Tuesday, August 11, 2015
"It's not the system, it's you!"
Stop Financializing The Human Experience
"The narcissism bred by consumerism has nurtured an emotional isolation and immaturity that I call permanent adolescence which leaves many young people without the tools needed to handle criticism, collaboration and the pressures of the workplace.
Personal gratification is the driver of narcissism and consumerism, which are two sides of the same coin. Consumerist marketing glorifies the "projected self" as the "true self," encouraging self-absorption even as it erodes authentic identity, self-esteem and the resilience which enables emotional growth--the essential characteristic of adulthood.
Personal gratification is of a piece with self-absorption, fragile self-esteem and an identity that is overly dependent on consumerist signifiers and the approval of others.
The only way a consumerist economy and the state that depends on it can flourish is to turn every human interaction and emotion into a financial transaction. Just reached a personal goal? Celebrate by going to Disneyland and dropping a packet.
Feeling low? Cheer yourself up by buying a new signifier of self-worth.
Sensing something is terribly wrong with your life? Buy another self-help book that repeats the all-important narrative: It's not the system, it's you.
The problem isn't that the system is deranged, dysfunctional and crippling; no, it's you who are deranged, dysfunctional and crippled. But maybe some costly therapy will help you cope with your bottomless inadequacies.
By holding the system blameless for the fragility of our sense of self and identity, the conventional consumerist narrative fragments any social roles that aren't dependent on financial transactions and consumerist signifiers.
In this financialized hall of mirrors, narcissism replaces identity and the authentic self is rendered incoherent."
This article explains why our society is going more narcissistic. It's on a "love of money is the root of all evil" crack binge, when everything in life is a financial transaction, the conman salesmen rule. Masks are on faces to sell, sell, sell. I even remember seeing an article where they talked about "branding" yourself and found myself very troubled. Don't you know you're just a product? Forget that!
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I saw a woman comedian that said that girls today just think you should stand in front of the mirror making yourself as hot as you possibly can and when you do just go to your mail box and watch the checks roll in.
ReplyDeleteHey that's how life for most of the actresses they see on TV is. It's a false reality. "Hot" girls are even a dime a dozen in the modeling and acting industries. That comedian definitely was hitting on the truth.
DeleteThis reminds me of a movie I saw once. It was made in the seventies and it was about the tribulation. But the people in it that had the mark of the beast were acting just like this, the way they do now. And the normal people trying to live through it could see through the crap and couldn't say anything, as they were trying to live through it till Jesus came for them.
ReplyDeleteIt was remarkeable. I saw it years ago. And even a few years ago it wasn't as bad as now, I think. Now we are hiding just like in the movie.
Sounds like an interesting movie. I can see us hiding like in that movie. It seems we have to "hide" now to a degree to avoid being narc bait, ravening wolves and predators all over the place. People's souls now are being assailed on multiple fronts. I feel like we are living in that movie the Body Snatchers. That movie had some deep meaning to it. The Pods and all...
DeleteI've noticed old movies had screen doors that slammed and made noise and the characters had jobs where they sweated and cars were used and had dust on them. Now every scenario is of a CEO with a $1000 suit living in a perfect high rise with his perfect wife or perfect husband and driving a spotless 100K car whipping out his cell phone barking orders about the flash mob he will have dancing later.
ReplyDeleteYou just don't see real people on tv anymore. Even the commercials they all live in houses or apartments that would take at least 2 million in networth to afford. Even the car commercials are a joke with cars that cost 2-4 times what the average person lives on in a year. We sure don't see anyone living like Laverne or Shirley. I am a major fan of old movies, I do get TCM on TV and watch basically the old stuff only, foreign films, documentaries and nature. There hasn't been a film at the theatres worth watching since the Kings Speech. Now that I am noticing everyone on TV is 20 years younger then me too, that makes things interesting as well.
DeleteEveryone thinks being an adult means you don't have to take out the trash if you don't want or you can have sex with anyone anytime you want or cover your body in tattoos etc. When actually it's the opposite. Adults really don't get to do shit but pay for every body's else's mistakes and laziness. I always say we were the notch babies. Our parents neglected us but we have to provide everything kids want the instant they want it.
ReplyDeleteBeing adult is being crushed by bills. We never could afford kids even if I had not gotten sick. I suspect any kids would have been upset from their used clothing, overweight mother and crock pot meals. Sometimes I am relieved I never had kids because I couldn't barely take care of myself, but this culture is clueless and with its denial of how the average person lives, the kids are brainwashed to want more and more. If I had a kid, I'd tell them how hard it is to make a living and how easy it is to end up homeless, and not give them the believe and achieve line and would tell them how the world really worked. [well this would have to be done at a certain age] I have seen the young people out there and they are indoctrinated to worship consumerist society. There seems to be few independent minded ones.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the rant. I did everything but break out into that song from bye bye birdie.......you know the one KIDS what wrong with kids today?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wCXr_6wgns we are trying to one off to college and one just moved back with a small boy.
I haven't been around kids of any sort since my 20s, its like when I left the troubled teens at the residential home I didn't talk to anyone under 18 for the rest of my life. Kids and young people to me seem a foreign species. I talked to one younger girl in the park and she didn't even know what some phrases I said meant, they were pretty generic ones too. I wonder what she had been taught. She was nice but it kind of shocked me. I thought wow I barely speak their language anymore. Kids that are even younger it would be hard. I think the millennials have it even rougher, far more of them and the jobs are nonexistent while people like me could dig up something to pay for the boarding house room and ramen noodles. I hope things go better with your kids and know it must be rough to have them moving back in. I have cousins who are 27-29 years old and who still havent left home AT ALL. It freaks me out, I'm thinking they will never have their own lives but can't blame them. No job, no life for many out there. I know if I had young people I would discuss very alternative options to make livings--like moving to a foreign country or taking up a trade. I wouldn't push college which would bring only debt unless it was a trade-based community college program. With your child in college insist that they take up something practical. Tell them how difficult it is to make a living.
DeleteHi Peep,
ReplyDeleteThis is my third attempt at a comment on another blog post of your's. It keeps disappearing when I try to publish it.
This is in regards to Jade Helm
- a comment you and another person wrote.
Look up Jane Clift - UK - some psychopath who sat on local council put her on a violent person registry and her life became hell. She describes what a target of gang stalking also describe without using that term specifically.
Mike German from ACLU can be found online discussing a law passed in 2008 that FBI can open an investigation on any citizen without cause. Imagine that kind of power in the wrong hands. Citizens are placed on this list Agents go into the targets neighborhood and tells neighbors; neighbors then surveil you for the program so they are already primed to believe the worst about you. Imagine the abuses. It's a nice mentality! It's like Lord of the Flies.
These programs exists. Edward Snowdon is trying to wake us up at the gross abuses going on right under our noses, and yet no outcry. It's like we are frogs slowly being boiled to our death.
Oh I saw your Jade Helm post on another article but will comment on it too. I have heard of gang stalking but don't know much about it. Narcissists can do a lower level of that even with their smear campaigns. Americans have lost endless freedoms. They have had people on lists for years. Some have warned of the "round-up" lists on conspiracy websites and Fema Camps. I wouldn't put anything past them out there. It would be like the Lord of the Flies. I even know writing something agaisnt NDAA or standing up against it is a risk of sorts, usually now for the big names but who knows. Edward Snowdon was right to warn. I don't believe them when they say they are going to end certain programs eithere.
ReplyDelete