King Crimson recorded ‘21st Century Schizoid Man’, their iconic antiwar signature song, in 1969. And nearly fifty-five years later, the lyrics haven’t dated. Since then we’ve had more needless wars and progressively less original music. We’ve also entered the era of the epidemic. But what exactly does that word mean?

From the Greek epi, meaning ‘on’, ‘to’, ‘against’, ‘above’, ‘near’ or ‘after’, and demos, meaning ‘people’, ‘population’ or ‘common people’, the term can refer not just to diseases but psychological states. Seems its loose usage can extend to anything: depression, obesity, cancer, transgenderism, wokeness and, of course, dementia. Whatever that means.

Because language conceals more than it reveals. And as its tyranny via omnipresent technology deepens, the collective unconscious is objecting. Dementia: a condition known for growing vagueness re dates and locations; disorientation re time and place. Since we live (or just survive) in a world where the regulation of time and rationing of space (1.5 metres?) diminish freedom of thought and feeling, it’s no wonder ever more folk are reaching a threshold beyond which the leash of acquiescence starts to fray.

Is dementia an unwitting form of resistance? Our culture seeks to contain it at the earliest stages; to quarantine the afflicted as if their state were contagious. My mother’s slide into confusion sometimes looked like a huge fuck you, punctuated as it was with a running account of all that affronted her, as if the reward for a life of compliance no longer justified her effort. And so she withdrew into deafness, state-of-the-art hearing aids notwithstanding. I know: the causes of dementia are many and I’m generalising. But hey, unlike the medico-pharma complex today, I have no scientific pretensions or hidden agendas. Which reminds me…

‘CLIMATE ACTION NOW’ exhorts the sign in front of a local house. But who manufactured it and why? And what do the folk who’ve displayed it hope to convey? To whom is this cryptic message addressed? Visitors? Neighbours? Passing politicians? What response is it meant to elicit? If we think any significant action must come from above – i.e., government – we’re doomed to keep on consuming recyclable products like there’s no tomorrow.

And maybe there won’t be. ‘CLIMATE ACTION NOW’: the words hang suspended, communicating nothing but the vanity of identity. We care, asserts the sign, standing in for broadly informed awareness, putting ideology before common sense because, like the virtue-signalling ninnies behind the fence, polypropylene isn’t environmentally friendly. Yet folk who flaunt such empty slogans know we’ve fouled our own nest. They just expect experts to come to the rescue, more docile than babies or the incontinent aged marinating in crap as they wait for the corporate nanny state to change their disposable nappies, with only the finest of lines between the average adult and the addled senior.

‘CLIMATE ACTION NOW’? What demented twaddle. Even my mother, who didn’t know where she was and often mistook the gender of carers, could still make her meaning plain. Dementia (for want of a more precise word) hadn’t deprived her of sense, just reduced her to helpless dependence. Which, if in a different way, sums up society today. Though we know how to symbolise our feelings, needs and desires, and recognise the words and icons for things like ‘cineplex’, ‘toilets’ or ‘ice cream’, we don’t know how to face reality so we screen it out. And this civilised defence against what threatens or unsettles us is embodied in corporate-controlled technology.

Late last year in a mediated monologue, ‘Image, Memory, and Dementia’, orator–author Charles Eisenstein ventured a theory. The act of viewing old photos that plug him into grief and regret he hasn’t yet fully processed sparks the notion that surrounding ourselves with photos and precious objects can trap us in the past and may be one cause of dementia. Cause? Or a symptom of a cultural condition? Though non-committal, Eisenstein departs from the dominant discourse: scrutiny of the sufferer instead of the system.

And what is dementia, anyway? Since the standard signs – memory loss, confusion, problem-solving deficit etc. – can point to a deteriorative disease like Parkinson’s or a psycho-emotional malaise, even experts use the term loosely, helping Pharma to manoeuvre for profits that can only improve, with the epidemic predicted to grow exponentially. Because dementia is on the rise. But why? The go-to (if simplistic) response is that now we’re living longer. But what about rising incidence in younger age groups? See the rationale for other booming syndromes like gender dysphoria or autism spectrum disorder: greater awareness (‘if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’). Lifestyle, too, gets cited as a risk factor. And depression due to unprocessed grief underlay my mother’s growing neglect of social contact, a wholesome diet, and exercise.

Indeed, dementia gets over-diagnosed; it shares many symptoms with chronic depression, from which it can all too often develop. Yet to blame lifestyle puts the onus on the individual and their immediate network while ignoring systemic flaws. Over three years of visits to my mother in a relatively well-run if underfunded nursing home, I witnessed the unchecked cognitive slide of several residents; predictable given their enforced inaction, lack not just of visitors but of mental stimuli, placement of the not-yet-demented among the profoundly gaga, and infantilising treatment from staff. But residential aged-care facilities aren’t unique in this way.

Nobody sets out to get demented. And yet diagnosis has its payoffs: more attention, help with chores, lowered expectations. Friends and relatives of the demented receive advice to be nice, speak gently, avoid stressful topics, dwell on pleasant memories, keep feedback positive – in short, shield the person from the real world. All of which rewards helplessness and fosters growing dissociation: a microcosmic mirror of the macro. Because with the ascent of political correctness, we all must now suppress terms that offend. Classic children’s lit must be radically rewritten, insults (like ‘lame’) evoking disabilities must be purged, while the meaning of ‘autistic’ has been expanded and such persons rebranded as ‘neurodivergent’. Social media platforms encourage curation of pleasant memories, and if they aren’t pleasant enough, an app on your phone will adapt them. ‘Likes’ uncontested by negative icons maximise positive feedback. Slaves to technological guidance and support, folk live through their phones as instinct and intuition recede.

And like the aged left to rot in overpriced, understaffed ghettos, all of us face increasing isolation as so many events for which folk once gathered in the same room now occur via Zoom. Our civilisation has reached a state of advanced decay, its institutions as senseless as sufferers of late-stage dementia. But treating those in charge kindly and gently won’t reverse the decline.