The Death of Culture: Part 3

So now that we have laid some groundwork for understanding mass culture, we need to understand the role of complacency. This is where I get back to John Perkins and Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Few of us have much choice what we do. In a literal sense, we have a lot of choice, but in a real sense, there is very little choice. It is pretty straightforward, for example, to get a degree in computers, or biotech, or literature. It is not so clear how we turn this into meaningful work: work that is truly benefiting us and those around us.

The economic system of the first world has a very hierarchical order and the vast majority of us are drones. We have very little voice in how our society is organized or run. There are always opportunities to apply ourselves to meaningful pursuits, but the economic order uses our fear of the loss of security, and our need for survival, to keep us bound to jobs that serve no real purpose.

This is something I’ve had to think long and hard about, but what it really comes down to is that only a select few in the first world have any control over real wealth. Most of the rest of us, instead of actually discussing and organizing the society we’d like to live in, are busy promoting the interests of the monied few in order to earn our own purchasing power.

And the real job of your average drone in the first world is not the creation of wealth. Most economic activity is either superfluous or destroys wealth. It is simply to consume. By consuming you perpetuate the interests of the prevailing order. And by owning possessions you mortgage your own interests for a very limited sense of security (not even comparable to what is provided by real communities and real cultures).

And thus we expose the real purpose of mass culture: consumption. It is not about spontaneity, or creation, or celebration. Mass culture will pay lip-service to these things, but it will not embrace them.