize on the basic thought patterns of people who are just barely conscious.

This low-energy state of thought is often called “common sense,” yet it’s stunning how often “common sense” leads people in the exactly wrong direction.

People accept the reality with which they’re presented. It’s hard to get one of the zombie walkers to pause and recognize we have the power to make our society better. The assumption that “this is just the way it is” is almost universally false.

Let me pause to say, “Yes, you clever ones, you can find exceptions the statement I just expressed above. Now apply that cleverness to discovering examples of what I might actually mean.”

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years contemplating what I want out of my life. Honestly, I am worried about the future. I’m not worried for myself as much as I am worried for my children.

I recently read a proposal to raise the retirement age for “people who are children today.”

It bothers me that the same society that likes to bleat about how everything it does is “for the children,” doesn’t even offer a whisper of objection to this awful idea.

No, dang it, I WANT my children to be able to retire! I don’t want them to have to work longer and harder to make up for the mistakes of the generations that came before. That’s unfair. Why isn’t anyone else mad about this?

That’s just one of the things that has come into my field of view lately. The march toward authoritarian fascism in the USA is a problem the whole world needs to stop and notice. 2022 had a record number of book challenges.

That’s terrifying!

We can’t stand by and be silent as radicalized political groups strip our school bookshelves of valuable reading material. What are they going to replace it with? Perhaps in four or five years the only textbooks available to our children will be AI produced propaganda (as opposed to the people produced propaganda they have today).

Sometimes I wonder what the rest of the world must think of the United States. This is a country with the largest military on the planet. In fact, our police force is so large that it would be the 3^rd largest military on the planet. We have the world’s highest incarceration rate. Yet we’re “the land of the free?”

Come on.

If we reallocated our resources so that the majority of the population wasn’t constantly living on the brink of desperation, perhaps we wouldn’t NEED that massive police force.

The way we do things now is STUPID!

The problem is that there’s not a lot of resources dedicated to bringing attention to these issues in the United States. We’re at the mercy of a propaganda mechanism.

I’m fearful of what might happen if the trends go unchecked. I think that every little voice that manages to call out authoritarian behavior is absolutely crucial.

One of the few things that gives me hope is that I believe the reason so many people passively zombie scroll through the news is because they’re subconsciously aware that everything they’re exposed to is a pack of lies. We have an involuntary response mechanism that is more alert to the truth than we might fully recognize.

All people have to do is see one thing they agree with and all of a sudden they’re jolted awake as if they’d just been injected with a shot of adrenaline.

So, it’s true to say that even people who write about social justice issues are “writing for the money.” They need to feed and clothe themselves just like anyone else. But they aren’t “writing for the money” in the sense that they expect to get rich. The ones doing that are the corrupt individuals on inescapable mainstream media outlets.

The rest of us are doing it for a larger purpose, and we need sponsorship in order to keep sounding the alarm. It is possible to support yourself writing. However, at some point, the general public has to sit up and become more involved in demanding a better product.

Stop doom scrolling the AI produced garbage that lulls you to sleep.

Find the writers that speak to your heart. Read them. Share them. Support them.

Life is too short to waste your time reading the AI produced propaganda of wealthy oppressors. You know all that nonsense is nothing but lies. Shake the sleep out of your eyes and live deliberately.