| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper%25" |
|---|
"A functionalist morality play"
By AndrewGradman
|
|
<
< | Word count: Turn my table of contents on its side, notice the Hong Kong skyline. Thus my paper on globalization is worth exactly 1,000 words. |
>
> | Word count: If you turn my table of contents on its side, you will see the Hong Kong skyline. The paper on globalization portrayed therein is worth exactly as many words. |
| | |
|
<
< | Act I. How a functionalist's farce became a modern morality play |
>
> | Act I. How a functionalist farce became a modern morality play |
| | I.1 Man's search for a paper topic |
| | I.1.ii Method: informal colloquy (aka magic) |
|
<
< | Yet in his reflexive dismissiveness, I recognized myself: hiding my beliefs from logic, smuggling to judgment. |
>
> | Yet in his reflexive dismissiveness, I recognized myself: a smuggler rushing to judgment, hiding his pet beliefs from logic. |
| | |
|
<
< | Seeing my mulishness in his shook my confidence in my masculinity (for, what distinguishes man from the animals, is our patience to articulate phrases like "what distinguishes man from the animals"; plus, mules are sterile). I groped for a path from mulehood to manhood; I remembered Eben saying that the path to judgment passes through understanding; my hoof jerked one evolutionary hoofstep towards rumination. |
>
> | Seeing my mulishness in his shook my confidence in my masculinity (for, what distinguishes man from the animals, is our patience to articulate phrases like "what distinguishes man from the animals"; plus, mules are sterile). I groped for a path from mulehood to manhood; I remembered Eben saying that the path to insight passes through stillness; my hoof jerked one involuntary hoofstep inward, towards rumination. |
| | And a miracle came to pass: two mules ruminated together. |
|
<
< | I.2 His question |
>
> | I.2 His Question Questioned |
| | I.2.i Is it even a valid question? |
|
<
< | "It becomes a valid question when I answer it," I brayed. "Wait for the answer." |
>
> | "A question becomes valid when it's answered," I brayed. "Wait for the answer." |
| | |
|
<
< | I.2.ii Defining Nationalism functionally |
>
> | I.2.ii A Functionalist Defines Nationalism |
| | An Ism is a vision that empowers an audience to lead itself somewhere. |
|
<
< | Nationalism is a tautology ("an audience pursuing whatever vision it arrives at") until measured against an independent variable.
Rousseau called that outside stimulus a "lawgiver," but it's just a name. |
>
> | Nationalism is a tautology ("an audience pursuing whatever vision it arrives at") until measured with respect to an outside stimulus. Rousseau called that stimulus the "lawgiver," but it's just a name. |
| | |
|
<
< | The converse feels equally true: we can define a nation as a group with a consistent social reaction to a known stimulus. Its identity is that reaction. The national axes against which anthropologists measure identities—attitudes towards God, poverty, death, leisure—were long entrenched by the time global corporations disembarked on native shores. |
>
> | The converse feels equally true: we can define a nation as a group with a consistent social reaction to a known stimulus. Its identity is that reaction. The national axes against which anthropologists measure identities—attitudes towards God, poverty, death, leisure—were entrenched long before corporate cutters mounted their virgin shores. |
| | |
|
<
< | I.2.iii Defining Capitalism functionally |
>
> | I.2.iii A Functionalist Defines Capitalism |
| | |
|
<
< | Today, the external stimulism is globalism. By which I mean Globalization, by which I mean Capitalism. ("Arghhh," brayed my classmate. "You strain for parallelism.") Marx defined capitalism as the phenomenon unfolding between the French and Communist Revolutions. I prefer to let it denote consumerism, profit's enslavement of thought, marketing's enslavement of man. Capitalism functions as a vector for fetishism, which is just one's expectation to find more delight in things than people. |
>
> | In other words, today the external stimulism is globalism. By which I mean Globalization, by which I mean Capitalism. |
| | |
|
<
< | I.3 His Answer |
>
> | Marx defined capitalism as everything between the French and Communist Revolutions.
I prefer to let capitalism denote consumerism, profit's enslavement of thought, marketing's enslavement of man. Capitalism functions as a vector for fetishism, which is just one's expectation to find more delight in things than in people.
I.3 His Question Answered |
| | I.3.i Nationalism - Capitalism = armies+highways+lighthouses = Love |
| | I.3.ii Nationalism vs. Capitalism = socialism vs. solipsism = Us vs. Me |
|
<
< | The tide of globalism has been rising since World War II. It drowns ancient cultures, has tapped out the sea of faith, is a reverse land bridge for the global migration of Chinese-sourced tchotchkes. |
>
> | The tide of globalism has been rising since World War II. It drowns ancient cultures, has displaced the sea of faith, is a reverse land bridge for the global migration of Chinese-sourced tchotchkes. |
| | |
|
<
< | The Amish invite every member to enjoy the city before he must choose local communalism or urban narcissism. But they postpone his informed decision until sixteen years of communal inculcation. Under globalism, the international agents of industrial stockholders invade the communes; glut the next generation's infant fetishes; indoctrinate by addiction. |
>
> | The Amish invite every member to enjoy the city before choosing local communalism or urban narcissism. But they postpone his informed decision until sixteen years of communal inculcation. Under globalism, the international agents of industrial stockholders invade the communes; glut the next generation's infant fetishes; indoctrinate by addiction. |
| | I.3.iii Nationalism vs. Capitalism→colonialism = socialism vs. solipsism→utilitarianism |
| | I.4.i While the national folkdance is still getting its shoes on ... |
|
<
< | If business is "That government which markets its brand through sales contracts," we may restate my question thus: whether corporations (transferable-contractual-solipsistic-private spirited) or constitutions (territorial-democratic-socialist-public spirited) can market (legitimize) themselves better. |
>
> | If business is "That government which markets its brand through sales contracts"—and the marriage of business and government is a never-ending alimony battle—we may restate my question thus: whether corporations (transferable-contractual-solipsistic-private spirited) or constitutions (territorial-democratic-socialist-public spirited) can market (legitimize) themselves better to you, the judge.
Let me conjure the stakes for you. Capitalism already captured TV; if you're a zombie, come claim your plunder; forever may you cherish this dividend of childhood, memories of meals eaten in a frontfacing row with your parents alongside. |
| | |
|
<
< | Let me conjure the stakes for you. Capitalism already captured TV: if you're a zombie, you won; forever may you cherish your memories of childhood, eating dinner in a frontfacing row with your parents alongside. But Bloch would look for the "storm corner for the revolution" in the Internet. |
>
> | And so Bloch turns to the Internet to stir the "storm corner for the revolution". |
| | I.4.ii ... Globalization gets halfway around the world ...
Alas, I suspect the storm in this corner will fizzle out like all the others. We've long drifted from Jeffersonian democracy into the totalitarian feudalism of corporate contracts. |
|
<
< | * It is old-fashioned to argue that the owner of a media channel controls its content, when some corporate "brand" owns the owner's mind. A neurologist can literally trace the scar where that brand was seared into your optical cortex.
* Marketing is not sales. It is the rationing of identity. Marketing names us and the mall breathes life into us.
* Every day you vote in several elections—or at least a push-poll—in which corporate brainwashing machines fight to legitimize their mental property in you.
* Marketing is like bacteria, it is everywhere. Long after fallout kills even the cockroaches, our billboards will scar the earth like the flag on the moon. |
>
> | * It is old-fashioned to argue that the owner of a media channel controls its content, when some corporate "brand" owns the owner's mind. A neurologist can literally trace the scar where that brand was seared into his optical cortex.
* Every day you vote in several elections—or at least push-polls—in which corporate brainwashing machines compete to legitimize their mental property in you.
* Marketing is not sales. It is the rationing of identity. Marketing names us and the mall breathes life into us.
* Long after fallout kills even the cockroaches, our billboards will still scar the earth. |
| | I.4.iii ... so face it, we're fucked. |
|
<
< | I never dreaded the offspring of the dialectical marriage more than when I read Ernst Bloch arguing that the rhetoric of fascism ("advanced capitalism") is more alluring than Communism's, therefore it would swiftly sublate the Revolution, therefore Communists should remove Democrats from Fascism's rise to power. In our own time, I fear that public narcissism becomes irrevocable the day we let our own rough Orwellian beast (utilitarianism) slouch over the last tribe on earth. |
>
> | I never dreaded the offspring of this dialectical marriage more than when I read Ernst Bloch, who argued that the rhetoric of fascism ("advanced capitalism") is more alluring than Communism's, therefore it would usher in the Revolution, therefore Communists should remove Democrats from Fascism's path to power. In our own time, I fear that our own strain of public-spirited narcissism (conspicuous consumption) will become incurable the day our rough utilitarian beast slouches toward the last tribe on earth. |
| | I.5 His catharsis |
|
<
< | I.5.i But maybe he said "We're in luck"? I can't hear well over the harping cherubs |
>
> | I.5.i But maybe he said "We're in luck"? I can't hear so well over the harping cherubs |
| | And yet, I'm still an optimist. The mall is cheery. |