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The Minutia Debate

  
 
big city deserter
18:51 / 28.10.01
Here I am sat firmly in the Anti-Coropration camp, and the awful truth is I love Hello Kitty, even though its unnecessary crap. I know there has been mention of talking the talk but failing to live the life around here before, but to what extent generally do people let their politics affect their lives? I feel guilty for the simple pleasure of my Hello Kitty, not recycled paper, stationary. how do I stop wanting to buy things? I know full well they do not complete me as a person, but at the same time shopping does bring an amount of happiness, all be it a scam. I'm in this game plan of revolution for the sake of ending suffering, and generally making people happier, but as a movement anti-capitalism aims to end the manufacture of goods that people believe they need for their happiness (um, maybe?). How can we educate (starting with ourselves first!) to make them see through this socially ingrained belief? Especially as in part of my mind I know a bunch of new bangles, some glittery nail varnish or a funky handbag will bring me more happiness than reading No Logo or TAZ?
 
 
big city deserter
18:15 / 29.10.01
Ah, I feel a stoney silence in the Barbelith camp. So no-one here ever buts anything they don't need? Or have I just committed the passive faux par in admitting it in polite revolutionary society.

You can hold a protest in Nike and give out leaflets about sweat shops, but you haven't got a fucking clue how to cease the desire for the unnecessary branded goods. Stopping the advertising doesn't work, because here I am - a nasty contractiction, pathalogically desiring an unadvertised (in the UK any way)brand although it goes against all my beliefs, at least I'm big enough to admit the desire is there. I suppose it was a bit of a tall order to expect a simple solution.

So how long have you all been buying all your goods from fairtrade and charity shops then?
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
18:30 / 29.10.01
they aint responding cause no one has an answer.

I love my shit, it DOES complete me, not that i am incomplete without it, but its been there for so long that i cant imagine myself without it

I make no illusions about what i have, i have a car because i am lazy, i have a dvd player because i like the prisoner and pornography with angle change.

i can say "Boo, corporate america, you suck!"
but tommorow i need new sneakers and hemp sandles dont cut it for me, tonight ill get hungary and go have a steak. you cannot live and not be a part of the cycle unless you are in a highly ruralized area and grow your own food and chop your own wood, but thats not fo me.

to quote Wally Shaun (sic?) from my dinner with andre "I like my electric blanket"
 
 
big city deserter
18:43 / 29.10.01
I don't wanna piss anyone off, but isn't the whole thing kinda doomed to failure then? Why bother bringing down the corporations when basically WE LIKE THEIR STUFF?

That us, yes, the good guys, we like shit and can't do without it. I've lived without TV and man, I got bored. I lived on the dole, and I wanted a McJob so I could buy the stuff other people had, because it would make me happy. New is always better and it always cost money, be it a ungrade for your modem, a didital camera so you can send stuff to IndyMedia or a pile of comics by some freaky scottish chaos magic dude. Even the counter culture freaks are willing consumers.

So what is the point?
 
 
SMS
19:48 / 29.10.01
Yeah, in a way it's doomed to failure. Except, well, what's the goal exactly?

Not putting all big corporations into bankruptcy, since this would cause pain and suffering.

Not ending cross-cultural breeding, for this is the path to world peace.

But keeping alive the smaller business, the voice of the common man. This is good.

And helping the environment that the businesses/post-agricultural humans inherently hurt. This is good.

And NOT CARING if you can't afford those oh-so wonderful luxuries of modern society. I mean, they're nice to have, but *shrug.* Never looking DOWN on people who don't wear Brand X.

Help the poor cows slaughtered before killed.

Help the poor people working on subsitence.

What are the other goals? Haven't we, at least in part,already made some headway in this direction? One of the goals is no more than altering the way we think. And even if you still want material goods, how do you feel about the people who do wear hemp sandals, and don't eat steak, who throw away their TV?

Another plan is a matter of legislation. Can we as members of the community help keep smaller businesses alive? YES. How? Building codes. If you don't allow book stores to be as big as Barnes and Noble in some particular neighbourhood, then smaller bookstores will thrive. And so on. Paying attention to the kind of ramifications of any laws, builing codes, etc.

Publicize. Information is power. Sometimes, environmentalists do more to HURT the environment than help it. Not because they don't mean well, but because their information is bad. Make sure the facts are available to all the people around you. Make sure the facts are easy for the public to get to. Write your congressman. Write your newspaper. Write the people on Barbelith. Hold a rally.

Just not buying won't do much anyway. Can you find an issue where boycotting might be effective? Maybe not. Certainly not if its a blanket boycott of all evil corporations. But maybe here or there.

I'm just suggesting that the main weapon in this battle isn't really not living a capitalistic lifestyle. Sure, you can say, as long as corporations are receiving your money, they're gaining power. But we don't want to take away their power to everything. We want to take away their power to specific evils.

We don't want them dead. We want them healed.

And, honestly? You were bored w/out TV? That only surprises me because everyone I know who tried not watching TV was pretty happy they did. Not criticizing you. Just surprised.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
20:06 / 29.10.01
i dont even really "watch"TV, im just used to the backround drone of it these days, and thats why i hate it
 
 
Mordant Carnival
20:29 / 29.10.01
I feel your pain, mon amie. I've managed to fight the lure of Hello Kitty (not easy when you're a Goth; H.K. is the new Death-off-of-Sandman).

I don't think we're doomed at all, no. So long as dumbshit consumer gubbins is a small and limited part of our lives, and we remain aware that buying toys when you're a grownup is a huge fucking luxury that most of the world doesn't have and act accordingly, we'll still manage to keep our pissing-away-of-the-Earth's-resources to a decent level. It's not the odd bit of notepaper or the ocasional bottle of glittery nail varnish that's the problem, it's the stuff we do every day that counts.

It is bloody difficult to live in the Western world today and not fuck things up. Try and do as little harm as you can. Recycle it if it is recylable; re-use, pass on, make do and mend, try and favour good products over bad. Be aware etc etc.

Oh, bugger it. What Stolte said. He's more coherent than I am and probably nicer.
 
 
Jackie Susann
02:44 / 30.10.01
I really don't think it's a terrible melodrama. In fact I feel like I'm about to sound like a bad 'socialism for beginners' lecture, but, um, whatever...

The idea that 'should I or shouldn't I buy this?' is an important political question, or a progressive one, or whatever, indicates that you're thinking pretty much in the ways capitalism teaches us to. Buy it, don't buy it; the point is to restructure economic relationships so that one's purchasing power doesn't decide the limits of one's political choice. Buy it, don't buy it; people with no rights will still be making it in the South for fuck all money.

Nobody on the left wants people to want less. Nobody worth talking to, anyway. But many of us would like people to have aims that exceed continuing to buy Hello Kitty (not saying you shouldn't buy it, but for crying out loud, the idea that it's a significant stumbling block for radical politics... what?)

This isn't meant as a personal criticism of anyone, I am kind of cranky this afternoon though so if it comes across like that I'm sorry.
 
 
Astroboy
04:36 / 30.10.01
i really like hello kitty too. i mean, i feel bad because it's all this paper and plastic going to waste, not just cause it's from a big bad corporation. but i still use sanrio notepaper to write love notes. and lots of glitter and faux fur and leopard-skin and black eyeliner, yeah.

i don't think its bad to want things at all. glamor ruels okay.
 
 
big city deserter
18:07 / 30.10.01
quote:Originally posted by Crunchy Anne Bonney:

Nobody on the left wants people to want less. Nobody worth talking to, anyway. But many of us would like people to have aims that exceed continuing to buy Hello Kitty (not saying you shouldn't buy it, but for crying out loud, the idea that it's a significant stumbling block for radical politics... what?)


It's more of a stumbling block for my conscience and yeah, I am a glittery, pink neon drama queen at times. The people who want people to stop wanting things are called Budhists, not radical politics espousing dudes, and I've come into contact with quite a few lately with the view that the best way to live is to minamise the impact of how you cause others to suffer, and your own suffering mininalised by conquering desire. Aiming for compassion to the nth degree = the roots of my utopian /idealist /hippy/ unrealistic standards that I can't live up to! Hence drama.

Thank you All-Loving SMatthewStolte and All-Loving SMatthewStolte for the positive spin. I got bored when I didn't have a tv, but I also didn't have heating, food, a job or any money. I think I wanted a TV to distract me from the fact I was breathing, not living!
 
  
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