In a message dated 12/9/99 10:43:14 AM Central Standard Time,
dcolonnese@hotmail.com writes:
<< Some people are so fed up with this waste-product of capitalism that
they're
ready to destroy capitalism just to destroy the consumer culture that goes
along with. If you talk to contemporary radicals, as I like to do, they're
going to talk about that feeling you get inside a Starbucks, McDonalds, or
Wal-Mart. Pirsig discusses the value of looking at the misfits, the
marginalized, and seeing what they're all about. Some radicals might still
be saying how capitalism exploits the poor. But the American poor are doing
pretty well, comparatively. Their real complaint is that Capitalism makes
the poor feel bad about being poor. Hell, consumer culture tries to make
everybody feel bad about not being richer.
Is there anyway of getting a free-market without having to live in a
consumer culture? Is this spiritual hollowness just the price we have to pay
for being adequately fed, clothed, and housed?
>>
Excellent post, Daniel. I can relate to the frustration you feel. Yes, more
and more people are feeling spiritually dissatisfied with the consumer
culture, and this dissatisfaction is beginning to be expressed in the popular
culture through music and movies (as you pointed out with the example of
RadioHead). IMO, however, films like "American Beauty" and "Fight Club"
barely scratch the surface of this country's fundamental problems. These
films acknowledge that there is something deeply wrong with the collective
soul of America, something we can't quite put our finger on, some profound
sense of wrongness seeping slowly but surely into our hearts; the consumer
culture obviously becomes an easy prime suspect. You mentioned that eerie
feeling so many people get while in supermarkets and Wal-Marts; this feeling
easily leads people into believing that the consumer culture must be the
mysterious force that seems to be poisoning our souls. But the consumer
culture is not the problem. Capitalism is not the problem. Our problems here
are not rooted in politics at all.
Films like "Fight Club" and "American Beauty" point to the sense of
wrongness, but they both misinterpret it; they offer, as advice, biological
distraction as a means of coping with our problems, but no real solutions.
They can't offer any real solutions to the problem because they don't know
what the problem really is.
This country loves to blow the "little" wrongs of society out of
proportion in order to divert attention from the "big" wrongs. Race,
religion, politics; petty stuff, ultimately. Humanity's true problems are at
a much deeper level, but nobody seems interested. They'd rather continue
arguing about race, religion, and politics. And abortion.
Jon
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