Really? They will feed you for free for 50, 60 years? I think that sort of torture is economically unsustainable for them.
A brief analysis of the sustainability, informed by my studies of several theorists.*
Cultural myths are used to get the populace to buy into the power of government and other power structures. Myth reveals and distorts. For instance, the myth of the value of human life seems to show that the government supports it, and it engenders strong emotions, which are the hook. If the masses buy into this, then they agree that the goverment should lock up anyone who is harming the sanctictity and value of their own life, for their own good. Therefore the government is out for their own good as well. They pay taxes to support the government, and feel good about it because the dollars ostensibly go to programs that support them while actually controlling them. What they do not recognize until it's too late, if ever, is that the government imprisons those who want the ultimate control of their own lives, that is, to do no harm to others, only to get free of their own bodies and lives. Every social good done by the government is a gilding on a cage. Being locked up for one's own good is even worse, it's a prison disguised as health care, and makes an example of those who choose self-determination by making it appear unpalatable, worthy of imprisonment, loss of liberty and self-control, and reinforces negative judgment and condemnation against those who attempt to claim it. Investing in them to live is an investment in the power of the governmental power structures, and it is financially profitable because the government and parasitic industries get paid by tax and health insurance dollars; in the States, Medicare is heavily invested. The myths are like drugs that cocoon the truth in a comforting gauze, but inside that cocoon are the threats of bars and needles if one dares look too closely and reject the false truths presented. There is the threat of a loss of support from government and society, of being made an example of, and of total loss of liberty -- as if the liberty truly existed in the first place.
A quick look at a myth analyzed by Roland Barthes for comparison. He used the example of a French magazine cover in which a member of an Algerian youth military was saluting the French flag, from the Sixties or very early Seventies. Algeria was a colony that lost its independence to French control. The photo appeared patriotic, the face uplifted toward the flag, the salute...a salute -- honor, deference, acceptance, loyalty. This presented a myth that Algerians were in agreement with the colonial control and in fact aspired to keep it going. French readers had their nationalistic pride stirred by the powerful image, which was the emotional hook. It revealed French colonial oppression, but distorted it so that it brought about feelings that supported validation of and reinforcement of violence and oppression. French citizens felt "right," and felt France was "right." How could anyone protest when clearly there was so much acceptance, so much good, so much opportunity and hope for this dark-skinned youth and for his fellow youth, who would also fight for the French flag, not against it?
*Michel Foucalt, historian and theorist of power, control, surveillance, and the constructs of mental illness and homosexuality, also the father of discourse theory and analysis. See the Wikipedia entry on his book
Madness and Civilization, it's a great read, very thorough, and much easier to read than the book. It's a historical analysis of how "mental illness" came into existence at a time of mass imprisonment for debt during a worldwide financial crisis in which the "mentally ill" were swept up, labeled, imprisoned, put on display, led to the birth of psychiatry, and the birth of the mental hospital. Other writings of Foucault discuss governmental power structures, I recommend
Security, Territory, Population and
Discipline and Punish, which are highly relevant since at least the World Trade Center bombings and the overt increase of surveillance. Also see the writings of Thomas Szaz, such as
The Myth of Mental Illness.
Other discourse/cultural theorists and analysts including Norman Fairclough and Stuart Hall.
Roland Barthes, semiologist who developed the structure of myth as a means of social control.
For those who are into this stuff, I don't include Baudrillard in mythology analysis. I'm not into post-structuralism, Foucault is as close as I get (he rejected the post-structural label, he just wrote obscurely and did historical analysis in his own way), and I didn't get into Baudrillard like Barthes. I know many value him and respect him, even find him better than Barthes, but I do not.
