Ladies and gentlemen, people, Romans!
We live in updated times.
Please discard any obsolete assumptions you may still carry about merit, decency, proportion, consequence, restraint, competence, shame, or reality. They are causing delays.
For your convenience, the revised definitions are listed below.
Greed is generosity with better public relations. Cruelty is kindness with a mission statement. Shamelessness is courage after a wardrobe change.
Disgusting is famous. Repulsive is desirable.
Ugly is beautiful once enough people are instructed to admire it. Violence becomes empathy when committed by the approved hands. Stupidity becomes intelligence when delivered with sufficient confidence and the correct vocabulary.
A criminal becomes a businessman once the paperwork improves.
A thief becomes a victim once the story is rewritten.
A debtor becomes “financially empowered” the moment the interest begins feeding on him.
A politician becomes a feudal lord with polling data.
If your rights are violated, please check whether possessing them has offended anyone more fashionable than you.
If you are poor, you have made unfortunate choices.
If you are rich, you have demonstrated admirable discipline.
If you are sick, you need patience. If you cannot afford treatment, you need even more patience.
Please do not confuse suffering with evidence. Modern systems prefer metrics.
Please also remember that language has improved considerably.
Surveillance is safety. Censorship is care. Propaganda is education.
Failure is inclusion.
Fraud is innovation.
And humiliation is character-building, provided the person humiliating you has institutional stationery.
You may notice that some of these definitions appear to contradict your direct experience. Do not be alarmed. Your direct experience has not been peer reviewed.
The good life remains available, of course.
There is simply a distribution issue. You know this already. People with overdue loans know it. People who work full-time and still count coins before buying groceries know it.
People who postpone medical care until pain becomes cheaper than treatment know it.
People who watch rent rise while wages sit in a chair and stare at the wall know it.
People who have done everything they were told and still cannot get ahead know it with an intimacy no economist can improve.
The people writing speeches about prosperity know something too. Possibly different things.
Please continue adapting.
The definitions will change again.
Your bills will not.
Have a nice day and prepare for higher bills this winter.
