Fr. John Dear said it really well that "one of the casualties of a culture war is our imaginations" and I couldn't agree more.
I almost don't want to write this entry because I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I don't have any answers to the problems I highlighted in my polemic and I certainly don't want to presume to tell you or anyone else how you should or shouldn't live your own lives. All I can do is write down the things I've been thinking about and maybe you might find fuel for your own thought processes, or perhaps we could work together to find some kind of mutual stepping off point. Also please at any time feel free to tell me I'm full of shit if I start acting like I am. I have what I like to call foot-in-mouth disease, as in it gets logded in there on a very regular basis and I sometimes don't realise until those around me point it out.
So I have a serious beef with the comodification of culture. And I believe that what ever revolutionary potential there was the old triduum of sex-drugs-and rock'n'roll, it ran out of gas a long time ago and we've all been sitting in that broken down car, too oblivious to realise that it's stopped. So that's all well and good but what do I do with this poinion now that I can no longer deny it?
I've been wrestling with this a lot lately because I am a very impatient man and I want things to change at a rate that I probably wouldn't be comfortable with if I were right in the thick of it. Yet the thought that doggs me is that any concept of culture, wether it's youth culture expressed through "punk", or hip hop, or rave culture; or wether it's the dominant trends in everything from blogging to photography are all actually just by-products of capitalism to one degree or another.
in the post-cold-war era nothing that is considered cultural exists for any reason except to sell things. Wether it's music produced and marketed to sell itself, books written to make an author money, or a look that is hot for people to go out and buy, nothing that is easily accessible is truly spontanious any more, it's all just for sale. Even much of the stuff that's free in our consumer age is mainly free because it is trying very hard to propagate it'self or something it is related to, it seeks an audience and tries very hard to maintain a hold on that audience once it's been found.
Even what I'm writing now is part of this paradigm. It's like the story of the guy who complains about capitalism but really likes the paycheck.
We live in a way that taints every intercation with the aftertaste of marketing.
I'm not a practiced student of history, so I'm not certain if things have ever been much different, they've certainly only been getting worse over the past hundred years. This becomes especially obvious if you look into the history of public relations and how psychological principles have been consistently used to sell us things based not on nescessity but on desire. A good documentary series which examines this phenomenon is called "The Century of the Self", I believe you can view it on Archive.org and I would strongly recommend it to anyone interestyed enough to still be reading this.
So what I have been thinking about is faux punk and the marketing of the diy ethic.
Much of what is sold to us on a daily basis is marketed with the premise that you define yourself through your posessions. So if you wear Doc Martins and acid washed jeans that says something very specific about you, just like if you wear FUBU pants and baseball caps that havn't been broken in. this concept of a personal identity based on ownership has other nasty side effects. Effects like the sometimes ardent, sometimes ruthless brand loyalty. Have you ever gone to a restaurant and ordered a coke only to find that they only serve pepsi and then after hearing this you lose all interest and instead of getting the cola you go with something that seems more neutral like rootbear or orange juice? That's brand loyalty at work and it's also deeply convoluted and absurd if you get right down to it.
The choice between Coke and Pepsi is really one that is totally cosmetic, the taste is so close that it really can't be an issue of flavour, especially when there are so many colas on the market and the only two people get particularly devout over are the two big ones. The choice is not one of politics or ethics either because both companies have terrible records with treating their employees and the world around them. Coke for instance has a history of assasinating it's employees in the third world when they try and unionize, and Pepsi is being taken to court in a class action suit over it's decimation of the natural environment in India. If these things were the motivation for people boycotting either company these brands might be forced to change their tone a bit.
Rather the Coke/Pepsi decision has more to do with what kind of message is being sold and who they pay to sell it. The same thing goes with the console wars in Video Gaming, the choice between laundry detergents and what kinds of music you listen to and which underwear you put on in the morning. It can be seen with the rise in popularity of companies like American Apparel, the historic competition between Nintendo and Sega, and with the insinuation of Nike into Skateboarding.
So if we are being sold on an image, or on the implication that you are what you own; then perhaps one way I can combat this in my daily life is to try and blur the lines as much as I can. Shopping for clothes at the Army and Navy on skid row and choosing non-descript but well made and affordable clothing that I would have no problem wearing or giving away if the need arose is one thing that I would like to try doing more, another thing to do would be to find places which sell clothing which is ethically made or learning how to make my own clothes. Knitting looks like a very relaxing hobby and it isn't too difficult to spin your own wool, I have a number of friends I could get pointers from and it's not hard to find a good drop spindle.
on the subject of making clothes the DIY ethic is still around, thank God you can't ever kill a good idea. I've often thought of investing in a sewing machine, and I have known how to sew, darn, and stitch since I was a child. learning was not only easy but it was enjoyable and productive.
The last thing I want to write about here is art. It's around and it's good when it's made honestly. I find that I am always surprised when I go to all ages shows in the city. local bands can be very ingenius when it comes to creating music and local artists are always worth supporting when possible. I think a lot of my rage stemms from the dead air in the clubs and my own cynicism which sometimes makes it hard for me to get off the couch and go kick out the mother-fucking jams.
I always enjoy a good show, I guess I just need to start getting out more and thinking of solutions to my own problems because God knows no one else is going to do it for me, and I'd probably hate it if they tried.
I guess as an after though that nothing I've written here is likely to bring down the capitalist/consumerist machine but it's been good for me to put these thoughts into writing. If we can each find our own ways of dismantling the false and fuzzy logic of the consumerist society then perhaps we can go back to being citizens and from there maybe becoming people again.
I have faith that in the end it's going to be people thaqt are left and these ghosts and monsters we have erected in the forms of corporation and government will fall over like the card houses they are and the best way I can see to help with this is to find my own alternatives to their faulty vision.
to quote J Edgar Hoover "If I can't piss myself laughing then I don't want a part of your revolution."
