Empty’s Theme Park: Reflections On The Vancouver Riot

“Tell me will I dream?
And tell me will it be serene?
Or tell me will I stay
With my feet in exactly the same place?”
- Matthew Good, Empty’s Theme Park

I held off commenting directly on the Vancouver riots for some time, as I needed to formulate my thoughts. I didn’t want to succumb to the obvious sense of disgust and hatred towards these destructive hooligans, without reflecting on the type of society that pushes these acts to occur.

After all, we don’t live in a vacuum. Drunk, malicious hockey fans don’t wander out of the forest, before disappearing into the night. While many of them did not live directly in the city of Vancouver, they certainly came from the same culture.

An editorial in the Georgia Strait sums it up perfectly:

We can’t just blame a few “bad apples.” This riot didn’t happen on its own. Society as a whole ensured that it was the only outcome, starting with the assumption that our over-amped if not war-like passion for something as inconsequential as a hockey game is appropriate to begin with, let alone officially sanctioned. But hey, it’s a fucking goldmine for advertisers and a hell of a vacuum to suck in a growing population of bored, distracted, disassociated, and quietly despairing Lower Mainlanders marinated in the hegemony of cheap sensation, and governed by institutions hostile to art, truth, and beauty. It’s a problem that, as always, starts at the very top.

Reading this piece I was struck by how it reminded me of Tyler Durden’s devastating critique of consumerist society, in the film Fight Club:

“We’re the middle children of history…. no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives.” – Tyler Durden, Fight Club

The day after the riots, a photo comparing the various “reasons for rioting” began circulating the web. It compared the social unrest in Egypt, fueled by a populace fed up with dictatorship, against the senseless violence of largely suburban kids, protesting…what? The loss of the Stanely Cup? A trigger but not the reason.

The reality is a truth nobody wants to answer. That’s because we have yet to face up to the inherent emptiness of our consumerist society. And that makes us stricken with a hole a younger generation struggles to fill.

“People increasingly see themselves as brands,” says a post-riot discussion in the National Post.

“They see themselves not as having inherent value (or values) but as a provisional entity the value of which is determined in the same ecology of popularity and renown that brands themselves exist. They see themselves, in other words, as having value in the same unstable and purely representational way as a sneaker or a handbag.

The Strait piece continues:

Why are there so many hungry souls out there, ready and willing to bring chaos down on the so-called most livable city on the planet? In reality, matters have only gotten much worse politically and economically since 1994, and Generation Y has been delivered into a beyond-callous world facing a perfect storm of crises. They know it.

What does the future look like for the average 20 year old? It’s a depressing, empty place where they can’t get decent-paying (let alone secure) jobs or ever have a hope of owning property. Can you imagine how much more fearful and angry they would be if they fully comprehended the seriousness of peak oil?

The anger that motivates an Egyptian youth to hurl a brick at an approaching tank is the same that guides the hand of the teenager smashing a window of the Hudson’s Bay.

“The anger of the teenager is the indignation of the dispossessed,” writes author Charles Eisenstein in The Great Robbery.

“The Great Robbery is first and foremost the pillage of their childhood. Childhood is supposed to be a realm of exploration in which we discover our passions, our selves, our life purpose. What we get instead is enslavement to schedules and obligations. Bereft of the chance to explore our inner world, we grow up not truly knowing what we love or what we want to make of our lives.

While this does not excuse the post-game offenders, it does explain how “privileged children” living in a hyper-abundant consumerist society can seize the first excuse to flip a car and dance among the flames. They have almost no other outlets of release in an ailing society.

As Eisenstein believes, this youthful intuition, often channelled into misguided means, is no less true:

“The world is not supposed to be like this. Your intuitions of something more beautiful are valid. You are meant for an amazing, divine purpose. You are brilliant, possessed of unique gifts just waiting to be discovered. And—very important—anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Worse than lying, they are stealing from you.”

The Straight article agrees, but offers little solace:

Unfortunately, there’s no simple band-aid solution that will fix a sick society. The symptoms are clearly manifesting but, without facing up to the fact that there is an overarching problem, there is absolutely no chance for us to heal. But perhaps the first step towards solving this systemic problem is to acknowledge the fact that there is actually something wrong with us.

While I agree with the complexity of the challenges, I do not agree with the diagnosis: that there is something inherently wrong with us. Self-reflection can often lead to self-hatred – if you don’t go deep enough. But it will eventually lead to the clarity that lies beyond, and the courage to step into both beauty and pain, a necessary quality as we move into an uncertain future.

Because our generation’s great war is already calling us.

Look for Part II next week.