We haven't chatted in a while and I just wanted to say hi. I've been thinking about you because it's your birthday. I know we've had our differences in the past, because sometimes you're incredibly stupid (Blackwater, WMDs, 2000-2008, THE CURRENT OIL SPILL AND THE INABILITY TO DEAL WITH IT, Us Weekly culture, Leonard Peltier, SARAH PALIN, good christ I could go on forever).
But. Since we've separated, I've learned that you do have a few things going for you. Clean water from the faucet is nice. And, um, the idea of "democracy" is also pretty cool, if it's used correctly and effectively, ie to actually give power to the people.
I've always thought, though, that the greatest thing America has ever produced is its dissidents. The true mark of an evolved society is letting its citizens, or those a nation ostensibly exists for, change it and improve it. Anyone who takes the time to tell America how bad it's fucking up does so only because they believe it could do so much better. Abbie Hoffman, Hunter S. Thompson, et al believed that America could be the world's freest democracy, providing its citizens with the most liberties, and were only disappointed that their country was falling so short of its defined goals. Since being away, I guess I've realized the fact that I'm allowed to say "America, you're really fucking up" is pretty awesome, although I obviously wish I didn't have to say that at all. How great would it be to say "I love America! We have clean energy, awesome health care and a great education system! There's no discrimination or gun violence, and we're not sending (poor) 19 year olds to the other side of the world to die. We don't only elect fat, rich, old, racist white men to office, and instead we have elected officials of every race, gender and economic background to serve the interests of the people. Americans enjoy life and there's a high value placed on the arts. WE DON'T IMPOSE SEXIST BELIEFS ON WOMEN AND ASSUME OWNERSHIP OVER THEIR BODIES. America doesn't really subscribe to a religious doctrine and people are pretty much allowed to do what they want as far as that's concerned. America doesn't sell a lot of useless shit because we know that doesn't provide happiness. There is no show called 'Two And A Half Men' and people don't watch that much TV anyway, they spend a lot of time with their friends instead."
Today, we should all remember that America was founded by dissidents who didn't feel like taking shit from anyone because they wanted to have power over their own individual lives (people who quote the constitution these days seem to be only balding white dudes trying their hardest to make sure poor/brown people don't have health care/citizenship so I'll stop short of that).
Shouldn't the goal of any nation in the modern world be to provide it's citizens with the highest quality of life possible? And I'm not talking about cheap shit from Wal-Mart that will make your life easier. Quality of life can be truly determined by health, personal freedoms and yes, the ability toward the pursuit of happiness.
On my birthday, I like to think about what I could do better in the coming year; how I could be a better friend, sister, daughter, person. So America, on your birthday, put down the credit card, have a beer, appreciate what you have and think about how you could become the country you should be.
Love,
your friend.
PS: I just read that Obama is putting $2 Billion dollars into solar energy! Which will create jobs and help to liberate us from oil dependency. I can't think of a better birthday present.
Showing posts with label consumerism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consumerism. Show all posts
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Death Knell (?)
Or, Adbusters, Hire Me! I wrote your hipster cover story when I was twelve.
Soulless narcissists or unwitting heirs to a dead America and enjoying the after-party?
The thesis of Adbusters' cover story is that hipsters signify the decline of Western civilization. Besides the fact that it appears they've gotten ahold of some previous publications, it's a hauntingly articulate account of the vacancy that has supposedly come to define our generation: "It's an odd dance of self-identity-- adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaim it." Douglas Haddow is upset because hipsters don't give a fuck about anything, a stance that has been well articulated in the past.
First, attacks on the hipness are no fun if they don't assess the context in which the "hipster" phenomenon has spawned. Why do urban twenty-somethings with DIY haircuts who majored in graphic design "attend art parties, take lo-fi pictures with analog cameras, ride their bikes to night clubs and sweat it up at nouveau disco-coke parties"?
Because their parents are rich and falling apart, America is rich and falling apart, and no one, least of all a bunch of twenty somethings raised on a steady diet of sex as a commodity from age four, knows how to fix anything. And why should they want to? There are lots of drugs and lots of good looking people who've yet to prove themselves boring at every party there is.
****** We have a lot of money and a lot of memory. We know what is cool, we are not cool, we want to be cool, we can buy what is cool, we will buy what is cool.
Second, another obvious justification of hating hipsters is that "they killed cool." No, they didn't. If "cool" was invented by Chuck Berry in 1949, or was it Jack Kerouac in 1947, or was it Oscar Wilde and his absinthe in 1920 or was it Manet and his anger and defiance in 1870, it's been leading up to this. Hipsters are not holding the gun, they only wandered onto the scene of the crime and stumbled over some dead bodies. If a 17 year old on E with a mohawk and vintage high tops breakdancing at a party means cool is dead, that's fine. Something else will grow out of that.
If it seems like there's nowhere else to go, its because what is cool if not "subversion of the mainstream," bucking conventional institutions (capitalism), ie wearing DIY and a fuck you, then maybe Jack Kerouac wins. We are the counterculture's wild-eyed children, millions of us, multiplying and dumb like rabbits. And yeah, a lot of what people call "hipsters" due to their leggings and eyewear are boring and stupid. Welcome to America. Thanks, mass media, for making us all hate ourselves. Now, can we all get over our eating disorders and move on? (Haddow: "the dancers are too-self aware to let themselves feel any form of liberation; they shuffle along, shrugging themselves into oblivion." The other side of that line: we are nothing, can be nothing, if not painfully self aware.)("Everyone needs to quit hating themselves. That's what needs to happen."-Kel)
Here's the answer: hipsters are an amalgamation of punks, hippies, and every other subculture that has grown out of American culture (ie smug consumerism) since the last bomb dropped in WWII. There just happen to be no more wars to fight (oh, wait, except for the ones we save for poor people. Oops.) Haddow believes that hipsters are a consumer group, not a subculture. Sure, some well-accessorized college kids are vapid idiots with an excess of personality disorder and American Apparel shirts to layer. But the term in question is also used to include those who buy vintage clothes, cut their own hair and ride bikes, i.e. chose to live outside the crushing ubiquity of the American consumer market. So the end of western civilization is progress by another name. If "hipster" can include rich cokeheads with expensive jeans, semantics is to blame for the entire issue here. Hipster can dismiss the talentless, the self-induglent, the stylish, artists and cokeheads as "hipsters" in one fell swoop. Here's the hole in that argument: some of "them" are creating valid art. If a certain pair of glasses or cut of a pair of jeans renders someone's creation irrelevant, we have to ask ourselves just who the shallow pawn in the situation is. For every company who's cashed in on our defenseless generation's style and sold it back to us, there's someone who realizes it and vows to fuck the system. Deviance and defiance are at the basis of "cool" and always will be. (Adbusters, then, is the hippest thing there is. )
Finally, if there is a generation of Americans who can do nothing but grow ironic facial hair and sleep off a hangover while hating itself, it's America's fault. Where was America, our neglectful parent, teaching us those supposedly noble lessons about... just what exactly? Should we be working for Goldman Sachs instead of going to dance parties? Should we be wearing Ralph Lauren on a yacht, living the American dream? Should we be arming ourselves against the government, starting a youth militia to re-build our failing democracy?
We have been abandoned.
We're the bitter and drunk orphans of a parent who bought us things instead of gave us direction.
All we can, should, will and want to do is spend the family fortune on our favorite habits, go to parties and try to get our rocks off.
UPDATE: this brilliant post calls bullshit on useless and lazy hipster hating.
Soulless narcissists or unwitting heirs to a dead America and enjoying the after-party?
The thesis of Adbusters' cover story is that hipsters signify the decline of Western civilization. Besides the fact that it appears they've gotten ahold of some previous publications, it's a hauntingly articulate account of the vacancy that has supposedly come to define our generation: "It's an odd dance of self-identity-- adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaim it." Douglas Haddow is upset because hipsters don't give a fuck about anything, a stance that has been well articulated in the past.
First, attacks on the hipness are no fun if they don't assess the context in which the "hipster" phenomenon has spawned. Why do urban twenty-somethings with DIY haircuts who majored in graphic design "attend art parties, take lo-fi pictures with analog cameras, ride their bikes to night clubs and sweat it up at nouveau disco-coke parties"?
Because their parents are rich and falling apart, America is rich and falling apart, and no one, least of all a bunch of twenty somethings raised on a steady diet of sex as a commodity from age four, knows how to fix anything. And why should they want to? There are lots of drugs and lots of good looking people who've yet to prove themselves boring at every party there is.
****** We have a lot of money and a lot of memory. We know what is cool, we are not cool, we want to be cool, we can buy what is cool, we will buy what is cool.
Second, another obvious justification of hating hipsters is that "they killed cool." No, they didn't. If "cool" was invented by Chuck Berry in 1949, or was it Jack Kerouac in 1947, or was it Oscar Wilde and his absinthe in 1920 or was it Manet and his anger and defiance in 1870, it's been leading up to this. Hipsters are not holding the gun, they only wandered onto the scene of the crime and stumbled over some dead bodies. If a 17 year old on E with a mohawk and vintage high tops breakdancing at a party means cool is dead, that's fine. Something else will grow out of that.
If it seems like there's nowhere else to go, its because what is cool if not "subversion of the mainstream," bucking conventional institutions (capitalism), ie wearing DIY and a fuck you, then maybe Jack Kerouac wins. We are the counterculture's wild-eyed children, millions of us, multiplying and dumb like rabbits. And yeah, a lot of what people call "hipsters" due to their leggings and eyewear are boring and stupid. Welcome to America. Thanks, mass media, for making us all hate ourselves. Now, can we all get over our eating disorders and move on? (Haddow: "the dancers are too-self aware to let themselves feel any form of liberation; they shuffle along, shrugging themselves into oblivion." The other side of that line: we are nothing, can be nothing, if not painfully self aware.)("Everyone needs to quit hating themselves. That's what needs to happen."-Kel)
Here's the answer: hipsters are an amalgamation of punks, hippies, and every other subculture that has grown out of American culture (ie smug consumerism) since the last bomb dropped in WWII. There just happen to be no more wars to fight (oh, wait, except for the ones we save for poor people. Oops.) Haddow believes that hipsters are a consumer group, not a subculture. Sure, some well-accessorized college kids are vapid idiots with an excess of personality disorder and American Apparel shirts to layer. But the term in question is also used to include those who buy vintage clothes, cut their own hair and ride bikes, i.e. chose to live outside the crushing ubiquity of the American consumer market. So the end of western civilization is progress by another name. If "hipster" can include rich cokeheads with expensive jeans, semantics is to blame for the entire issue here. Hipster can dismiss the talentless, the self-induglent, the stylish, artists and cokeheads as "hipsters" in one fell swoop. Here's the hole in that argument: some of "them" are creating valid art. If a certain pair of glasses or cut of a pair of jeans renders someone's creation irrelevant, we have to ask ourselves just who the shallow pawn in the situation is. For every company who's cashed in on our defenseless generation's style and sold it back to us, there's someone who realizes it and vows to fuck the system. Deviance and defiance are at the basis of "cool" and always will be. (Adbusters, then, is the hippest thing there is. )
Finally, if there is a generation of Americans who can do nothing but grow ironic facial hair and sleep off a hangover while hating itself, it's America's fault. Where was America, our neglectful parent, teaching us those supposedly noble lessons about... just what exactly? Should we be working for Goldman Sachs instead of going to dance parties? Should we be wearing Ralph Lauren on a yacht, living the American dream? Should we be arming ourselves against the government, starting a youth militia to re-build our failing democracy?
We have been abandoned.
We're the bitter and drunk orphans of a parent who bought us things instead of gave us direction.
All we can, should, will and want to do is spend the family fortune on our favorite habits, go to parties and try to get our rocks off.
UPDATE: this brilliant post calls bullshit on useless and lazy hipster hating.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Reason for the end of the world
"...Americans are turning into annoyingly self-absorbed hypochondriacs. Why? Because they can. Go ahead and cry, says the prevailing psychological wisdom. Any trifling discomfort you might feel has been legitimized. Your pain is valid. If you think you're sick, you are."
Kalle Lasn, (Adbusters) argues in Culture Jam (Quill Books, 2000) that the world is falling apart because
1) Americans are rich, bored and empty, consuming everything in their path and treating the natural world like a minor disturbance at best and a potential mall parking lot
and
2) because everyone wants to be like Americans.
Is it too late for humans with influence to acknowledge this and collectively act to change it? Some people claim that humans are above all a self-preserving species, and we'll figure out a solution to the most massive crisis the planet has probably ever faced (worked for the Cold War, sort of. Fifty years ago, a lot of people thought we'd all be blown to bits by now). But, it doesn't help when such a small number of people control the way the entire world works.
If you're not angry/scared/outraged , you're just taking up space. In the immortal words of the Clash, "anger can be power if you know how you can use it."
Kalle Lasn, (Adbusters) argues in Culture Jam (Quill Books, 2000) that the world is falling apart because
1) Americans are rich, bored and empty, consuming everything in their path and treating the natural world like a minor disturbance at best and a potential mall parking lot
and
2) because everyone wants to be like Americans.
Is it too late for humans with influence to acknowledge this and collectively act to change it? Some people claim that humans are above all a self-preserving species, and we'll figure out a solution to the most massive crisis the planet has probably ever faced (worked for the Cold War, sort of. Fifty years ago, a lot of people thought we'd all be blown to bits by now). But, it doesn't help when such a small number of people control the way the entire world works.
If you're not angry/scared/outraged , you're just taking up space. In the immortal words of the Clash, "anger can be power if you know how you can use it."
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Re-think that cell phone upgrade
chrisjordan.com...even though it's only like 30 bucks for a sweet new razr with tons of features you don't need.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Sex! Consumerism! Emptiness!
"Assuming that the behavior of many males in patriarchal society is largely shaped by death denial, I often wonder whether women in patriarchy confront their mortality any more successfully and with fewer damaging ecological consequences. The obsession that many American women exhibit regarding the condition of their bodies, specifically with regard to their weight and appearance, suggests that such women have their own fears and resentments about age and death. The Western world's extraordinary 'consumerist' mentality is supported in part by women who are fixated not only on improving their wardrobes and cosmetics, but also on somehow filling up the internal 'void' experienced by so many people in materialistic societies. To be sure, female preoccupation with physical appearance is greatly influenced by the male gaze, but the situation is probably more complex than this. Men are themselves influenced by and seek the approval of the female gaze, particularly of those females whom men consider attractive. Arguably, so many Western men have been obsessed with acquiring wealth and power because these often prove effective in gaining the interest of women whom those men consider desirable. Perhaps by attempting, with markedly little success, to fulfill sexual-romantic fantasies, men and women alike are concealing more disturbing issues about personal identity, life purpose, and mortality."
-Michael Zimmerman, Contesting Earth's Future
(emphasis mine)
It should be no surprise that we're addicting to buying stuff. Zimmerman isn't the first one to suggest that this may be due to a lack of any sort of cultural grounding outside of the capitalist mentality, but his posturing of the argument as a psycho-sexual/ identity dilemma is compelling.
So what's the answer, if we're doomed to unsuccessfully buy our way into a fantasy we don't even really want fulfilled? Well, we could all go out and buy a some Tom Ford products (the ad above is one of the more tame in a series that was released for a Fall 2007 campaign). A more constructive move, and a more existentially and ecologically responsible one, might be to recognize our own obsessions with wealth and power, question their origins and endless futility (i.e. the fact that they're a cultural construct) and tackle head-on Zimmerman's "disturbing issues about personal identity, life purpose and mortality." Admittedly easier said than done, but we've been living the alternative for a while now and we know what that looks like.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Creation/ Destruction/ Transcendence
"To grossly use more than you need, to destroy, is biologically unsound. Much of the production and consumption of modern societies is not necessary or conducive to spiritual and cultural growth, let alone survival, and is behind much greed and envy, age-old causes of social and international discord."
-Gary Snyder
"A well-ordered harmony does not begin with the self, but rather places the world before life, life before man, the respect for other beings before the love of self."
- Claude Levi-Strauss
But, transcendence is still possible.
-Gary Snyder
"A well-ordered harmony does not begin with the self, but rather places the world before life, life before man, the respect for other beings before the love of self."
- Claude Levi-Strauss
But, transcendence is still possible.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Money For Nothing
Resist evil advertisements! with help from Slate.comAnd propaganda from oil companies.
The Truth from The Independent (UK):
The Biggest Environmental Crime in History By Cahal Milmo, 10 December, 2007
BP, the British oil giant that pledged to move "Beyond Petroleum" by finding cleaner ways to produce fossil fuels, is being accused of abandoning its "green sheen" by investing nearly £1.5bn to extract oil from the Canadian wilderness using methods which environmentalists say are part of the "biggest global warming crime" in history.
The multinational oil and gas producer, which last year made a profit of £11bn, is facing a head-on confrontation with the green lobby in the pristine forests of North America after Greenpeace pledged a direct action campaign against BP following its decision to reverse a long-standing policy and invest heavily in extracting so-called "oil sands" that lie beneath the Canadian province of Alberta and form the world's second-largest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia.
Producing crude oil from the tar sands – a heavy mixture of bitumen, water, sand and clay – found beneath more than 54,000 square miles of prime forest in northern Alberta – an area the size of England and Wales combined – generates up to four times more carbon dioxide, the principal global warming gas, than conventional drilling. The booming oil sands industry will produce 100 million tonnes of CO2 (equivalent to a fifth of the UK's entire annual emissions) a year by 2012, ensuring that Canada will miss its emission targets under the Kyoto treaty, according to environmentalist activists. (continued)
Since it's Christmas and we're all spending loads of money buying love for people, consider dropping a small monthly check Greenpeace's way. It's a hell of a lot more useful than the fat bills we fork over for coffee every month, and you can think of it as a way to purchase a clear(er) conscience. Those people on city streets with clipboards who try to guilt you into giving them money are pretty annoying (I used to be one) but they are doing something worthwhile, i.e. not ringing up your $300 pants assembled by Hungarian pre-schoolers.
It says a lot about the state of the world-- people acting on behalf of the environment have to shout you down and stand in your way just to be ignored most of the time if not ostracized (once a guy yelled "I hate the environment!" at me), while we all walk by quickly to where we really want to go, to buy the selves we want to be at H&M or Victoria's Secret. (Karolina Kurkova's rack is the size of a car on the Michigan Ave store's window in Chicago.)
Subversive culture isn't for sale, no matter how "indie" H&M's hoodies are. Be a punk, and don't buy anything. Except maybe some stock in the planet.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Of Fear and Loathing and Luke in Starbucks
First: "The dominant romantic-comedy trend of the past several years—the slovenly hipster and the female straight arrow." The fat guy/ Katherine Heigl complex: indicative of a much larger cultural trend? We would be pissed if women were portrayed as either high-strung or lazy. What's better? What do we want?
What would Joni do?
Sell her her latest album at Starbucks, right next to Nirvana Unplugged, of course!
Yes, seriously. In a way, it sort of justifies Kurt's suicide (if the state of pop music in general hadn't already done so.) Isn't this the kind of com modification that made him put the gun in his mouth in the first place, over 13 years ago? (Welp, that and his heroin addiction.) Something tells me Courtney's legal fees and failure at things in general are behind this. Oh well, it sort of makes sense. Both Starbucks and Nirvana are from Seattle!
I became aware of this quandary of contemporary popular culture over the weekend, when I found myself in the Boston suburb of Belmont, whose downtown consists of a couple banks, three pizza restaurants, a few overpriced jewelry boutiques and a Starbucks. Because I have no desire to wear the same necklace as Jennifer Aniston, but do have a sickening caffeine addiction, we wandered into the local dealer, fully conscious of just how boozshie and loathsome it made us, but not caring enough to forgo our god-given right to those red paper cups.
The Nirvana display was almost too much cultural death to bear, especially as I struggled to get the overpriced coffee down my wretched throat while reading up in Adbusters about all the people, plants and animals that have to die for my right to do so. As I pondered the depressing state of the world in general and wondered whether to off myself or get another $4 latte, a familiar figure entered the chain of coffee stores that is now our nation's secular church. (Even God would admit that Starbucks is more fun than fire and brimstone.) It took a few glances (shameless gawking) to determine that yes, this tall, sharp-dressed and well-coiffed man was in fact the go-to guy for wimpy boyfriend roles and the younger brother of everyone's favorite suicide attemptee. Luke Wilson was mere feet from me and Elissa, and probably wanted to throw us (ok, me) out the window as I couldn't stop looking over to confirm the sighting. I was completely sure it was him because of that squinty-eye thing he does, and the fact that he was wearing a baller leather-jacket and was with a 30-something blonde woman who had the body of a 12 year old.
The moral of the story: whenever the corporate cultural chokehold is getting you down, an actor more famous for his relationships with co-stars than any quality films or talent will show up and distract you with his disheveled good looks, because this is America!
What would Joni do?
Sell her her latest album at Starbucks, right next to Nirvana Unplugged, of course!
Yes, seriously. In a way, it sort of justifies Kurt's suicide (if the state of pop music in general hadn't already done so.) Isn't this the kind of com modification that made him put the gun in his mouth in the first place, over 13 years ago? (Welp, that and his heroin addiction.) Something tells me Courtney's legal fees and failure at things in general are behind this. Oh well, it sort of makes sense. Both Starbucks and Nirvana are from Seattle!
I became aware of this quandary of contemporary popular culture over the weekend, when I found myself in the Boston suburb of Belmont, whose downtown consists of a couple banks, three pizza restaurants, a few overpriced jewelry boutiques and a Starbucks. Because I have no desire to wear the same necklace as Jennifer Aniston, but do have a sickening caffeine addiction, we wandered into the local dealer, fully conscious of just how boozshie and loathsome it made us, but not caring enough to forgo our god-given right to those red paper cups.
The Nirvana display was almost too much cultural death to bear, especially as I struggled to get the overpriced coffee down my wretched throat while reading up in Adbusters about all the people, plants and animals that have to die for my right to do so. As I pondered the depressing state of the world in general and wondered whether to off myself or get another $4 latte, a familiar figure entered the chain of coffee stores that is now our nation's secular church. (Even God would admit that Starbucks is more fun than fire and brimstone.) It took a few glances (shameless gawking) to determine that yes, this tall, sharp-dressed and well-coiffed man was in fact the go-to guy for wimpy boyfriend roles and the younger brother of everyone's favorite suicide attemptee. Luke Wilson was mere feet from me and Elissa, and probably wanted to throw us (ok, me) out the window as I couldn't stop looking over to confirm the sighting. I was completely sure it was him because of that squinty-eye thing he does, and the fact that he was wearing a baller leather-jacket and was with a 30-something blonde woman who had the body of a 12 year old.
The moral of the story: whenever the corporate cultural chokehold is getting you down, an actor more famous for his relationships with co-stars than any quality films or talent will show up and distract you with his disheveled good looks, because this is America!
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Get in the Prius, Kids, the World is Ending
We are all Good People, we're just trying to get buy*, we've Worked Hard for our stuff, we deserve our luxury vacation in an impoverished nation!
Right?
No.
_____________________________________________________
I don't need to sit here and type about how everyone and their Hummer-hawking mother is trying to get on the Green bandwagon. It's obvious. What's apparently isn't so obvious is that said bandwagon is running on non-renewables.
The current mix of American identity-crisis, or need for a label to subscribe to (Red or Blue? Do I believe in God? Well, my priest says that abortion is bad so I hate the gays too, and don't believe in climate change because that guy on TV who likes God too says it's fake) and self-obsessed, misguided "philanthropy" (I send cheap factory-made crap to orphans in Cambodia who make cheap crap in factories! I'm a good person!) has opened the market for "green" consumption, perfect for the smug and misinformed in your life this holiday season.
We like to believe that believe that "change" can begin at the mall, that we can give ourselves a pat on the back for buying organic produce at Wal-Mart. We want the self-satisfaction of knowing that we've done a good thing, without actually having to go through the trouble of changing anything in our lives at all. That way, we can sleep easily on our NEW!! 300-count ORGANIC!! Egyptian cotton sheets from Bloomies!! Forget that the cotton was grown in a desert climate and used massive amounts of fresh water, harvested by poor laborers (who have no fresh water to drink) for next to no money, the cotton was flown thousands of miles to the department store chain in the suburban mall that replaced a forest and paved over a pond for parking, and the old sheets will probably go to a landfill after no one buys them at the Goodwill.
This feature from American Public Media poses the question "Is our consumer society sustainable?" The fact that this question apparently still needs to be asked really only answers the question of why we're on the fast track to a human-designed ecological collapse: we refuse to acknowledge that our addiction to convenience and crap is not only slowly devouring us as individual humans, but extends far outside the realms of ignorance that our suburban enclaves have afforded us. (What? My actions affect other people and things? What are other people and things?)
But ignorance can be fixed; knowledge can be imparted upon the uniformed. The real threat here is the smug, "conscious consumer" whose Prius cupholder is always stocked with a Starbucks double-espresso-nonfat-peppermint-latte-extra hot-extra foam-two splenda in two cardboard cups and a 10% recycled material coffee cup cosies. Six hundred dollar organic Italian free-trade leather boots made from the happy hides of New Zealish cows that have fully realized their existential potential usually factor in somewhere, along with $59 organic face moisturizer, and another family Prius sitting in the garage at home next to the Explorer, which is only used for long family car trips. To the mall.
A new store just opened up in Burlington that bills itself as a store for "natural parenting." Since when did "nature" involve a huge plush giraffe from China? This is more of a vehical for the parents' own sense of self-worth than effective in alleviating any ecological destruction that we've had so much fun in causing.
Don't buy the color-coded hype. "Green" is a brand. Consumption is consumption: always effective in degrading the environment in one way or another. Toyota is a business; they did not create the Prius to save the world. They wanted to make money. Used is usually better than "green." Progress and paradigm shift are not for sale at the mall, and neither is self-fulfillment. Just don't ask me where to find them.
*whoa, subconscious.
Right?
No.
_____________________________________________________
I don't need to sit here and type about how everyone and their Hummer-hawking mother is trying to get on the Green bandwagon. It's obvious. What's apparently isn't so obvious is that said bandwagon is running on non-renewables.
The current mix of American identity-crisis, or need for a label to subscribe to (Red or Blue? Do I believe in God? Well, my priest says that abortion is bad so I hate the gays too, and don't believe in climate change because that guy on TV who likes God too says it's fake) and self-obsessed, misguided "philanthropy" (I send cheap factory-made crap to orphans in Cambodia who make cheap crap in factories! I'm a good person!) has opened the market for "green" consumption, perfect for the smug and misinformed in your life this holiday season.
We like to believe that believe that "change" can begin at the mall, that we can give ourselves a pat on the back for buying organic produce at Wal-Mart. We want the self-satisfaction of knowing that we've done a good thing, without actually having to go through the trouble of changing anything in our lives at all. That way, we can sleep easily on our NEW!! 300-count ORGANIC!! Egyptian cotton sheets from Bloomies!! Forget that the cotton was grown in a desert climate and used massive amounts of fresh water, harvested by poor laborers (who have no fresh water to drink) for next to no money, the cotton was flown thousands of miles to the department store chain in the suburban mall that replaced a forest and paved over a pond for parking, and the old sheets will probably go to a landfill after no one buys them at the Goodwill.
This feature from American Public Media poses the question "Is our consumer society sustainable?" The fact that this question apparently still needs to be asked really only answers the question of why we're on the fast track to a human-designed ecological collapse: we refuse to acknowledge that our addiction to convenience and crap is not only slowly devouring us as individual humans, but extends far outside the realms of ignorance that our suburban enclaves have afforded us. (What? My actions affect other people and things? What are other people and things?)
But ignorance can be fixed; knowledge can be imparted upon the uniformed. The real threat here is the smug, "conscious consumer" whose Prius cupholder is always stocked with a Starbucks double-espresso-nonfat-peppermint-latte-extra hot-extra foam-two splenda in two cardboard cups and a 10% recycled material coffee cup cosies. Six hundred dollar organic Italian free-trade leather boots made from the happy hides of New Zealish cows that have fully realized their existential potential usually factor in somewhere, along with $59 organic face moisturizer, and another family Prius sitting in the garage at home next to the Explorer, which is only used for long family car trips. To the mall.
A new store just opened up in Burlington that bills itself as a store for "natural parenting." Since when did "nature" involve a huge plush giraffe from China? This is more of a vehical for the parents' own sense of self-worth than effective in alleviating any ecological destruction that we've had so much fun in causing.
Don't buy the color-coded hype. "Green" is a brand. Consumption is consumption: always effective in degrading the environment in one way or another. Toyota is a business; they did not create the Prius to save the world. They wanted to make money. Used is usually better than "green." Progress and paradigm shift are not for sale at the mall, and neither is self-fulfillment. Just don't ask me where to find them.
*whoa, subconscious.
Friday, September 28, 2007
One Nation Under Foreign Produced Crap
In the interest of full disclosure: I'm writing this in the middle of a lake. After drinking three Labbatt Blues. While being paid to do so. No, I haven't bought an island villa with the cash I rake in from this self-indulgent little wankfest of weblogginess; I work in retail. Right now I sit on a ferry, in a gift shop, next to a cash register full of green paper that people handed me in exchange for T-shirts made from bleached and dyed cotton and assembled by Malaysian toddlers. (All while listening to Animal Collective and ignoring prospective customers, my right, my duty to do so boiling over with each Baudrillard quote I absorb: "[Americans] are themselves simulation in its most developed state, but they have no language in which to describe it, since they themselves are the model. As a result, they are the ideal material for an analysis of all the possible variants of the modern world. No more and no less in fact than were primitive societies in their day. The same mythical and analytic excitement that made us look towards those earlier societies today impels us to look in the direction of America. With the same passion and the same prejudices.")
The image of impoverished children being exploited to satisfy our insatiable glut for souvenirs (artifacts, made objects to remember our lives by) is horrifying (unless of course you take into account that 13 cents a day is more than they'd be making otherwise!). But there's a sickening element to the flip side of this exchange that often remains off the radar. And is arguably the the driving force behind all the terror in the world.
Three girls, about seven or eight years old, all dressed in various shades of pink, all with long hair and all covered in sparkles, came up to exchange their parents' money for various cheaply made toys manufactured somewhere in Asia. One child decided not to buy a squishy dino, then shouted to her mother, "I want to spend my money!" Her mother responded quietly, "You'll be able to spend your money on the other side." (of the ferry's landing.)
Here we have a twisted little route of goods production and consumption: people produce cheap crap on the other side of the world, make no money doing so and wonder what the hell those Americans are going to do with a stuffed duck in a raincoat that looks like an alligator. Little kid sees said good, wants it, begs parent for it, gets it, then subconsciously wonders what the hell she will do with a duck dressed like an alligator, and wonders why it fails to complete her life.
Nonetheless, the stuffed duck incident repeats itself throughout the child's life, who then grows into a person and believes that material goods pave the road to happiness. That appetite fuels the production source, by which many more lives will be consumed in the pursuit of production.
Bottom line: any parent who wouldn't want their kid working in a sweatshop shouldn't purchase stuff produced in one, and further, any parent who doesn't want their kid growing up to be a vacant human being shouldn't buy them worthless crap to shut them up.
(And admittedly, anyone who finds the whole process repulsive probably shouldn't get paid to be part of the problem. But hey, hypocrisy is one of the most inevitable trappings of modern American life, a beautifully complex sequence of instant gratification and the following sense of anticlimactic disappointment.)
The image of impoverished children being exploited to satisfy our insatiable glut for souvenirs (artifacts, made objects to remember our lives by) is horrifying (unless of course you take into account that 13 cents a day is more than they'd be making otherwise!). But there's a sickening element to the flip side of this exchange that often remains off the radar. And is arguably the the driving force behind all the terror in the world.
Three girls, about seven or eight years old, all dressed in various shades of pink, all with long hair and all covered in sparkles, came up to exchange their parents' money for various cheaply made toys manufactured somewhere in Asia. One child decided not to buy a squishy dino, then shouted to her mother, "I want to spend my money!" Her mother responded quietly, "You'll be able to spend your money on the other side." (of the ferry's landing.)
Here we have a twisted little route of goods production and consumption: people produce cheap crap on the other side of the world, make no money doing so and wonder what the hell those Americans are going to do with a stuffed duck in a raincoat that looks like an alligator. Little kid sees said good, wants it, begs parent for it, gets it, then subconsciously wonders what the hell she will do with a duck dressed like an alligator, and wonders why it fails to complete her life.
Nonetheless, the stuffed duck incident repeats itself throughout the child's life, who then grows into a person and believes that material goods pave the road to happiness. That appetite fuels the production source, by which many more lives will be consumed in the pursuit of production.
Bottom line: any parent who wouldn't want their kid working in a sweatshop shouldn't purchase stuff produced in one, and further, any parent who doesn't want their kid growing up to be a vacant human being shouldn't buy them worthless crap to shut them up.
(And admittedly, anyone who finds the whole process repulsive probably shouldn't get paid to be part of the problem. But hey, hypocrisy is one of the most inevitable trappings of modern American life, a beautifully complex sequence of instant gratification and the following sense of anticlimactic disappointment.)
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