Societies||the Brand and the Death of Self

so I’m browsing here at 3:00 after watching children of men and listening to “in the court of the crimson king.” look over to the side, see this ad.

this is what disturbs me about the state of society so much. tell me, can you guess what NOTW means? Not of this World, baby. that’s right. you’re going to prove to everyone that you belong to the spiritual world, that the material considerations around you are only a small part of the overall reality which we humans can only dimly see till death. how? by buying clothing and getting tattoos that tell everyone.

disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.

I’m in a constant struggle to not fall into the easy, prepackaged, mask-and-lip-service Christianity that seems to beset us in an age where every solution is bought. I never seem to get it right, and my best days are an embarrassing when I look back at them. I fail so hard to do the right things. I end up backstabbing, fleeing from personal connection, lying, entering shallow relationships and drowning in inactivity because I feel like if I give any of myself away I’ll be bled out and tossed aside, lost to this world’s consumption. I don’t want to be a product. I don’t want to fit the mold. I don’t want to be part of anything, because every group sells out in some way. I can’t stand it when people say I remind them of someone stereotypical, because it means I’ve failed to leave my mark on their life. “you’re just like so-and-so!” thanks a lot, here I thought I was a person, but I’m just an ill-copied memory to you.

people don’t want to be themselves a lot of the time, it seems. we all jump to the preconceived rolls that stand ready and waiting for us, so that we can rely on the same old tired lines, unafraid that something unexpected, something unique will happen. we want that brand to tell us how to think, how to behave, how to look, what to say next, what to love, what to hate, what to agree with, what to shun. now, even liking things others don’t like is a subculture – this is why I hate hipsters so much. it’s just one more scene, one too close to home for those who want to live their own lives. they attach these stereotypes to supposed originality that certainly doesn’t allow for actual exploration and interest – no, you have to find things that fit the criteria of yet another mask over the individual.

of course, nearly no one in this day and age of branded lifestyle wants to think about right and wrong beyond the talking points of whatever subculture and viewpoint you fall into. whenever I think I’m going to have an interesting conversation about whichever viewpoint with anyone, it seems to devolve into the same phrases I’ve seen on tv and read in papers or noted on websites. you’re rolling along in a discussion and suddenly a glaze comes over your companion as they spew out some tired mantra that flows their mouths about as smoothly as oil. it’s been polished by its incessant use till it slips through everyone’s mind effortlessly, and sometimes I wonder if people realize how alien these mantras seem as they corrode through the speaker’s person-hood. it doesn’t matter whether I agree with the position touted or not, it’s all propaganda, that shambling, headless monstrosity that destroys the mind and leaves a skull made of wax and clay.

please, don’t give in. be yourself. leave your rough edges. don’t cake your face with makeup. littering yourself with piercings and tattoos is the same thing as wearing a suit and tie every day, you’re just buying a different brand. your contempt for the corporate nature of america is skin deep, because you surround yourself with it in so many ways. your rebellion means nothing. my dad always calls it “rage against the machine… sponsored by pepsi.” alternatively, if you’ve bought into the allure of riches and want to be that guy in the suit, think about how you reinforce the division among the classes. there’s a place and time for opulence, but america is all party, all the time. you can be wealthy without the extravagance, and I’m not talking the fake charity espoused by the brangelinas and bonos of the world.

“you don’t know me! you don’t know what I’m going through! you don’t know what I’m really like on the inside!” maybe I do see what’s on the inside, and it’s inconsequential because you never let it out. you’ve picked the way you are on the outside, and if you expect people not to judge you on that, you’re an irresponsible fool, and you deserve what you’re getting. I deserve what I’m getting, too. I’d rather be judged for being off my rocker than being judged as just one more face in the crowd.

I honestly don’t know how you can escape from it. I’m just as guilty of buying into the working class branding as others are of the gangsta rap drivel, but honestly, the people who are the least branded are far more working class than me. the people who barely make enough to survive. I dunno. I think stuff owns you as much as you own it. how much of your stuff do you use and enjoy for real, and how much of it do you go through the motions with? do you need an ipod? do you need that new touch screen phone just to play games on and constantly ignore the people you’re with by texting? the new clothes at every notice, the cars, the instruments you never play, the games and systems that waste your life, the booze and food you shovel down, hell, even friendships and relationships of convenience, all shackles that hold you down. when was the last time you made your own entertainment instead of consuming it?

I know I’m crazy. I know you’re enjoying life and I’m not. you’re probably right that I should “just live” and have fun along with everyone else, but I just can’t blind myself to this all around us. I don’t think I want to be happy if it means buying in and selling out.

God, I want out, out, out, out, out. please do something to me. shatter my world so I have to step up to the plate. land me in the slums in india without a lifeline and force me to make my life into something. anything but this creeping death, the suburban strangle-hold on everything that used to be wild, the city’s pallor and wearying treadmills, the complacency and predictability of the human race. I know we all want to feel something real. I know we all want someone to reach out and really touch our lives. I know a lot of people I wish I had the courage to get closer to, but I just can’t get a hold of the fear that they’ll just drop me for the preprocessed, self-sustaining cancer of sameness and cohesion in society. I don’t want my faith in people dropped any lower. I want to believe you’re reading this and have already thrown your cookie cutter life away, that you’re two steps ahead of me and running into the sunlight, finally freeing yourself of your shackles.

please keep running. I believe we can change. I believe we can make it. I am perpetually crushed, but even more hopeful. I know you can make it.

Societies||Collapse and response Pt. II

Reader’s Digest version of Pt. I: I believe the american understanding of work, value, and reward could lead us to a financial collapse that would be the end of our country, and that americans lack the group cohesion, charismatic leadership and vision that would allow us to recover from it. so, the next questions are, what does the collapse look like, and what is the resulting geopolitical situation?

first of all, I believe that collapse won’t be american – it will be world-wide. let’s look at the powerful players that interest me in the world: Russia, India, China, America, the EU, international corporate conglomerates, crime networks, and, last but not least, charismatic local ideologues with leadership potential.

America lies on top of the dog pile; however, due to our decaying financial reliability and our lack of an inspiring, cohesive ideology, we will only remain at the top as long as we have the diplomatic ability to dance around out debts, while we continue to absorb the massive amount of goods that pours out of the world. we maintain a considerable military force, but I don’t think that it can be used to control the world markets should we lose our ability to maintain our interests. Russia, China, and India, on the other hand, do not have cultures that the rest of the world are willing to imitate, meaning they would have a hard time becoming world ideological leaders (this is an area that America has traditionally been strong in). moreover, they lack an environmental health and resource policy that will allow their growth to continue (America is in the same boat on this one). the constituent members of the EU seem intent on giving up any relevance, and they’re even worse when taken as a whole. I believe that when america falls, there will be no one to take her place, and that, by embracing our business values, the rest of the world will follow down the drain. in short, we’re on a short track to a world without superpower nations.

what about huge businesses, crime networks, and the latent leaders, Cincinnatus types?  these are not unaffected by the world political field, but they are not entirely reliant on any one government or national identity, either. because they exist without formalized boarders, they can continually adjust to the flow of authority around them. in a tumultuous world, expect to see non-nation groups gaining power. of course, because nation entities are more responsible for maintaining a cohesive infrastructure, having stable nations can certainly help non-nation groups to conduct their dealings with surety. Crime networks, oddly enough, can come to replace a nation or merge with them, slowly legitimizing themselves when they become powerful enough or the nation becomes weak enough that someone new must sit in the seat of great authority – crime networks can become “respectable” in these moments when orders serves their needs better than chaos.

I believe consumerism and globalism cannot without a systematic global collapse. we cannot continue with our throw-away culture that has nearly no understanding or actual care for the environment and with our lifestyle’s insatiable desires born of hedonic adjustment.  the foundering nations and the gluttony of consumers and companies alike will bring us to the fate of Rome; the collapsed and fragmented remains of bloated nations will leave behind nothing but smaller states and groups with ever fluxing, uncertain borders, a molecular world stitched together by non-nation groups that hold little power over the individual’s daily life.

this is a world where dynamic, localized leaders become powerful. I’m not certain if Il ike this world more or less than the current one, but it has potential to produce a new, more sustainable ideology and economic understanding that would have to germinate and spread once the world powers found new names and rebuilt themselves. (in the mean time, information must be maintained as in the dark ages’ monasteries, though this is less of an issue now that our data technology is highly advanced.) small groups see their greatest advancement under charismatic leadership, but there must be a group stability that allows group members a sense of belonging across time, a cultural identity. groups that change continually and rapidly in ideals and organization are difficult to maintain. it will be interesting to see which ideologies and leaders can pass through both rapid changes and long-term downswings. Personally, I’d like to see a return to an agrarian culture with localized economies and governments as a reaction to large government’s inability to deliver on its promises of an economic and environmental utopia based off of a Frankenstein mix of socialism and consumerism that has no real regard for the natural world, but this entails a reduction in world opulence (though perhaps not in world happiness), and our ability to care for those with special needs and our ability to technologically advance will slow to a crawl as we devote more time what I’d like to call “survival labor” instead of “innovative labor.” this is, to me, the true tragedy of a global economic collapse – opulence and leisure hold less importance to me than the ability to focus on technical innovation.

wow, I just ran out of steam. guess I’m going to stop here. perhaps Pt. III will come to me eventually.

Societies||4 paths

our human nature leads us to seek the most comfortable role in relation to others. these roles are timeless and have their origin in the earliest days of man. no role is better or worse than the others, and each can find its own sense of societal success and achievement, which is directly connected to one’s values and outlook. it’s common for people to live in multiple categories depending on the social sphere they find themselves in.

1.) the self-reliant – easiest understood as a bear. a self-contained man who finds the most gratification in his own thoughts, actions, and observations. they don’t necessarily hate being around others or wish anyone ill, but find most of what they need in themselves and enjoy a wide degree of personal space.  from ancient times there’ve been people who always had to be out discovering new places – once there was another settler within a couple of miles, the neighborhood was too crowded for the self-reliant, and it was time to hit the road again. this is a difficult type to be these days, considering how few private places are left. this type must either move to the distant reaches of the globe or develop a different sort of privacy within the other groups, a ghost passing by in the unfashionable parts of the collective psyche, alone  even while in the crowd, now that he’s blocked the world from his eyes and ears.

2.) the collaborative – easiest understood as a wolf pack. these individuals seek out a small group to belong to, one that they aid just as much as it aids them. these groups tend to be self-sustaining, stable, and well-balanced, but aren’t likely to innovate quickly or to any huge effect. collaboratives tend to care more about their fellow group members than any other type.

3.) the collective – easiest understood as an ant hill. it’s a mass body that functions more by group survival than individual health. this ensures long-time survival through numbers, and allows collectivists to overcome grave difficulty, and major innovation can result by the long-term or highly intensive collection of man-hours or talent. often in this scheme, you are an anonymous cog while you produce for the collective, but are a collaborative in your time off.

4.) the opportunistic –  these are the people that maintain, support, leech off of, or regulate the balance of the other types. equally like a vulture, worm, or beaver, their contribution to society is hard to understand in that they fill in the gaps, doing anything that is necessary. they often serve as liaisons for the previous 3 types. odd ducks indeed, but certainly necessary.

I initially did not think of these in words…. I thought of a picture that looked something like this.

social grouping

I was thinking about how the groups function in a digitopia, a place where digital technology are woven into everything we do, see, and use… I suspect that the self-reliant will not  plug in past their own “gear,” perhaps even returning to a nomadic lifestyle; alternatively they might utilize new technology to isolate themselves in their own safe zone of personal territory.

the collaboratives, who are mirrors to tribes, often posses what I like to call “vernacular tech”, things that get the job done yet may not spread widely. the value of collaboratives in our increasingly dissociative world is that a community identity can sustain a person’s ability to make moral decisions in a world without guides.

we see the collective in the form of cities; one of the interesting things about collectives (which are often urban and industrial) is that they allow the idea of “work” and “play”. being on the clock is a uniquely collective thing; the self-reliant, a nomad, does what he pleases. the collaborative, who derives meaning from their close group of tribesman, works and relaxes as the need arises. the collective member is usually expected to fulfill a certain duty for a certain length of time, and what he does in his off time is unimportant to the group, as long as it does not affect the security of the group.  “working your shift” allows for powerful economic flows and social/economic/political landscapes to form, ones that collaboratives and self-reliants will often be reactions to. they may be beneficiaries, protesters, alternatives, developers, detractors, constituent groups, or rivals of the local collective, but they rarely are completely unaffected by it.

the opportunists… what can I say about them? they’re in, but not of. part of all things. merchants, peddlers, scavengers, go-betweens… they can be considered a more social version of the self-reliant, but in fact they utilize everything that comes their way, whatever form it may be in or who they receive it from. catalysts. who knows.

what was the point of all this? I’m not sure. perhaps it’s that any time you understand yourself and how you function better, you can figure out what will suit your mode best, and what will work for you when.

Societies||Collapse and response pt.I

when I started contemplating this post, I simply wanted to think about what a collapsed america (and western world) looks like in our near future, but then I realized that there are so many inputs hidden in this simple question that it defies consideration. the questions that go into this greater idea are, in and of themselves, huge enough to warrant their own posts. questions like,

What are possible toppling points and causes of an american collapse, and what would the center issue be?

What are the time scales of these different possible collapses and the responses to them?

Who are the actors?

How do identities change, globally?

What is the nature of the collapse’s focus, and how is it resolved by the collapse (as collapses serve to return unbalanced systems to an entropic stability)?

these questions are all interconnected,  but I can only consider a couple at a time without losing track of the specifics – there is great difficulty in balancing detail and overall view. (note: I just realized what a depressing post this is going to be, and I bet you’re asking, “why would you write about this and spend a couple hours pondering it?” well, I want to think about what MY personal response will be in a few likely possibilities, and also how design will function in such a world. back to the rambling.) it seems simplistic to answer only a few of these questions, and none of them in their entirety, without “showing my work” as the math teachers would have it… but I honestly can’t think of any other way to deal with this issue at the moment. I’ll probably revisit this topic later on.

1.) causes of collapse

-financial (long and short term)

-catastrophic (terrestrial/astronomical/biological)

–war/unrest (occupation, destruction, fading might, civil)

-resources (mismanaged, collapsed, deprivation)

-decay (national age, cultural, moral, identity)

I may elaborate further on these topics in another post, but from what I can see, the most likely at this time is a mix of decaying identity and financial ruin. (this is leaving the very possible oil collapse out of the picture, that belongs in a different post about energy.) now I find myself asking, “wait, why did I think the cause is so important?” I think the reason I started with is that the psychological responses of the affected and the ensuing actions in the aftermath of a collapse entirely decide what comes out of the ashes of an empire, and there will be different responses to different failures. you don’t limp when you’re missing an arm, and your typing doesn’t suffer when you’re minus a leg.

why financial? why now? why  wouldn’t we be able to pull ourselves out from this? I think we’re on the last legs of an understanding of “work” and “jobs”, one where few people do anything of actual merit. current investment fears are causing a downward spiral in the stock market and elsewhere, areas I like to think of as “the pretend economy”, as they can only function as long as people agree to play by a set of complicated rules. the simplicity of a small business store is safe from these machinations, as there’s a basic understanding of worth – even the simplest can see the value of food or goods. since the beginning of time, money (whether it be gold, paper, salt, or tin) has been a representation of the value that’s derived from the quality, duration, and usefulness of a person’s effort. now that we can change the value of money on a whim, it’s hard to see the connection to a person’s worth, and it becomes harder and harder to value the currency at hand. our culture is starting to realize that the money we trust to highly isn’t standing for anything, and we’re starting to wish for a way of life that marks effort more accurately, something that feels more real. decadence is enjoyable, but people fear that they’ll still be dancing when the doors are locked and the lights are shut, so the nervous creeping to the doors begins… once the movement starts, it’s hard to stop the flow. the most important thing for a “pretend economy’s” continued life is a stable, fast flow of currency, much like a circulation system in the body. once people begin to hesitate,  the blood slows and the asphyxiation begins. collapse.

why identity? a unified, proud country can withstand many things, no matter how varied its citizenry is. group strength allows pain to be absorbed and its momentum can push through confusion, for good or for bad. of course, patriotism and cohesion cannot solve or remove problems by themselves, but they’re a powerful defenses, though not always virtuous ones. america is currently lacking in this regard – big time. even the groups that do have a strong following and cohesion are at war with the others. there’s little sense of direction or movement towards any ideology – all parties and philosophies seem to only be saying “what’s happening is not right.” it’s important to be able to say that with honesty – and yes, I think things AREN’T right in our country – but there’s no real solution offered yet. there’s no one to stand behind with true conviction. President Obama seemed to offer a strong lead, but he’s been so ineffectual and dividing that his bright star has certainly dimmed – people don’t like feeling that there’s a game being played, or that the great leader has disconnected from his fellow countrymen. we’ve started to mistrust the democrats more strongly – it doesn’t seem they have our interests in mind. but who do the republicans have to offer? there’s no one in either major party with a plan or charisma enough to inspire others to follow, forget any third parties.

and it goes beyond politics… america has few moral figures who we can look up to, and few thinkers who command any respect with the masses beyond lowbrow satirical humorists on TV. we’re only united as a country in scorn or in anger, never in a positive direction. there’s nothing we truly want, just things we don’t want. this breeds the feeling that it’s becoming every man for himself, and that all we want is our own personal safety – that’s dangerous, because increasingly intrusive or ill-planned schemes can be thrust upon us in the name of safety, while we’re too fearfully paralyzed to make any decisions to move forward.

this is all for pt.I, tomorrow  I hope to move on to what the timescales of collapses will be along with their responses, and what society might look like, drawing on historical parallels (I’m talking to you, french revolution). part three will probably be what design has to do with all this doom and gloom, and future possibilities of new identities in the world – international, local, and personal. let’s see how this goes. please feel free to note your views on where we’re headed, or how I’m all wrong about a possible collapse happening at all!