Culture of Capitalism

Years after the movie was released the title of the movie can be used to sell T-shirt as nostalgia memorabilia...Even though that not all the movie was sot in the city....Sleepless in Seattle, Seattle airport shop, 2014. 

 While the rest of the world is catching up (or already has caught up), no other country knows how to commercialize and capitalize every image, every emotion, as the US--mainly Hollywood. Seatac Airport, 2014

My first semester in the US I realized how well the country preserved its very short history, and how it spun tales around that short time span (no one counts the 12,000 years of Native American history, for the world was not known to Euro Origin people before that) to make it sound grand.

That one founder's Hall, just over a hundred years old when I joined, was presented with same pride as if it was at par in salience as the Eiffel Tower or better Taj Mahal.  It was surely a magnificent building. But it had no grand history.  However, in it presenting it as if was an important monument, it was preserved, and considered by us, as sacred.  We had our meetings there, we performed several times in the building, and it housed some important offices, including the international student office.

From then on, I was just as susceptible to the best of the US---advertising and PR.  I fell for the printed ribbons on silk boxes, large cartons on moisturizers, and colorful hand bags that my shopping was given to me in.  Only later on, when I encountered several frictions from some americans and started reading about capitalism, is when things started to make sense.

Every act was seduction.  Everything was seductive.  Men's bodies were objectified just as much as women's. I witnessed fast food joints and later Wal-mart kill the spirit of small town America. When I arrived in that small town in the US, there was only a MacDee's and a KFC in the town, as a competition to several family run small joints, even though none of them was a real diner--or provided the warmth of a family owned business.  The one room film theatre which charged us only USD 5 was shut down to open a multiplex near the highway, right alongside Walmart, Perkins, AppleBee's and several other chains that though owned by faceless people, seemed to be run by people who were hardly interested in their customers, and worked odd shifts without any health benefits.  These shopping malls, and complexes provide for one stop shopping, and entertainment, but no engagement with the staff or a familiarity of knowing the community.  Those who worked there were either young students in the need of immediate cash, or those who were not very educated and were likely to stay that way.  If you stayed and worked in these places, without ever climbing up to the position of a manager, which still did not mean you owned the establishment, you were likely considered a looser.  

So what was this culture?  A culture which was rooted in consumption---jobs are sustained when people are consuming.  People with low motivation, and no interest in self-development could be easily hired for a lifelong employment at minimum wages, without benefits.  It spells profit for the company--and death for the community. 

Small towns are then not developed, and those who are managers and CEOs come to the town for short stays, --for who with a taste for city and sophistication wants to live there for long--and those who are not equipped to survive in a city --namely the under achievers and less educated, never leave.  What is left of a small town then?  In that vacuum come the big stores, and hollywood movies, giving a semblance of city life to rural folks, and a call of promise to those who wish to join the consumption culture.

So when last year I realized that there was no gift shop at Hans C. Anderson's I realised what a difference it makes to not focus on selling everything.  For a short while, in that small museum, I was in the fairy tale world that Anderson had created.  I read about his popularity over Niels Bohr--who I studied in high school physics--I started at scenes from various of his fairy tales, I took some pictures, but mostly I absorbed the scenes, and could not, even when I wished, take anything home--except pictures and memories.  

It allowed me that innocence.

But, constant focus on buying does the biggest damage when it takes us away from creating, making and designing.  Like being social is our basic need, being a creator in all diverse ways is one of human needs, for we--if were to follow ultra religious views, were created in the image of our creator.   So we must create, and not just consume.

Consuming dulls the mind.  Like eating too much sugar.  As we get addicted to the comfort that sugar--or consumption provides--we are less likely to want to create and are forever disconnected from ourselves.

Another post will follow on the new tradition in India of getting cooks---people are eating, but not cooking or cleaning.  

But the most insidious of effects of capitalism is a disconnect from ourselves.  A dangerous thing, because in that connection, lies the seed of our connection to others, that allows us to be empathetic, and extend generosity, --and without which we begin to feed on each other.