the rest of THE CULTURE OF MAKE BELIEVE
ugh. it's been hard to process this book. i finished it on Sunday night and i'm just now not actively hating society and everyone in it.
here's the premise of the book-
we don't have hate groups just 'cause we hate people. we don't destroy nations (indigenous or otherwise) or pollute the earth because we hate the nations or the earth either. the individuals, corporations, goverments, and societys which do these things do them because they feel entitled to do them because anything is acceptable in the name of "production" and "progress." the hate only comes out when we are stopped from doing horrible things which make us money or when the people we enslave don't like it.
Mr. Jensen thinks there are four types of people in the world today. there's group one, the people who head up these corporations and governments who, in order to do their jobs, must divorce themselves from any sense of guilt or humanity in order to do right by their positions. then there's group two, the middle class folks who support the group one characters and who believe that if they work hard enough they'll become group one. they won't but it keeps 'em working. then there's group three, the people who are the minimum wage slaves, the people who would rise up and revolt if they weren't kept in terror by SWAT teams busting in on their neighbors and familes shooting everything that moves. then there's group four. they are third-world disposeable people. the people who live in areas polluted by big industry because their deaths don't cost much. the mine workers, the boat people, the women and children kept in cages to be sold as prostitutes ten times a night for $.50.
it's all terribly depressing because the only conclusion from all these facts is that society needs to be destroyed and we all need to live in the woods after killing everyone in charge.
obviously this isn't really an option. or if it is, i don't really want to be alive when/if it happens. so, where does that leave me? how do i assimilate all the horrors of a society driven to consume and subsume, and how do i react to this knowledge?
well, i don't know. i have decided that i can't save the world. i already knew that. it's one of the reasons i dropped out of college. i had forgotten it for a while, though, so i guess this book was a good reminder. i, naudy, can't save the world but i can bring a little light to a few people. at the end of the day, i'm just a singer so i'll sing and teach and play and try to cheer those who have to go out and fight the system that's destroying itself.
here's the premise of the book-
we don't have hate groups just 'cause we hate people. we don't destroy nations (indigenous or otherwise) or pollute the earth because we hate the nations or the earth either. the individuals, corporations, goverments, and societys which do these things do them because they feel entitled to do them because anything is acceptable in the name of "production" and "progress." the hate only comes out when we are stopped from doing horrible things which make us money or when the people we enslave don't like it.
Mr. Jensen thinks there are four types of people in the world today. there's group one, the people who head up these corporations and governments who, in order to do their jobs, must divorce themselves from any sense of guilt or humanity in order to do right by their positions. then there's group two, the middle class folks who support the group one characters and who believe that if they work hard enough they'll become group one. they won't but it keeps 'em working. then there's group three, the people who are the minimum wage slaves, the people who would rise up and revolt if they weren't kept in terror by SWAT teams busting in on their neighbors and familes shooting everything that moves. then there's group four. they are third-world disposeable people. the people who live in areas polluted by big industry because their deaths don't cost much. the mine workers, the boat people, the women and children kept in cages to be sold as prostitutes ten times a night for $.50.
it's all terribly depressing because the only conclusion from all these facts is that society needs to be destroyed and we all need to live in the woods after killing everyone in charge.
obviously this isn't really an option. or if it is, i don't really want to be alive when/if it happens. so, where does that leave me? how do i assimilate all the horrors of a society driven to consume and subsume, and how do i react to this knowledge?
well, i don't know. i have decided that i can't save the world. i already knew that. it's one of the reasons i dropped out of college. i had forgotten it for a while, though, so i guess this book was a good reminder. i, naudy, can't save the world but i can bring a little light to a few people. at the end of the day, i'm just a singer so i'll sing and teach and play and try to cheer those who have to go out and fight the system that's destroying itself.
posted by naudy at 11:31 AM
1 Comments:
You should post this on my book review blog...
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