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What is wrong with our culture

Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 11:42:04

I side a bit more with what Pstarr stated in that "It was better to enslave people, most with jobs and mortgages" , I am a bit skeptical that this desire on the part of people to feel useful equates to the advent of this Mass Consumerism. We have had people living their lives in useful ways for thousands of years without this gearing itself to mass consumerism. So the impetus for this Mass Consumerism to me seems to stem from both a utilitarian necessity obviously some work needs to be done but also as the result of the feverish desire of the Business Interests to cash in on this bonanza of money-making which the Industrial Revolution unleashed in the form of mass production & consumerism . As an offshoot of this many jobs were created but just the same the driving force was and is greed practiced initially by the high up tier of society and now by everyone who can. We could have as a civilization been more moderated in consumerism, more willing to equate the value of someone by what they offer as opposed to how much money they have and give. Of course the creation of money and private property can be seen as the initial catalyst for capitalism and mass consumerism.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 12:38:10

onlooker wrote: We have had people living their lives in useful ways for thousands of years without this gearing itself to mass consumerism.


I posted awhile back an explanation for this and how this relates to our ancestors having evolved in environments rich in diversity. We are habituated as a species since we came down from arboreal habitats and walked the planets diverse terrestrial ecosystems to have our brains stimulated in environments that are rich in diversity.

Modern consumerism is oddly a way to recreate this rich diversity in what has otherwise become a sterile monotone living arrangement.

When a shopper goes down the aisles and sees 40 brands of deodorants or cereal this actually mirrors the rich diversity that our hunter gatherer ancestors had when going out collecting herbs and berries.

So we manicure our lawns, create artificial living environments, strip diversity down to the bare minimum and then go to the mall so we can shop for 1000's of varieties of shoes, clothing and useless crap.

Think deeply about this relationship. As we have denuded natural landscapes, as we have increased the human landscape to concrete dead zones, vast industrial dead zones, immense agricultural fields of GMO corn and soy, manicured mono culture lawns, at the same time our shopping malls have become full of shops more and more diversified to fulfilling even our most nuanced of needs and wants.

We have actually through materialism created an ersatz to the diversity that we have removed ourselves from. Consumerism is a perverted attempt to replace this diversity that we have destroyed, stemming from the need our ancestral brains have of moving about in rich diverse habitats.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 12:59:48

Good Ibon, a aspect I had not considered.

How's Wilson doing?

Got another for ya, Gonzalez, Everday Survival.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 13:25:34

Newfie wrote:Good Ibon, a aspect I had not considered.

How's Wilson doing?

Got another for ya, Gonzalez, Everday Survival.


Doing great. Highly recommend the book . Before continuing on toward the last chapters I am rereading the mid section where he digs into group selection with social insects and how this affects the phenotype etc. I'll wait until I finish the whole book to comment further.

I am back up in the US over the holidays to visit my aging mother. Now I am away from the wisdom the cloud forest whispers in my ear every morning when I usually post here and I am back in the middle of the consumer paradigm soup here in South Florida at the moment.

I am observing my species like an extra terrestrial at the moment and my conclusion so far is that humans are uniquely freaky in the universe
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 13:36:44

Very interesting Ibon, Psychological Anthropology is a sub-field of Anthropology and should be the area which would account for this type of human evolution you cite. Certainly consumerism appeals to our more primitive faculties related to the five senses. It does not require much refined taste or intellectual proclivity. Funny I saw the rather disturbing movie "Silence of the Lambs" in which Hannibal Lecter asks the FBI agent what does a person covet. He then provides the answer of a person covets what they see. So in particular our seeing is paramount in our evolution it seems to me , so it stands to reason that we are attracted to what we see as appealing and the more types of things we see, the more chance something will catch our eye.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 14:51:42

pstarr wrote: The shopping mall is a lovely Cloud Forest. Givemeabreak. :razz:
Pretty pathetic isn't it ?

While I actually see a lot of truth in what you say Ibon, I see another (inherited) behavioral program at work here. We are pack/tribe animals, somewhere between great apes and wolves. We need status, hierarchy, and small packs. We are always looking around for an alpha (male/female) but are always confused by advertising/media/corporate pictures.


Yes, Mall is the cloud forest, The Coach purse you pay $ 5000 for is the hierarchy and status.

But make no mistake: it the ghettoization in industrial/consumer-work/consumption prisons that keeps us from forming real packs and communities . . . of a psychologically reasonable size. Several hundred whatever.


What that means quite simply and objectively is the prison walls are still standing and keeping the wolves at bay, in spite of some minor fractures at the moment. Nothing will change this until the those prison walls weaken enough to break the spell....

My prediction is the spell will be broken at the same time suburban lawns start sprouting weeds and gardens, when diversity starts reclaiming its place.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 15:14:02

pstarr wrote:All that stuff Keith, about purported leisure never came about because it would have empowered people to want more leisure. More pleasure, travel, maturity. More experimentation. More drugs, sex, and rock and roll. It was better to enslave people, most with jobs and mortgages, others with promises of wealth and the rest with deprivation and poverty. Sharing, equality, leisure are not for the masses.

I wonder if these leisure predictions came from the same folks who promised us flying cars and moon vacations.
I seem to remember the phrase "Leisure Society". Unfortunately, an English folk band has adopted that name, so it's hard to google.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 16:59:43

A clarification.....the work/leisure argument I'm making seems to be limited to some cultures. There are others where there seems to be no impediment to leisure, while all falls apart around them.

Another thought......

The wolf pack, the small administrative groups may well be alive in the drug gangs in the ghetto. The beating heart of Capitalisim.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 18:28:45

Newfie wrote:A clarification.....the work/leisure argument I'm making seems to be limited to some cultures. There are others where there seems to be no impediment to leisure, while all falls apart around them.
Is that worse than the cultures that work their butts off while all falls apart around them?
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 19:04:46

Keith_McClary wrote:
Newfie wrote:A clarification.....the work/leisure argument I'm making seems to be limited to some cultures. There are others where there seems to be no impediment to leisure, while all falls apart around them.
Is that worse than the cultures that work their butts off while all falls apart around them?



I'm trying to not make value judgements, I don't like either scenario. But it seems we have trouble modulating. Kinda like a drunk, or a reformed drunk. No moderation. That's what is bad.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 21:52:40

I am observing my species like an extra terrestrial at the moment and my conclusion so far is that humans are uniquely freaky in the universe :lol: :lol:
And getting freakier by the day :lol:
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Sun 21 Dec 2014, 22:09:56

Ah the wonders of drugs
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Quinny » Mon 22 Dec 2014, 05:41:02

It is so obvious to me that sharing the benefits of automation so people had less 'work' to do is a no brainer when it comes to humanity and the planet. The problem for TPTB is what do people do when they have lots of time on there hands. OK at first they might have a vacation or just mess around, but then what do they do? They start to think and that's dangerous! That's a major reason why re-distribution of wealth/time/labour hasn't happened.

Oh and there's that damn system again, it has to 'grow'.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 22 Dec 2014, 08:36:12

onlooker wrote:I am observing my species like an extra terrestrial at the moment and my conclusion so far is that humans are uniquely freaky in the universe :lol: :lol:
And getting freakier by the day :lol:


I think that's a great thing to do.

It starts to give some truer perspective.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 22 Dec 2014, 08:43:18

Quinny wrote:It is so obvious to me that sharing the benefits of automation so people had less 'work' to do is a no brainer when it comes to humanity and the planet. The problem for TPTB is what do people do when they have lots of time on there hands. OK at first they might have a vacation or just mess around, but then what do they do? They start to think and that's dangerous! That's a major reason why re-distribution of wealth/time/labour hasn't happened.

Oh and there's that damn system again, it has to 'grow'.


And it couldn't be our own internal Puritian work ethic that's kicking in?

Seems to me there are some larger cultures that don't do it.

But then reading about the stratification I. The Indian caste system, where the typical English house needed dozens of servants, that sounded like the same thing. The person who changed the sheets couldn't wash them, the washer couldn't opput napkins on the table, the waiter couldn't clear the table.

But more so, I see far too many well off men I their 60's and beyond struggling to work every day because they do t know what else to do with them selves.

They have the money to vacation or read or learn a language. They don't have the will, they are afraid of what they give up, their dreary job.
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 22 Dec 2014, 09:33:17

I guess in summary, you can say we modern humans are attached to our jobs in a psychological manner in so much as they are a status symbols, we attain a sense of security from them and so forth. Yet the obvious is our physical well being and livelihood are attached to the money we derive from them as the world we created is totally dependent upon money , everything or almost everything must be paid for to have or to use. Everything costs money. So how could we not be attached to our jobs!
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Re: What is wrong with our culture

Unread postby Timo » Mon 22 Dec 2014, 12:42:24

What is wrong with our culture?

To no small degree, it's a hefty dose of 24/7 universal mass media, complete with talking heads who inform us what are thoughts and desires need to be. They proclaim that its very bad for the economy when we do not spend our money. So, we go the the mall and buy things to stimulate the economy like the good little consumerrs we've been trained to be. The media controls our politics, because perception is reality. Any problem in the world is someone's fault. This problem is blown out of reasonable proportion. The assigned person who's held as responsible is vilified. We're told to replace that person, and we vote for the opposition. Yes, we are pack animals with the need for pack leaders and security, and we have replaced our own self sufficiency in developing our own thoughts with those instructions broadcast across the world by the talking heads who are paid to influence how we live.

What is NOT wrong with our culture?
Last edited by Timo on Mon 22 Dec 2014, 12:43:06, edited 1 time in total.
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