I have to confess that I was more repulsed by the Wall Street Wolf than Brauna am Inn. That CEO, although a fictional character, is a pig, an omnigort. Most likely that was the intention of those who created that film ... to produce disgust and repulsion. I can't see anyone actually identifying with that kind of mentality.
And yet, such a mindset might be the result of relentless advertizing. I recently flew through a book I mentioned in another thread, Psychoanalysis and Ecology at the Edge of Chaos: Complexity Theory, Deleuze|Guattari and Psychoanalysis for a Climate Crisis by Joseph Dodds. Looking over my notes, I could not help but think of this thread you started.
In our culture, thanks to relentless advertizing, possessions such as cars become a symbol of genital achievement. So much so that Margaret Thatcher even claimed apparently, that a man who reaches 30 and finds himself on a bus must consider himself a failure.
This occurs when the "environment mother" is dealt with through the "equation of maturity (particularly masculine maturity) with the ability to dominate and exploit her."
Once cars become a cultural and psychological icon of maturity and "grown-up-ness", there is an equating of "realism" with consumerist acquisitions. Any other approach is viewed as "idealistic," "immature," and "childish." However, behind this devaluation "lies contempt for the mother: it is a deeply narcissistic version of maturity which turns away from the real relationship to the natural world." (Randall 2005)
It is important to stress that it is not only men who feel this contempt. Many women may also feel that "the mature and realistic position is to be too busy or important to worry about environmental concerns" leading to a relationship to the environment mother ... as troubled as their male counterparts."
Have you checked out Hesse's Steppenwolf? The Steppenwolf wants to destroy the automobiles ... every last one of them. What a contrast to the Wolf of Wall Street! I imagine the Steppenwolf would throw bricks through the sleek TV sets advertizing "sexy" cars that the gorts worship.
Dodds is promoting what he calls ecopsychoanalysis. Maybe he would be interested in gortology.
Consumptive appetites that have been stoked for decades by ubiquitous advertizing ... will now have to be reined in ... our central task ... as individuals and as a species, must be to make a transition away from fossil fuels - and to do this as peacefully, equitably, and intelligently as possible ... Psychologists [or gortologists?] should perhaps be gearing up to treat not only individuals but whole communities. (Heinberg 2009)
My favorite excerpt from Hesse's SteppenwolfMake an end at last of the fat and well dressed and perfumed plutocrats who used the machines to squeeze the fat from other men’s bodies, of them and their fiendishly purring automobiles.
Set factories afire at last!
Make a little room on the crippled earth!
Depopulate it so the grass may grow again, and woods, meadows, heather, stream and moor return to this world of dust and concrete.
The principal thing was clear. There was a war on, a violent, genuine and highly sympathetic war where there was no concern for Kaiser or Republic, for frontiers, flags, or colors and other equally decorative and theatrical matters, all nonsense at bottom; but a war in which every one who lacked air to breathe and no longer found life exactly pleasing gave empathetic expression to his displeasure and strove to prepare the way for a general destruction of this iron-cast civilization of ours.
In every eyes I saw the unconcealed spark of destruction and murder, and in mine too these wild red roses bloomed as rank and high, and sparkled as brightly. I joined the battle joyfully.
Or this …
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gustav. We have taken the liberty of shooting your chauffer. May we inquire whom we have the honor to address?”
The old man looked at us coolly and sadly out of his small gray eyes.
“I am the Attorney General Loering,” he said slowly.
“You have not only killed my poor chauffer, but me too, I fancy. Why did you shoot us?”
“For exceeding the speed limit.”
“We were not traveling at more than normal speed.”
“What was normal yesterday is no longer normal today, Mr. Attorney General. We are of the opinion that whatever speed a motorcar travels is too great. We are destroying all motorcars and all other machines also.”
“Your rifles too?”
“Their turn will come, granted we have the time.”
“And now, will you please get out, or let us carry you out, as the car is to be destroyed.”
“I prefer to be destroyed with it.”
“As you wish. But allow me to ask you one more question. You are a public prosecutor. i never could understand how a man could be a public prosecutor. You make your living by bringing other men, poor devils mostly, to trial and passing sentence on them. Isn’t that so?”
“It is. I do my duty. It was my office. Exactly as it is the office of the hangman to hang those I condemn to death. You too have assumed a like office. You kill people also.”
“Quite true. Only we do not kill for duty, but pleasure, or much more rather, from displeasure and despair of the world. For this reason we find a certain amusement in killing people. Has it never amused you?”
“You bore me. Be so kind as to do your work. Since the conception of duty is unknown to you -”
I agree with Gustav when he says, “I have no objection to this stupid congested world going to bits. I am glad to help and glad to perish with it.”
Let’s not forget this little conversation:The young woman asks, “But what is to become of us?”
“Don’t know,” said Gustav. “My friend Harry is fond of pretty girls. He’ll look after you.”
“But the police and the soldiers will come and kill us.”
“There aren’t any police and such like any more. We can choose, Dora. Either we stay quietly up here and shoot down every car that tries to pass, or else we can take a car and drive off in it and let others shoot at us. It’s all the same which side we take. I’m for staying here.”
泥
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