STARTING something is easy. All you need to do is to make the first move, whatever the motivation, and once in motion, things will fall into place.

Our contemporary popular culture is littered with suggestions on how to “start something” but never offering any long-term game plan. This is the habit of consumerism – just buy now, think later.

I’m critical of consumerist culture not because I am pure and do not partake in it – in fact, it’s quite the opposite: I’m critical because I am within it and there is no real escaping it since that’s the system that runs our epoch.

And yes, that larger system is capitalism. And again, just because I’m critical of capitalism, does not mean I am card carrying anti-capitalist: I’m an independent artist who composes songs, produce albums, releases them and performs the songs on tour and sell the physical albums to generate some earning to cover my costs and also some funds to produce the next album.

I am entrenched in the capitalist ecosystem.

What distinguishes someone critical of the system versus those who relish it is the degree of ethics and exploitation involved.

A lot of people – including you, dear reader, I’m sure – are gainfully employed and are good at their jobs. Hopefully you are also fairly remunerated for your skills and talent.

To be employed in this capitalist epoch entails some tango with exploitation. Even if you are a full time researcher at a university or some institute, your KPI is often tied to some form of exploitation even though it may be labelled as the more official sounding “research exploitation”.

From being a minion at a large corporation to a budding entrepreneur or even a teacher, all jobs that pay, for better or worse, require some dalliance with exploitation.

To be critical is to be aware that this exists and what we can do to mitigate the degree of “damage” it does be it socially, economically and even physically.

To be human is to exploit our resources for our benefit – we are the only species that extensively deface and disfigure geography – the roots that began with agriculture.

Am I being critical of agriculture? Well, it depends on the context. In this case, I’m using agriculture to explain a word that most members of the public take for granted: culture.

The origins of “culture” began with the advent of agricultural practices, if you didn’t know already.

The word “culture” comes from “agriculture” because agriculture is the first major instance when human civilisation leveraged on whatever was around us to not only sustain ourselves but also begin exchanging or trading the fruits of our labour before we invented currency.

Yes, currency (and the economy) are human inventions, they are not divine or God-given.

Culture is not “owned” nor defined by the false divide between the arts and the sciences: culture is human.

There is artistry in the sciences just as much as there is a science to the arts, but forget this sentence and play of words – it sounds good but it’s too simplistic as it still suggests a division between “art” and “science”.    

We also exploit our best individual skills and talents and hone them so that we have an advantage over others with similar skills and talents. Individual will and action is lauded but this completely changes when someone else forces such an exploitation upon another because of another inherently human trait: greed.

History and religious texts are littered with tales of greed. Popular films and music in fact unwittingly valorises greed as “good” as entertainment media equally unwittingly exploit images of the lives of the rich and famous.

These people usually exploit their own good looks and talents to the hilt but with the help of others who also exploit them for their own benefit – be it films, music video, photoshoots, even advertisements which exploit some quality of the “celebrity” with the quality of the product to convince you that its worth purchasing.

Greed and exploitation are a given but as a civilisation we’re created and empowered individuals, groups and institutions to mitigate its spread but if you look around you now, it all seems like all those generational efforts are in vain.

The outcome of greed and exploitation in our culture, in my humble opinion, is at the root of what we call a “trust deficit”.

The people, groups and institutions entrusted to crack the proverbial whip on the greedy and exploitative – aka people in power – have in turn succumbed to temptations of being in such privileged positions which offers greater freedom of upward mobility and you guessed it, wealth.

And also, the realisation that one can actually get away with it with a little ingenuity and wit. This is the epistemological roots of corruption.

There’s no clandestine room of evil industrialists smoking rolls of greenback dollar notes or such similar scenarios. It’s little acts of individual transgressions that pile up as the pecking order progresses.

And as you are already probably aware, it’s usually the small fries at the bottom of the food chain that gets scapegoated. There is no real justice in this world – just a long trail of causes and effects.  

So it is tempting, and easier, to throw in the towel, turn the other cheek, and move on. Being critical might be a recipe for high blood pressure and wrongly channelled angst, you say.

I disagree – this is the epoch of being critical not just in thought but also action (even in our minute everyday practices) to stem these corruptive trickling because the pandemic and the dire state of economies are ripe low-hanging fruits for those with trust deficits to exploit the landscape and distract us with the usual consumerist drivel in this noisy world.

We need to turn our attention inwards when dealing with exploitation – ingenuity lies within.

Exploiting your own resources while keeping your own ethics in check might be the only way to deal with the temptations of this material world. – September 3, 2021.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.