a cynic's guide to modern life
Five Days On the Downfall of Society: Some Notes From the Field
Introduction:
I wrote
these journal entries a few years back in an attempt to understand the
problem of cultural malaise. I knew what I wanted to say, but I had
problems expressing it. So one of the ways I chose to enlighten myself was
write a series of journal entries to (hopefully) reveal something to
myself that I might have been missing all along. The result is this. As
far as enlightenment goes, I am a little closer, but just a little.
It is an elusive beast indeed.
Friday/1.29.99/10:45AM
Between
drags of my cigarette and sips of my coffee, I have little to do but watch
people and scribble notes into this well-worn, coffee- stained notebook. I
try to think of these people around me as a society, or maybe more
accurately as a culture, but it is exceedingly difficult to imagine.
Western society doesn't even remotely resemble any traditional conception
of what a culture is. I see people in Nike ball caps and Calvin Klein
t-shirts and I wonder to myself: is this what it’s all about? Is this
what we have done to our culture?
Underground
artist R. Crumb once remarked (and I’m paraphrasing) that a culture used
to take hundreds of years to develop and it was subtly formed by each
generation, but we’ve traded that for this pre-packaged, market-driven
culture that’s designed to make money. I see people around me dressed in
the height of fashion and I’m filled with a mixture of revulsion and
pity. It is truly sad to see an intelligent person with utterly no will
submit themselves to the latest trend, simply because they live in mortal
fear of being out of step with the rest of the bleating sheep. My question
to the world is how could have we let this happen? It is a sad state of
affairs when corporations guide culture. Corporations should never guide
culture. Culture is, was and always will be in the hands of the people.
The problem I have is that we willingly traded our cultural freedoms away,
freedoms that less progressive societies would kill for. Again, I ask over
and over, how the hell could have this happened? Virtually every
cornerstone that a culture is based on has been attacked: fashion,
cuisine, music, art, literature, and language. I cannot resign myself to
the fact that people do not know this. It is so obvious, it is
inconceivable that it has gone unnoticed. People must know what they have
done. The question is, are they willing to get rid of the market-driven
culture? Or maybe the question is: can they get rid of the market-driven
culture?
My
generation is probably the first, or maybe in some cases the second that
has literally no idea what a non-commercial culture is like. The seeds of
the commercial culture were planted early in the century and ripened in
the post World War II economic and population boom. Coupled with the
medium of television, commercial culture made its big push. But my parents
and many other boomers had some inkling of what non-commercial culture
was. We on the other hand have been so deluged with commercialism since
birth, that we have adopted it as our way of life. I am in the field, and
I honesty feel that I am covering a war. Casualties float all around me,
even though they are alive and well. I truly fear the day when the
commercial machine breaks down, and people must survive in a
post-commercial world. A non-commercial culture does exist, but you must
cut yourself off from mass communication and immerse yourself into a
low/working class community. It exists only in brief glimpses at certain
times when the absence of commercialism reveals itself. It’s dizzying, a
feeling I can’t really describe. It’s almost like traveling to a
foreign city, and it dawns on you how different things really are. I
sometimes spend whole days in these neighbourhoods, taking in the scenery.
But in truth, the commercial culture is virtually inescapable, unless you
commit yourself to utter isolation, which is pretty much unfeasible for
most people. Nearly every home has a television and radio, and even if
they don’t those people are subjected to commercialism on the streets.
Few, if any, aren’t touched by commercialism. It is fairly apparent that
the Mohawk Valley Formula[0]
is a failing experiment, or more accurately designed to be a failing
experiment. The MVF was directly an American invention, and indirectly the
Western world’s cultural icon. The MVF is to the Western way of life
what Jesus is to Christianity. Directly, the MVF stressed “harmony”
but the indirect connotations revolved around materialism. After all, you
can’t fit in unless you own a car, right? Or a new television set? You
can’t fit in unless you have the latest fashions, and then you wouldn't
be in “harmony” with the rest of the neighbourhood. Early television
advertisers used this method of fear manipulation so successfully, the
basic formula of commercial advertising has changed very little. In fact,
the MVF is so prevalent in our society, it is present in almost every
facet of our culture.
Monday/02.01.99/11:41AM
POST-SUPERBOWL HANGOVER
The
ingredients were there for a classic contest. The aging superhero
quarterback John Elway lacing up for probably the last time with his
ever-present “aw shucks” farm boy grin against the fresh, bold,
exciting Falcons ready to do the Dirty Bird into the wee hours. It never
materialized. Elway was good, but had his MVP handed to him by a deflated
Atlanta team that combined a lacklustre defence with a comatose offence.
But boring Super bowl games have become old hat. Venerable announcer John
Madden summed it up best when he said the game itself is a sideshow to all
the other events going on. And most beer-addled fans seem to care less. It
is no longer a game. It is an event. A weekend of filler and glitz and
fireworks and corporate sponsorship.
The
game/event disparity became glaringly apparent to me when Madden did his
”All-Millennium team” special. Watching clips from the 30s up to the
70s, the game is noticeably bare. It is free from the glut of advertising
and glamour that hampers today’s game. 70,000+ people used to go to see
football. Would 70,000+ come today just for football? Could today’s fan
get by on just four quarters and a marching band at half-time? I’m not
sure, but I highly doubt it. It’s naive to think that pro sports in
general can return to the “just the game and nothing more” roots.
Sports and commercialism have married, and it seems like its going to
last. Owners need the dollars to fuel ballooning salaries and operating
costs. Players need that extra zero on the account balance. Corporations
need to suck more and more people in. It’s a win/win situation, except
for the sports fan.
One
hour after the Super bowl, I scramble to find the notes I had scribbled
during the game. Upsetting empty beer cans and chip packets, I find and
scan them through a beer buzz haze, but the only word that seems to stand
out is “glossy.” I used the word over two dozen times during the game.
Glossy and football seems like a paradox to me. Football conjures images
of mud, grass stains, sweat and blood, of screaming coaches and freezing
rain and raucous fans. In other words, the opposite of glossy. The game
still has all those things, but it’s different. It looks manufactured
and an awful parody of itself. The roughness of football has merely become
another marketing tool. Jamal Anderson does the Dirty Bird, but its no
longer exuberance that fuels it. It’s a part of his image, an image that
will have him dancing on Nike runners between swigs of Coke or bites of a
Big Mac. The thrill is gone. It is often said that sport is a metaphor for
life. If the Super bowl is any indication to go by, then I think we’re
all in big trouble.
Wednesday/02.03.99/12:12PM
ARYAN ADS:
DOES A NEW CAR MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON?
It
is hard to conceptualize a world beyond commercialism since it penetrates
so deeply. A rapid disintegration of commercialism could be dangerous; it
could just yield blind chaos, like taking a junkie off of heroin. The need
is too great. Then again, chaos might be a good thing. Maybe out society
needs chaos to remind themselves how ludicrous the fake culture really is.
Take a look at the average television commercial. The Mohawk Valley
Formula has presented our ideal to us in these ads. The Aryan overtones of
the people (generally blond-haired and blue-eyed whites), combined with
the aesthetical beauty of themselves and surroundings, coupled with a
wealth of material goods. A culture always has ideals; some good, some
bad. The good things were generally universal (intellect, loyalty,
morality and skill) as were the bad things (worship of wealth, uniform
beauty). In Western society those traditional good qualities are ridiculed
and linked to weakness. Wealth and uniform beauty have replaced them.
After all, the qualities mentioned above can be acquired by anyone. Wealth
and uniform beauty are for the privileged few. To the rest, they exist on
the hope of attainment. People habitually buy lottery tickets, fashionable
clothes, cosmetics, new cars, new furniture and just about anything else
not out of necessity, but out of a futile attempt to better themselves.
Does a new car make you a better person? Of course not, when you think
about it. But we are taught not to think about it. We are taught that this
is natural, the accepted norm, that it is the goal of every man, woman and
child on the face of the planet to become as wealthy as possible.
So
where does the African American and the Native Canadian fit into all of
this? They live in the same commercial culture that they had little hand
in creating. These people are models for those who wish to reject
commercial culture. The black and native communities have managed, despite
extreme pressure and degradation, to retain their identities. Part of the
reason is that whites have denied access. The other part is that they have
refused the access they’ve been given. They desire equality, like
anybody else, but not at the price of selling out to the commercial
culture. The root cause of the continued racism in our society is the
refusal of the black and native communities of buying into commercialism.
Some black and native individuals do, of course, but the people as a whole
have maintained their culture outside the commercial sphere. It is also my
theory that another part of this racial tension is a subconscious
jealousy. I think most people privately admire minority communities for
retaining their non-commercial traditions, while the white majority cast
them off, one by one. The further fact that they’ve fought so hard to
keep them makes us even more envious. Our envy comes out in the form of
racism. We didn't hang on to our culture. We turned it into business. We
turned community into competition, art into commerce, thought into the
quest for wealth.
There
are times when we’ve tried to forge a new culture. The fifties beatniks,
the sixties hippies and the nineties slackers are good examples of this.
But they have all failed, usually because their culture was turned into
commercial endeavour very quickly and neutralized in the eyes of the
public. Once said commercialism takes place, the culture is soiled and
lives on only in the literature, music and art created in that period. If
we are to build a new culture, we must guard against that.
Saturday/02.06.99/1:45 am
GIVE US YOUR POOR, YOUR
HUDDLED, YOUR TIRED MASSES, YEARNING TO BREATHE FREE
I
have been writing this entry over the space of about 8 hours. I work at a
large home-improvement retail chain as a labourer, and I was scribbling
words into a notepad before my shift, during coffee break, after my shift
on the bus home, and whenever I had a few spare minutes. I have organized
these notes into this final entry. The staff room is empty, except for a
middle aged European woman who comes in around six o’clock to clean up.
We talk for a moment, mostly to break up the awkward silence. The talk is
always the same: our jobs, her kids, my school and the weather. But the
conversation is edged with a certain empathy, a kinship that comes with
being faceless numbers in a corporate register. My number is 886753. I’m
not sure what her number is.
The
radio is on throughout the store, tuned to the corporate pop station and
for the next four hours, I’ll be listening to the Backstreet Boys, Spice
Girls, Britney Spears and whoever else whose shelf life hasn’t yet
expired. I wander to the window and look outside. The parking lot is
roughly a third full and is dotted with shopping carts, even though the
cart returns are close by and clearly labelled. One of my 99 duties is to
get them back inside. To tell the truth, that is what I spend most of my
time doing.
There
are two types of consumers who walk through our doors. The first type is
the customer who is here out of necessity. The second type is the person
who is there to chase the “dream.” They can be sub-divided into many
categories, but that is the main division. It is also very easy to spot
the difference. The necessity customer finds what they came for quickly
and efficiently as possible. They are prepared, always having the correct
amount of cash, their debit or credit cards handy and their cheques
pre-dated. They realize that shopping at a major retailer is not a social
visit, and they do their best to make the transaction go as smoothly and
efficiently as possible.
8:20
pm Coffee break
The
“dream” customer wanders the aisles, zombie-like, their eyes glazed
over with wonder. They might be there because they need something, but it
is the uninhibited, junkie-like joy that keeps them there. They tend to be
so dazzled by the consumer experience that they stop thinking the moment
they enter the store and the whole “customer service” philosophy that
was built for them takes over. We push and pull them through the routine
of buying, shopping for them, explaining things to them, telling them
where to go, what to do and how to go about it. Even the simplest
revelations evade them. (The most often asked question I am asked is, when
after a customer has purchased a ton of items is ‘how am I going to fit
all of this into my car?’)
9:15
pm Cigarette break
It
is when I am at work that I fear the most for our society. This isn’t an
understatement. While it is the groundwork for jokes in the staff room,
the submissive will of the consumer frightens me. The “dream” customer
appears to me to be very child-like in action. They are the most likely to
throw tantrums when they are denied what they want. They will use any
degrading tactic not only to get what they want, but also to be the first
to get what they want as well. I have honestly seen better behaved
kindergarten students than some shop-addled consumers' embarrassing rants.
On
the bus home 10:35 pm
There are
several reasons why people do this. Through my own unofficial observations
I have noticed trends in consumers. The dream customers tend to be cut
from the same cloth. They are, with rare exception, between 35 and 55,
more likely women, and almost always middle to upper middle class. Let’s
break this down:
35-55:
Probably the most obvious reason why most dream customers are of this age
group is because the height of popularity of the Dr. Spock-style of
child-raising theory. In a nutshell his theory was that children weren’t
to be denied the ability to express themselves. This is all well and good
except the fallacy is that children weren’t supposed to be taught how to
express themselves. They were just supposed to express themselves in
whatever manner they see fit, be it screaming fits or crying jags. The
problem is that children raised under this system think it’s perfectly
acceptable to do the same thing in adulthood. Hence that is why I believe
that most difficult consumers are of this age group. Another reason could
stem from the fact that the 35-55 bracket have never really experienced
tough times. Those who are younger are faced with the prospect of
substandard employment due to the disproportionate number of baby boomers
in our society. Those who are older remember tough times during war time
or the Depression.
Middle
Class: Lower class people don’t shop as much because they simply don’t
have the money. Which means our store caters almost exclusively to middle
and upper middle class people. I think that middle class people are by and
large the biggest swallowers of the commercial culture. They are carrying
the banner of unbridled consumerism and wasteful spending that they were
taught since birth.
Conclusions
Tuesday/03.06.01/2:17 pm
It has been a
year since I’ve even set eyes on these notes.
Not much has changed since then, either in the course of our
culture or my feelings toward it. Can
we pull ourselves up to at least the point where commercialism and a sound
un-marketed culture can co-exist? My
gut says probably not. What
we need is a unifying hardship, or at least a focal point of identifying
with each other in some other, grassroots way.
Will we ever? We might
have to, or perish as a society.
I am somewhat heartened by the fact that more and more people are noticing and reacting to the slide our culture is taking. I am even more disheartened by the fact that people resign to Madison Avenue anyway because they cannot see an alternative. But who am I to say? I can’t really see one either.
Copyright © 1999, 2001 Don Porter. All rights reserved.