Why Work? > Why Work?
Resistance In Consumerist Society
Nation of One:
Garbage filled malls! Haha.
8) It's amazing too ... It is becoming quite a trend. A few months ago I was helping a woman from India move out of her apartment, and out of nowhere her 17 year old son was telling me how he is never going to get married since it just doesn't make any sense.
And in Japan the government is trying to bribe couple to wed and reproduce: free giant tv [read: GARBAGE].
And in the United States, the more children [fodder for war machine economy and future labor force] mothers produce, the more the State will pay ... basically, we are on a funny farm plantation ... and renegade thinkers like you and I and the young man from India (or the Hikikomoris of Japan) present quite a challenge to the Zoo Keepers.
As Hermann Hesse said, intellectuals are worthless to the captains of industry.
Anyone who does not need much from the malls, whether they have replicated their DNA or not, must be made to appear inadequate. What, you're not buying television sets or paying for a cable connection, are you some kind of terrorist? :D
Holden:
Hikikomoris..yes ,at least the Japanese have come up with a word for my condition.I don't think there is a succinct word in English for people like me.Social Withdrawal.Consumerism is a disease,why do I need to eat caviar when I can satiate my hunger with lentil( Diogene's favourite).
Why do I need to wear new clothes every day? There are people I know who have literally tons of clothes & I don't think they'd've worn a particular piece of clothing more than once.Why this utter wastage? This conspicuous consumption.?
Marx called it Commodity Fetish.
To avoid the status anxiety of not being of or belonging to "the right social class", the consumer establishes a personal identity (social, economic, cultural) that is defined and expressed by the commodities (goods and services) that he or she buys, owns, and uses; the domination of things that communicate the "correct signals" of social prestige, of belonging. The Society of the Spectacle is the ultimate form of social alienation that occurs when a person views his or her being (self) as a commodity that can be bought and sold, because he or she regards every human relation as a (potential) business transaction.
What do we do?
And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables,
And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
Crazy Squirrel:
Quote: "This so-called "shaping up" is so clearly an attempt to enforce this kind of environment, recreating the immature mindset one endures in high school socialization: everyone must purchase the gadgets and clothes... everyone must pay the cost of the admission fee or risk being ridiculed. Those who consume become part of an in group. Anyone not enjoying the mass-produced culture becomes an outsider."
Quote: "...personality scarcely signifies anything more than shining white teeth and freedom from body odor and emotions."
I want to add here that the 'admission fee' is even higher for women. Not only are women expected to purchase the gadgets and the clothes (LOTS of clothes, plus tons of accessories...a woman MUST be 'fashionable'! :P ), but it's also demanded of us to be slaves to what is commonly referred to as 'beauty', the rules of which are arbitrary, increasingly ridiculous, and in the end, always unattainable. As with virtually every young girl, I got sucked into the belief that if I could just buy the 'right' cosmetics/skin care/whatever, I'd become more popular, and be more desirable to boys. It sounds completely insane when written out like that, but believe me, it's a real thing, and it's extremely insidious; most women spend most of their lives and a huge chunk of their income on that so-called 'self-improvement'. I began to resist that programming in my late teens, and make-up was the first thing to go. I had no idea that the seemingly insignificant act of appearing in public without 'clown paint' would cause me to be viewed as a loser and a freak. Over the years, I've actually had several men tell me outright that they didn't want to date me because I didn't wear make-up. One guy added that he wanted a woman who 'takes care of herself', which I took to mean that because I refuse to go through the expense and trouble of putting on the 'spackle' every morning, I'm clearly a lazy slob, and my overall personal hygiene is questionable, as well (and probably my worth as a person, too). So yes, even the slightest deviation will have consequences. People never grow up from that high school mentality, really.
Holden:
In workplace parlance, an “engaged” employee is an individual who not only completes tasks on time, but is actually enthusiastic about the work they are doing. Engaged employees do not see their place of work as an obligation, but rather as an opportunity. They combine a strong, intelligent work ethic with the desire to not only improve their circumstances, but the circumstances of those around them. They are the embodiment of a creative force; where others see routine or drudgery, they see a challenge or problem that needs to be solved.
Disengaged employees, on the other hand, must be motivated to perform on an hourly basis. They drag themselves through their day, contributing the bare minimum and often detracting from the work of their peers with negative comments or an overwhelming pessimism that is energy draining. This pessimism is so toxic that it affects not only co-workers, but customers as well, driving away potential business and harming previously solid customer relationships. Research has shown that employee disengagement in the United States adds up to approximately $350 billion dollars per year of lost productivity.
Make me wanna puke.
Nation of One:
Even when people rebel against this pressure to conform, the zoo keepers try to make money off the rebellion with music concerts, beer sales, and T-shirts. The most radical thing to do is to be a minimalist. I like the idea of a woman not wearing make-up. It is kind of like my refusal to "lift weights". I just don't feed into the propaganda which infects people with the compulsion to look like "Hollywood actors" ...
With Arundhati Roy I have to ask, "How can so many be controlled by so few?"
And along with Daniel Quinn I have to say that it is not so much the 1% living like gods, kings, princesses that disgusts me, but that the 99% aspire to emulate their ostentatious consumption. We reach a point where we just don't care anymore. Everything is set up to manipulate people into spending money so as to have the credentials of "success" --- Isn't it rather sweet revenge to witness that the gorts think they are winning in the game of life when the real treasures are not even for sale? Those of us who do not chase after the status symbols will be branded as losers or even mentally deranged ... I say be strong and continue to resist.
There are far more outsiders than insiders. If we only realized our numbers, we could shut the **** down by tomorrow morning. And with George Orwell we must say ... And yet!
We just have to wait and see. Perhaps the tide is turning.
Engaged employees detract from the work of their peers with negative comments or an overwhelming pessimism that is energy draining.
Note From 2011.09.22
--- Quote ---I had an opportunity to research sabotage. Think about this word, ‘sabotage’. Notice how the word, sabotage, doesn’t have the connotations of the word, ‘terrorism’.
sabotage
1. destruction of property or obstruction of normal operations, as by civilians or enemy agents in times of war.
2. Treacherous action to defeat or hinder a cause or an endeavor; deliberate subversion.
We need to become saboteurs in some way – to stifle the effectiveness of the mass control system without being held responsible and punished. We need not be martyrs, nor need our efforts be violent, but simple non-compliance will never be enough. That is handing the other side victory. They want dissenters to settle on simple non-compliance. How this resistance should take form, we still haven’t figured out. Maybe we never will. (“Blaze”)
--- End quote ---
Maybe there are hints in Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces.
--- Quote ---Jones spread the newspaper. “Whoa!” he said to Mr. Watson. “You sure give me a good idea with all this sabotage crap. Now I sabotage myself right back to bein’ a vagran. Hey!”
“It look like this sabotage go off like a nuclear bum.”
“That fat freak guarentee one hunner percen nuclear bum. ****. Drop him on somebody, everybody gettin caught in the fallout, gettin their ass blowed up. Ooo-wee …”
There’s a big clue on page two oh two.
Sabotage: a cook adding too much pepper in the soup, a kid in the supermarket dropping too many eggs, a parking lot attendant slipping on oil crashing into a fence …
--- End quote ---
I think my inner resistance exceeds the rejection of this consumerist society ... it goes far deeper.
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