Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Best 2002 Wrap Up Sick of seeing silhouetted pictures of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan heroically representing 2002.  Depressed at the quick return of 20th century McCarthyism, racism, repression, and war just two years into the new millennium.    Try reading the wrap up at alternet.org, which should truly speak to most readers of this blog.  It's the best I've seen. 2:54:06 PM   comment []    New Years Resolution I noticed that my posts have really fallen off, from about 20 per month in Aug and Sept., to 19 in October, 15 in Nov, and only 10 in Dec.  I like fresh posts as much as anyone, and my hope for the new year is that I will post more frequently.  I also hope for peace, for new political leadership among the democrats, and for an economic recovery.  I also resolve to support the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation--to enlarge freedom where it is under attack. Happy New Year to all. 12:33:27 AM   comment []    What is to be Done? Two things have really struck me lately about how most American people think.  One is I had occasion to come across a reference to a Time-CNN poll that was discussed in blog land earlier this fall, that found that 19% of Americans thought they themselves were in the top 1% of income earners, and another 20% thought that they would be there sometime in the future.  See the link to Brad Delong for a string of comments on this theme.   The second point was that I was given the Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner for Christmas, which depicts the vast overreaction among the media and the public to statistically insignificant happenings that terrorize people on a wide scale.   It made me think that the concept of bourgeoisie ideology should be looked at again.  The original concept, as espoused by Lenin, was that socialists should not be infatuated with the spontaneous struggles of the labor movement, because these struggles would inevitably be corrupted by the capitalist society in which they were born.  His antidote was “scientific” socialism, by which he meant socialism not corrupted by the common experience of reflecting the values and experience of the bourgeoisie.   Lenin spent a lot of time attacking “opportunists” by which he meant those who supported immediate demands, like higher wages, because they were popular, rather than sticking to the hard task of scientific socialism and the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.   This terribly horrible sounding language masks an attempt to deal with a real problem:  we live in a world where illusions are rampant, and much of our politics is based on illusions that are consciously fostered by elites for their own purposes.   I am not a fan of conspiracies, and I do not believe that some elite is controlling Americans in a Machiavellian way.  But I do believe that in a country where everything is for sale, emotions become fair game for capitalist exploitation in the same way that emotions are exploited by Nazis or by nationalist dictators.    In our case, the emotion of fear is a money maker.  TV producers scare people so that they will pay attention, and can be induced to take advertising messages.  In the process, we absorb a world-view that is illusory and inimical to our interests.  This was also a theme of Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine.  So there is a feed back loop.  Media can make money selling fear, so they lean ever more heavily on fear to sell even more programs.   In political terms, fear is a powerful weapon.  When people are fearful, they quickly push aside other concerns—an ideal situation for a party that represents the interests of a tiny minority, but wants to act as if it represents the interests of the majority.   Finally, the kinder gentler side of the illusion is that everyone can be rich—kind of like a national lottery.  That is why I was struck by the poll results mentioned above.  When 19% believe they are in the top 1%, or when there is one winner out of tens of millions of people, many people say there but for a slight change in luck go I—who could also win.  When not selling fear, the media are selling the culture of the rich.  My brother in law, a business writer and novelist, is currently working on a project about the movement of demand for upscale luxury experiences into the mass market.  When everyone in effect drives a Mercedes, doesn’t that say that everyone is rich?   So, there is something to be said about the need to free ourselves from the constraints of fear and wealth that seem to blind us to our “real” social needs.  But unlike Lenin, I don’t believe there is a scientific way to do this—simply the need to constantly build upon real experiences, to tell real stories, and to reject the media and political fantasies for what they really are: sales pitches for people to exploit us.   We need a new language and cultural space to develop alternative ideas, and in fact people who care about personal ecology, globalization, less consumption, and balance in life richly populate that space.  But we need more connections, more of our own media, more of our own space.  Maybe the internet and blogging can contribute. 12:21:22 AM   comment []

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