The two-way mirror of oppression

by Paul Cudenec

“Two-way mirror” must be one of the more misleading terms in the English language.

It is defined by my dictionary as “a half-silvered sheet of glass that functions as a mirror when viewed from one side but is translucent from the other”.

It is therefore not so much two-way as doubly one-way, both in terms of its role as a mirror and as a window.

The most obvious use of this one-way/two-way device is to spy on people.

Behind what appears to be an ordinary mirror in a hotel or an interview room hide people who are watching what is going on without their victims’ knowledge or consent.

If one imagines this spying device as horizontal, rather than vertical, it makes an excellent metaphor for the society in which we currently live.

Up above sit those who designed the “mirror”, watching from the translucent side every last movement made by their prey.

Down below are those who pour their life energy into increasing the wealth and power of the parasite class.

All they see above them is a mirror, which seems to confirm that their little prison-world is all that there is.

If sometimes they find their lives slightly unpleasant, unhealthy, unnatural and restricted, this is, they tell themselves, a reflection of something that simply exists, by itself, and for which they have to accept their fair share of collective responsibility.

It’s “today’s society” or that person or party voted into power where they live.

If more general factors are identified and blamed, these will be apparently “neutral” phenomena such as a “pandemic”, “climate change”, “terrorism” or some other vague “threat”.

Because, when they look up, they see only the mirrored side of the glass, they are incapable of seeing that the things they don’t like are being deliberately inflicted on them by a hidden group of rulers.

Even the idea that there could be any such people, behind the mirror of society, will not enter into the minds of many.

So this horizontal mirror acts against our interests in, appropriately enough, two ways.

It allows the ruling mafia to spy on every detail of our lives and it hides that same mafia from view.

There are no two ways about it, some mirrors are meant to be smashed!

[Audio version]

[This short piece is a contribution to the latest Acorn bulletin over on the Winter Oak site, which also features a report on the war being waged on small farmers by big money, a very good article by Darren Allen on anarchism, a profile of organic radical inspiration Renaud Garcia and loads of pertinent news and links in the Acorninfo column]