Friday, May 22, 2009
Cool Ad
This ad made me go crosseyed. It makes it clear that if you leave the water running while you brush your teeth, or use anything other than flourescent bulbs, you're an evil sinner and condemned to eat all natural granola, sans milk, out of a hot bowl in an arid desert, for the rest of time. Or maybe you're just DoublePlus Ungood.
Assuming that the behaviors pointed out in the ad are evil (they must be if doing them makes you less good), then what is pushing rampant consumerism by loaning piles of money to people who can't repay it, to buy crap they don't need, then charging them punitive, usurious interest rates?
Seems to me, consumerist hypocrisy of that magnitude would be:
(QuadruplePlus Ungood) * (6.02*1023).
It would be at least as bad as smoking, possibly as bad as driving a Hummer.
If you don't get what I'm on about, don't sweat it. Just think about it hard (but in an environmentally respectful way) when you're sipping a $5 latte and driving the Volvo 125 miles to your next race. (I know, it's okay because you got the smaller engine that gets 2 more MPG). Or consider it when you are dropping $2800 on your new Unobtainium gruppo for your (wormicidal) mountain bike excursions.
Don't knock my critique. Like the kid in the ad, I'm just making you a better person by pointing out your evil ways.*
* The troof is, I have a deep civil libertarian streak, and believe that it's nice to have legal freedom, but cultural freedom, the freedom to not conform to externally-imposed micromanagement, is what matters more in our day-to-day lives. An oppressive culture, a culture of self-censorship and self-reproach, hissing and glaring culture, is more oppressive than anything the state can manage on a consistent basis. It's all of us volunteering to serve as secret police for opinion leaders. The whole point of 1984 wasn't that the state could see everything; it couldn't. The point was that Winston must be made to self-censor his thoughts and behaviors, to act as his own personal thought police and to put himself in chains of his own making. O'Brien couldn't let him go until he consented to be oppressed. Thus I resent any attempt to make me think "right." There's no such thing as "thinking right" and we should be peeved when people try to generate such consensus. Let yer freak flag fly so we can all salute it, or at least hoist a middle finger at it, aight?
And Mayhew asked in comments a few weeks ago exactly how it was somebody like me could appreciate Rage Against the Machine...
Oh man, I am *so* changing my MasterCard over to Visa.
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7 comments:
Jim, In response to your post on consumerism :
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.
Industrial Society is destroying necessary things [Animals, Trees, Air, Water and Land] for making unnecessary things [consumer goods].
"Growth Rate" - "Economy Rate" - "GDP"
These are figures of "Ecocide".
These are figures of "crimes against Nature".
These are figures of "destruction of Ecosystems".
These are figures of "Insanity, Abnormality and Criminality".
The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.
The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature [Animals, Trees, Air, Water and Land].
Chief Seattle of the Indian Tribe had warned the destroyers of ecosystems way back in 1854 :
Only after the last tree has been cut down,
Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you realize that you cannot eat money.
To read the complete article please follow any of these links.
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment
sushil_yadav
Delhi, India
Interesting that you pulled 1984 out of that ad. I don't think I would've made that connection in a million years. I agree with every word of your critique, though, and will add that what annoys me is that ads like that teach today's kids to be obnoxiously righteous little dweebs.
If your kid ever turns off the water while you're brushing your teeth and then gives you a pityingly superior look like that, Jim, I hope you make him go stand in the corner. With a copy of 1984.
Ok, here's is where my true colors show, I think.
1) as soon as I moved into my new apartment, I did change over every single bulb to a high efficiencey bulb (and my electric bill hovers around $25/month these days)
2) I caught the 1984 ref at the first DoublePlus Ungood and I do agree with you here to an extent, but let me suggest my favorite utopian/dystopian sci-fi novel to you here for a totally different perspective on consumerism and governmental control (among other themes) The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin.
3) But my biggest reaction to this was perfect geek joy at seeing you work Avogadro's Number into the argument!
4) and to top it all off, I bought my first $100 bike helmet yesterday. I couldn't stomach the $200 one to shave off a few more grams as my *hair weighs more than that and heck, I'm not a racer anyway.
I'm actually totally with you and it was my first reaction on seeing that ad. Stuff it kid, I'm an adult. You get the feeling the kid is going to turn him in to the NKVD or something.
I still don't see how you like RATM. They make awesome music. Incredible (esp their covers of old school hip hop). But I really don't get civil or cultural liberties out of their songs.
K_D - my kid did that. I told him to stuff it, I don't want to hear about it. He hasn't tried it since. I dislike the role of schools in brainwashing kids. You should teach them to think, not conform. (Man, I'm sounding like a retread 60's radical here, aren't I?)
Lorraine - those things you did are cool as personal choices, and I don't mind them being marketed. The principle of informed consent is really important to me, however, and I pay attention also to studies that show that most CFL's have a much shorter lifespan than anticipated (meaning the mercury and cost problems associated with them are more severe than the marketing would lead you to believe) and other studies that look at recycling, and find that *most* recycling is actually a net consumer of resources relative to production from raw materials - doesn't mean we shouldn't do it as a means of shifting the burden from one resource to another, reducing landfill load and so forth - but it does mean the marketing of it is a bit shysty.
Chris - first off, as musicians / Hollywood types, I have low expectations for them philosophically, so they're graded on a generous curve. Second, I don't agree with their solutions, but their notion that government is the problem, or at least vigorous exercises of coercive government power is the problem, is sometimes the correct diagnosis, IMAO. I think their prescription of an equally coercive left utopian government couldn't be more wrong, but I think a lot of libertarians (see e.g. Murray Rothbard) would find things to like in their critique. I had a conversation once with a really radical critical theory professor in college, who explained why he liked a lot of philosophers on the right. I asked him why he liked these thinkers and taught their works, which I found valuable but which appeared to be streng verboten under the school's political orthodoxy in the school's Arts & Sciences department - no other profs would teach these works. The prof said, "consider for a moment the possibility that if they are wrong, perhaps they are not entirely wrong." So I look at the works of some statist leftists like Marx, Gramsci, the oddly left/libertarian Foucault, and pick out the bits I find to be really useful or functional. Marx's analysis of economic interests is a useful way of thinking about problems (and is maybe sometimes correct), Gramsci's discussion of revolutionary tactics is a useful lens for interpreting politics (whether you are on the right, left, center or elsewhere) and Foucault's critique of the mechanics of power and how governments, businesses, social institutions and individuals wield and apply power, is comprised almost entirely of brilliant observations. The Southern Agrarians, occasionally retrograde men of the right, made a brilliant critique of industrial and post-industrial society and its social illness, though a few of them held repugnant racial views and most shared the silly notion that we can somehow return to an agricultural yoemanry (silly because I don't see us wanting to give up a life of ease for a life of hardship).
Wow, that's longwinded, but it's how I come to like RATM's music. They strike me as 25% correct overall - half right diagnosis, utterly wrong prescription. The 25% is enough to make them enjoyable to me when coupled with the 100% good music.
Besides, it's just effing music and punk-ish music at that, a kind of music which, when it strays beyond being a primal scream, usually becomes fatuous and shouldn't be taken too seriously anyhow.
wow heavy stuff,..I appreciate the arguments and the truth is that each one has value and usefullness.. the individual who needs to address their misuse and overconsumption should do so. The government that plys the big brother role too much should lighen up... and well music can be more then just for entertainment but the Bad Brains and Bad religion types pull off statements/speaches and fun simultaneously which is impressive.
Your injuries suit US well,
great writing.
As well read as I like to think I am,
I either get a better critique of the recent stage,
or a short but deep meaning critique of a simple commercial.
Sometimes your post leave me questioning my intelligence.
Which is refreshing.
Just like Bad Religion's lyrics had me opening a dictonary more times than all my years in college.
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