Author Topic: Resistance In Consumerist Society  (Read 6955 times)

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Nation of One

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #45 on: June 02, 2017, 07:33:11 am »


I would have been more impressed if she had handed the copper a joint, eh?

Live and learn.  The corporate machine will sell us T-Shirts and beer ...

Look at "rock and roll" and the band, KISS, Gene Simmons and their ilk selling the kids dolls ... the "hip hop" kings owning clothing factories selling merchandise.  What a joke.  Then there is the "John Lennon was not John Lennon" phenomenon ...

Shalonda is not Shalonda ... and nothing that is so, is so.

The Beatles go to India and George Harrison plays the sitar ... blowing the people's minds ... "far out, man" ... Sometimes they get it right.

In a way, Schopenhauer did something similar ... and it made his day when he found the ancient scholars of India confirmed so many of his own conclusions about our predicament.



« Last Edit: June 02, 2017, 08:09:34 am by Raskolnikov »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #46 on: August 05, 2018, 10:47:31 am »
On the TV news here on Turtle Island, we now see coverage of two different camps of protesters: small bands of "pro-Trump" demonstrators," and huge groups of anti-Trump anti-demonstrators, with the police force between them to stem back the "civil" street wars.

I am reminded of Naturyl's (Q) post from the whywork.org forum years:

Quote from: Nat
Incidentally, I did the Occupy thing in Tampa, even slept out on the streets once. But I ultimately became disillusioned with it. I wrote a powerful document for them (no false modesty, ala Mike) and they ignored it because I wasn't part of the "in-clique." Yes, even "outsider" groups have "in-cliques." Always.

Plus, Occupy really isn't accomplishing much. So they got banks to cancel a $5 debit card fee or something. Whoopty-doo! Way to go in abolishing capitalism. What we really need is something like a 30 day worldwide general strike, just for starters. Wealthy college kids and hippies holding signs won't cut it.

What Occupy offered, briefly, was hope. And even though we all know where that leads, I think we were all spellbound, at least for a little while.

I'm sorry to say that I am indifferent to such protests.  I feel as though my day to day life is a spontaneous unorganized protest against the idea of participating in the "community."

After a farmer's club meeting, which was filled with petty complaints and back-biting, outside in the parking lot, as a man who I noticed in the past has one companion, a dog, who was asked to leave the farm area as "no dogs allowed," was getting into his vehicle, I said, "What a species, huh?"

He said, "You know, there's a part of me that is glad our species is on its way out [meaning, facing extinction via the collapse of civilization with massive die-off]."

I said, "Ah, a species traitor, huh?"

He drove off. 

It's strange when we become our own one man march, marching to the beat of our own drum, passing through life in quiet desperation, feeling totally disconnected from the Left as well as the Right.   

They used to say, the revolution won't be televised.

I've seen the so-called revolution.  They are selling beer and T-shirts. 

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us for not giving a SHiit about anything other than satisfying the primitive demands of biological necessity.

I will not pretend to be some kind of radical revolutionary.  I am just another alienated, neurotic, self-absorbed symbolic creature.  My obsession with mathematics is a distraction, yes.  I am attempting to "program" the brain of the Creature-in-itself to "understand" ... and while it is not always pleased with having its head crammed with mathematical ideas, on some level it is well aware that such an "addiction to studying" is far better for its mental health than other alternatives, such as, well, you know, booze, drugs, employment, incarceration. 

If too many people wanted to lay around studying mathematics every day, day after day, for years, for decades, well, I suppose it would have to be called a General Strike, and then it would be declared a disease of the mind - the math junkies would require rehabilitation and mass scale corrections; but as long as this desire to study in not too contagious, the zoo keepers may see someone who is devoted to this kind of constant "book learning" as harmless, and this is a good thing.   So I am a harmless autodidact who is no threat to the System, who is fed by the System as a recipient of government relief funds.  Surprisingly, it is very liberating to just accept my status as a kind of "ward of the State."

Quote from: Nat
"The 99%" are 99% motivated not by any real desire to tank the system and start fresh with something better, but rather by a resentment that not everyone can afford big Tee Vees and the glorious "middle class" lifestyle. And really, by publicly affirming the value and legitimacy of such a lifestyle, they are doing as much harm as good. Most of the 99% are upset because they aren't being given the chance to exploit with the big boys.

The media, as usual, is a barrel of laughs, trying to paint the protesters as "anarchists" and the like. Yeah, right. Most are as jawb-trained as anyone else and just want everyone to have a well-paying "yaab" and the ability to consume crapola more prodigiously, like good "middle class" people ought to.

While everyone in America is obsessed with "creating jobs" and "saving the middle class," I'd rather do away with both. I doubt anyone will turn out with signs in support of that. And it's also why I stopped turning out in support of the "Occupy" movement.

As Holden mentions somewhere else in that thread, there is a new freedom in the certainty of rejection.  One may have received too much education and thereby is determined to be "over-qualified" for the janitorial position which is the only job available.  Management types will be hesitant to hire someone who might infect the staff with anti-authoritarian ideas; or, worse still, you may be accepted by management but a magnet for psychological abuse from co-workers who sense your abnormal qualities and characteristics.

So, if the government has a program for those who not only experience social anxiety in the work place, but may actually prove to be difficult employees to "manage," then it makes sense to humbly accept one's role as unemployable, and interpret this arrangement with a sense of humor and even a little pride in being such a reject.  For the ultimate reasons behind our refusal to be assimilated into the corporate way of life may be a reflection of our virtuous characteristics, and not, as is commonly assumed, our defects.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2018, 11:16:44 am by the Creature-in-itself »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #47 on: August 25, 2018, 11:09:07 am »
'Normal' men design ever more sophisticated means to persuade other 'normal' men to buy stuff they did not know they needed, with money they have not got, to impress people they do not know.


Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #48 on: December 16, 2018, 02:50:29 pm »
Quote from: Holden
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.

well said (from this post)

Do you suspect that many of the gorts view their own wives (or husbands) and children as "commodities"?  I suspect many succumb to the pressure to "communicate the correct signals" of social prestige" by getting married (or at least having a significant other) and even then reproducing just to appear to be leading some illusory "happy life".   HA!
« Last Edit: December 16, 2018, 02:54:33 pm by Kaspar the Jaded »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Silenus

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The Fun System or Enforced Enjoyment
« Reply #49 on: January 15, 2019, 01:47:35 pm »
What Ligotti writes about so aptly in Conspiracy, Baudrillard also attacks.  From The Consumer Society (bold emphasis is mine):

Quote from:  Jean Baudrillard
The Fun System or Enforced Enjoyment

One of the strongest proofs that the principle and finality of consumption is not enjoyment or pleasure is that that is now something which is forced upon us, something institutionalized, not as a right or a pleasure, but as the duty of the citizen.

The puritan regarded himself, his own person, as a business to be made to prosper for the greater glory of God. His 'personal' qualities, his 'character', which he spent his life producing, were for him a capital to be invested opportunely, to be managed without speculation or waste. Conversely, but in the same way, consumerist man [l'hommeconsommateur] regards enjoyment as an obligation; he sees himself as an enjoyment and satisfaction business. He sees it as his duty to be happy, loving, adulating/adulated, charming/charmed, participative, euphoric and dynamic. This is the principle of maximizing existence by multiplying contacts and relationships, by intense use of signs and objects, by systematic exploitation of all the potentialities of enjoyment.

There is no question for the consumer, for the modern citizen, of evading this enforced happiness and enjoyment, which is the equivalent in the new ethics of the traditional imperative to labour and produce. Modern man spends less and less of his life in production within work and more and more of it in the production and continual innovation of his own needs and well-being. He must constantly see to it that all his potentialities, all his consumer capacities are mobilized. If he forgets to do so, he will be gently and insistently reminded that he has no right not to be happy. It is not, then, true that he is passive. He is engaged in - has to engage in - continual activity. If not, he would run the risk of being content with what he has and becoming asocial.

Three cheers for asociality!
« Last Edit: January 15, 2019, 01:49:21 pm by Silenus »

"And the strict master Death bids them dance."

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #50 on: January 16, 2019, 12:31:30 am »
... the risk of being content with what he has.

Believe it or not, the entire motivation behind my current obsession with studying math (and "spontaneous" computer programming that is nearly always inspired by mathematics) is grounded in an experiment in which I try to see how much (subtle) fulfillment can be attained simply in the practice of devoting myself to a small library of texts.  I wanted to see if I could "get over" on my own desire for inebriation, intoxication, "musical entertainment," etc ...

I noticed that it took a great deal to maintain any kind of buzz or high, and that the more I chased or WANTED to be in that zone, the more I NEEDED the liqour store.

Imagine being content to work through a math textbook!  What?  No Van Halen concert? 

When I behold our society, especially how they worship sports teams, I am proud to be asocial.   I still identify with those who drink alone, those who do their drugs alone.   My experiement was to see if I might be able to make math textbooks, computers, notebooks, and pencils my PARAPHENELIA.

What I mean by "getting over" is the feeling of being as content as possible without feeling I am missing out on anything.   I don't care who is getting high as a kite ... No matter how much money anyone throws at the bar, no matter how many dollars are put in the juke box, eventually the money runs out and there is only Empty Space.   

While I am surely attached to my regiment of study to the point that I become quite anxious if prevented from having a good chunk of time to myself to study, to work on my "math notes," it is nothing compared to the wretched misery of jonesing for another blast, another drink, etc.

The cool thing is that I am under no obligation to "enjoy" it, studying math, that is.  I am not obligated to love it as though it were my religion.   I just happen to be most content when permitted to follow my bliss, even if my bliss is not all that enjoyable, entertaining, or "fun."

That's the key, isn't it?

Many years ago, I recall some women in the office at the park inquiring as to what I did for fun.  At the time, I suppose I was studying math and reading Schopenhauer.   I found the question insulting.   I am not obligated to have "fun."

When trapped in a doctor's office, when I am forced to hear the TV in the corner, I become irritated by the "common hype" about how people are supposed to be looking to get married or at least find some kind of partner to "do things with," to go on vacations, to spend that money they earn while kissing a-ss at their jobs.

The whole mentality makes me sick, and - I repeat, I am proud to be asocial.

Like Ignatius Reilly of Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, I have great contempt for the values of mainstream society, especially celebrity culture.

To be content just to have a little room where I can store my books and my notes.

One of the main agents for spreading the warped values of consumerist society is the TV and the whole media machine.  Maybe it is a blessing not to have an abundance of wealth.  I mean, as I tried to explain earlier in this post, extracting a life from simply devoting myself to studying some special old mathematics texts is really in radical defiance of the consumerist celebrity culture, the "Dancing with the Stars," all the talent competitions --- it's all such inane hyperbole ... the rewards ceremonies, etc.     ::)

At what point do we celebrate our outsider status?   At what point do we allow ourselves to appreciate being one of the fish outside the net?  I mean, when do we flip the script and rejoice to be useless and unknown?

Why must we pay everlasting regard to the opinions of others?   I am fed up with reading the stupid things people write, such as, "Why do so many smart people amount to nothing?"

They just don't get it, do they?   They don't comprehend that "amounting to something" often involves being one of the many fish who swim directly into a giant net and then strut around as though they were "selected or chosen" rather than "captured."

They think the fish outside the net are jealous of those being hauled up into the boat and served for dinner.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2019, 12:39:42 am by Kaspar the Jaded »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Holden

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #51 on: January 16, 2019, 09:58:18 pm »
Some  years back  ,as a part of  a recruitment team, I visited a city and there was a woman in the team  who literally could not  stay in her hotel room for  one  second.  The "Fun Schedule"  apparently constituted of visiting one  restaurant  after another.Most men are no better.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #52 on: December 23, 2019, 06:23:34 pm »
The Harvard community has made this article openly available:  Consumerism, Conformity, and Uncritical Thinking in America  (102 pages)
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Silenus

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Carmageddon
« Reply #53 on: January 13, 2020, 05:00:11 pm »

"And the strict master Death bids them dance."

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George points out that most sociopaths have "high self-esteem" ...

I do not believe in self-esteem, high or low:  https://youtu.be/YqdsNxS_fk8?t=926

(when political ideas [self-esteem movement] crash and burn and end up in the shit house)

George lists those guilty parties all-too-full-of-shit: https://youtu.be/YqdsNxS_fk8?t=229
« Last Edit: September 22, 2021, 12:13:28 am by Creepy Sleepy »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Man Out (On Feminism in the Age of Consumption)
« Reply #55 on: June 22, 2021, 10:49:36 pm »


On Feminism in the Age of Consumption

"The largest growing economic force in the world isn't China or India -- it's women. The earning power of women globally is expected to reach $18 trillion by 2014 -- a $5 trillion rise for current income, according to World Bank estimates. That is more than twice the estimated 2014 GDP of China and India combined" (Voigt 2009)

The above quote from an article posted on CNN.com, titled “Women: Saviors of the world economy?” reflects heightened attention to both the earning power and spending power of today’s women.

Quote
This situation today is far removed from Virigina Woolf’s plea for a “room of [her] own,” in that it is not about having freedom from patriarchal control in society, it is about having the freedom and power to acquire the goods that one wants in service of projecting an independent image and lifestyle. Problematically, for most women consumers today, as with most consumers of any gender, consumption is hardly an act of empowerment, but rather an act that creates debt and further binds one to the exploitative system of global capitalism and finance.








Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #56 on: September 20, 2021, 10:48:04 pm »
Heads up:  Philosophy in Rags: The Individual: Houellebecq and Gnosticism

Hugh Graham concludes his exploration of Houellebecq’s terrain with the Stoic imperative to “bear up and do without”.

Identity and difference are not to be found in race, culture or religion, but in the single personality with its traumas, extravagances, defects and obsessions, the very things the right-thinking, therapeutic modern world would purge.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~