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I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.
All of the ephemera that is far too trivial to be bothered with elsewhere on this site or, depending on your point of view, a meta-commentary on it. This ephemera includes, but is not limited to art, music and literature. Most of the content here will be discussed in terms that are as abstract as possible, reality being a singularly overrated concept.
Sunday, February 29, 2004
An interesting paper from Bruce Alexander, ostensibly on the subject of addiction but with wider implications for capitalist society:"Psychosocial integration is essential for every person in every type of society-it makes life bearable, even joyful at its peaks... Insufficient psychosocial integration can be called "dislocation." Although any person in any society can become dislocated, modern western societies dislocate all their members to a greater or lesser degree because all members must participate in "free markets" that control labour, land, money and consumer goods. Free markets require that participants take the role of individual economic actors, unencumbered by family and friendship obligations, clan loyalties, community responsibilities, charitable feelings, the values or their religion, ethnic group, or nation... People who persistently fail to achieve genuine psychosocial integration eventually construct lifestyles that substitute for it."
It's an interesting argument (if a rather psychoanalytic interpretation of Marx, though Marx was unlikely to have been so nostalgic for 'clan loyalties'), largely because it's one that has always seemed to carry a great deal of truth to it (and is certainly more convincing than the conservative view of social dislocation being attributable to the permissive society and moral decline). That said, the particular point of interest for me is comparison with Anthony Giddens and his views of post-traditional identity, wherein the decline of imposed social roles necessitates the creation of more diverse lifestyles.Labels: Alienation, Politics
posted by Richard 1:08 pm
