Tiassa
10-19-04, 03:49 AM
Source: Seattle Times (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/)
Link: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002066397_cushman19.html
Title: "The Politics of Consumption"
Date: October 19, 2004
We can't run an intellectually honest and fair presidential campaign because it is difficult for us to run an honest and fair civic process about most anything. Health-care policy is a shambles, Social Security is imperiled, and Washingtonians can't solve our maddening public transportation problems.
Why? Because we live in a consumer society, a culture of the marketplace that necessitates a way of being increasingly unfamiliar with cooperation, civic participation, sacrifice for the common good.
Instead, we grow increasingly competitive, entitled, focused on acts of individual purchasing and consuming. It seems natural to ask whether you "buy" that idea, "own" your own feelings, or receive enough "benefit" from a relationship to continue "investing" in it.
Seattle Times (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002066397_cushman19.html)
The author is nearly after my heart with this opinion piece; I'm not sure what to say right now, because I have a Pink Floyd song stuck in my head.
I gotta admit that I'm a little bit confused
Sometimes it seems to me as if I'm just being used
Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise
If I don't stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this maze?
Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending
That everyone's expendable and no-one has a real friend
And it seems to you the thing to do would be to isolate the winner
And everything's done under the sun
And you believe at heart, everyone's a killer.
"Dogs (http://www.elyrics.net/go/p/pink-floyd-lyrics/dogs-lyrics/)"
______________________
• Cushman, Phillip. "The Politics of Consumption". Seattle Times, October 19, 2004. See http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002066397_cushman19.html
• Pink Floyd. "Dogs". Animals, 1977. See http://www.elyrics.net/go/p/pink-floyd-lyrics/dogs-lyrics/
Link: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002066397_cushman19.html
Title: "The Politics of Consumption"
Date: October 19, 2004
We can't run an intellectually honest and fair presidential campaign because it is difficult for us to run an honest and fair civic process about most anything. Health-care policy is a shambles, Social Security is imperiled, and Washingtonians can't solve our maddening public transportation problems.
Why? Because we live in a consumer society, a culture of the marketplace that necessitates a way of being increasingly unfamiliar with cooperation, civic participation, sacrifice for the common good.
Instead, we grow increasingly competitive, entitled, focused on acts of individual purchasing and consuming. It seems natural to ask whether you "buy" that idea, "own" your own feelings, or receive enough "benefit" from a relationship to continue "investing" in it.
Seattle Times (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002066397_cushman19.html)
The author is nearly after my heart with this opinion piece; I'm not sure what to say right now, because I have a Pink Floyd song stuck in my head.
I gotta admit that I'm a little bit confused
Sometimes it seems to me as if I'm just being used
Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise
If I don't stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this maze?
Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending
That everyone's expendable and no-one has a real friend
And it seems to you the thing to do would be to isolate the winner
And everything's done under the sun
And you believe at heart, everyone's a killer.
"Dogs (http://www.elyrics.net/go/p/pink-floyd-lyrics/dogs-lyrics/)"
______________________
• Cushman, Phillip. "The Politics of Consumption". Seattle Times, October 19, 2004. See http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002066397_cushman19.html
• Pink Floyd. "Dogs". Animals, 1977. See http://www.elyrics.net/go/p/pink-floyd-lyrics/dogs-lyrics/