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From elsewhere:
Haus, how do you feel about swapping films online? Or music? I think there is enough excess wealth around to support artists without the the people mediating this relationship being so parasitic. And they aren't even people; they are abstract entities that we've created to service our egos, and they've gotten out of hand.
I don't have the option of starting a printing press of From Hell. However, if a CD with it on was available, i've no doubt I would copy it for friends. If I heard Alan Moore was on the breadline because of it, I would encourage the wealthy readers to donate to help him out, and I'd probably do so myself. I've already given £25 to the unnecessary machinery which brought From Hell into my life, but that £25 could have gone toward helping a friend of mine return to East Timor to help rebuild his country. I feel that the £25 is better invested in From Hell because it helps people here in newcastle to find meaning, and I know it has helped those people who've taken the time to read it, because they've told me so. I think you underestimate the level of drug intake, including alcohol, which is motivated by depression in some way. Depression is incredibly common but is a taboo subject; like menstruation, people pretend it doesn't exist. *Of course* comics readers are miserable too, but i feel a graphic novel is a better purchase than binge drinking, and is far cheaper.
(a lengthy description of a party on the Tyne, in which nobody had very much fun, it seems)
The lower decks, by the way, were made up of local people who weren't as obviously wealthy, where it seemed to be about achieving oblivion through drink and monotonous music, which strikes a chord with my experiences of being at school with working class kids.
£25 wouldn't have made too much difference to my friend, it doesn't really narrow the gap between the local Timor fund and the price of his ticket home. I think it has had a valuable effect on my social circle in newcastle, however, and i have a commitment to the people surrounding me here as much as my friend has to East Timor.
There are a lot of questions here. The most obvious one is just how long "drink and monotonous music" have been the preserves of the working class - we can go back to Hoggart in a flash....Adorno? Arnold?
Next up, there's a set of relations being drawn here between money and its exchanges. Specifically, is £25 better spent on a copy of From Hell or on East Timor? What does more good seems to be the question here.
Then, finally, there's rights management, which belongs in another thread. Try not to go too far into it here.
A following post went:
The fact is, I walk around my city and see so much food on the shelves, so many clothes (apparently 30% of textiles are thrown away in this country, rather than donated or recycled), huge buildings with electricity, heating; then there are people meticulously excluded from these resources. It isn't right that homeless people are kept out of shopping malls and harassed by police, and that struggling families are denied food or books or even just a plastic bit of shat from macdonalds just because they don't have enough stupid tokens bearing the queen's mug. At the same time, it isn't right that beautiful, creative people are forced to spend their valuable time passing products through a barcode scanner for a living. It is also not right that there are people being asked by corporations to make sure other people don't just take what they want and need. We shouldn't allow ourselves to be put in the position where we are told "make sure nike doesn't get ripped off by the local charves, or don't feed your family". About the abstract entity thing; well, nike (and other corporations) aren't one person, as you say, they are made up of a network of people. Nike is the idea that holds these people in bondage, the same way other ideas have held people in service to to gods or ideology or whatever you want to call it.
I'm sure there are people who are happy in their jobs, and are comfortable with their relationship with whichever business interests they serve. I think there are an awful lot of people who are not happy, and i think this shows up in the self-destructive behaviour they indulge in which is endemic to the entire consumer driven culture. When people gladly eat up all this stuff they're told about being ugly and worthless and friendless, and call it entertainment, then you have to admit there's a mental problem there. That particular condition is destructive in its effects on the rest of the human universe, and I'm fairly damned sure it is destructive to the individual themselves.
So, consumerism makes people sad. Consumption makes people sad. There are better forms of consumption than others - comics are better than alcohol. In certain cases, comics are better than East Timor. In other cases they are not. People are told that they are ugly and worthless and friendless, and get depressed. To deal with depression, they consume. People not allowed onto this capitalist money-go-round are, if anything, even *more* depressed.
Anyone want to have a go at picking the bones out of that one?
"Charves", btw, IIRC, has a similar force to "pikeys". But that's probably another story. |
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