I wouldn’t totally disagree with this. I am a Capitalist and am therefore mistakenly branded a materialist around these parts by people who do not understand the difference. I am far from a materialist as anybody who really knows me is aware. I am simply for freedom of the individual. If materialism is seeping into other cultures, it is simply because other cultures are beginning to allow more freedom. And free people seem to want to choose material comforts if they have a choice. So derisively jab back, Mastriani. They’re the ones opening the door. They’re the ones who have put out the welcome mat.
I’m not seeing anything necessarily wrong with individuals seeking material comforts. But too much of anything can be problematic. In the end analysis these are very subjective values, and I would submit that the heroes we spoke of earlier had freedom of which subjective values to choose for individuals in mind when they began their great experiment.
So let’s all lament runaway materialism. Are people – Americans and otherwise – too materialistic? In my subjective opinion, yes. But who am I to judge? I would only echo what JT said about the fiber in our people and the underlying sense of community. I see it everyday and I see it most everywhere I look. It exists as surely as it always has. This is what always gets lost in this type of discussion, and what I’m here to defend.
I would argue that we are exactly the opposite. Most Americans and the ‘culture’ we’re spreading around the globe isn’t materialistic. It is anti-materialistic. A materialistic society values and uses materials wisely. They are capable of being grateful for, and nurturing the materials that support their lives. Americans hate materials. We consume, use and discard materials as quickly as we can, with no regard for what harm this does to our environment.
You’re in marketing. Tell me, Jerry, what would happen if all Americans ever stopped and defined actual need? What would happen if they suddenly began demanding products that would last for more than a year or two? Can you imagine a product that is worth more to be repaired than thrown away?
Materialistic? Not by a long shot. We hate materials.
Now you’re doing it, JT. Painting everybody with the same broad brush.
But, for the record, Americans, as well as other cultures around the world have generally placed a value on technological progress. It’s not that things are broken and being discarded instead of being repaired. It’s that a better model comes along.
Some people, maybe even most, want the better model. Do we need it? No. Do I need my laptop and my high-speed internet connection? No. But we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now without it.
Seeking the better model is a value judgment some, maybe most, people make. I’m not going to judge it. Geez, am I the only one who feels like this?
Maybe I, too, should jump on the bandwagon and bash the crap out of the world’s population because their values don’t correspond to mine.
Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I think I’ll start a thread entitled “Everybody’s Values are Stupid but Mine.”
Too fast, Jerry. You missed the qualifier. I said most Americans, not all.
I’m not argueing against technological advance, but your laptop? It was obsolete the day you bought it. Electonic anything is now just expensive Bic lighters. Buy it, use it, when it runs out of gas, throw it away. It isn’t about the ‘better’ model, it’s about the mentality. We all want the newest and the bestest, right? No argument with that. But explain to me why we can’t ask for a lap top that has replacability designed in? Why do upgrades cost more than buying new? Answer: Because no one asks for good design in the first place.
It may be just a little hyperbole, but I haven’t missed the mark that far. I still maintain that we aren’t materialists. If we were we would husband our resources instead of settling for designed obsolescence.
I realize that this is getting off topic, but it is a symptomatic marker of why Americans are stereotyped the way they are. Another observation: Stereotyping is a world-wide practice. We are as guilty of the practice as any other nation or culture. Us -vs- Them is the easiest game in the world.
Again, I lament the attitude you’ve described here as well. I would only say Americans are not alone with that attitude, and that attitude does not serve well to describe everything that Americans are.
Splain your lament. I’m not attempting to paint anything or anyone. Somehow, I thought I was describing something in a way that most would see as reality. That stereotyping is common anywhere may be sad, but it is about as real as it gets.
Well the stereotyping, yes. But I was referring to the throw-away mentality you’ve pointed out. I wish there was less of that. I was lamenting that as well, meaning lamenting it as you seem to lament it. We agree, I think. I wasn’t very clear.
That which is duality can only have potential. It is neither inherently good or bad. No small part of this is the tendency to forget that we sometimes allow language to create a static world view through dualistic concepts such as right and wrong, reality and appearance, true and false, good and evil. Such concepts carry a dogmatic finality with them that prejudice our ways of seeing. This isn’t to suggest that we should fall into some sort of relativistic thinking, but to remember that in a processual universe, whatever is achieved within an experience can either be diminished or enhanced by our participation. Thus, from the field (Tao) the duality (Te of humanity ) is created with our full participation. Duality is part of the whole and in seeing both Tao and Te as one, we understand and accept duality as carrying both likes and their opposites. In our participation in duality, we attempt to bring forth what is beneficial to all the constituent parts of an experience in a negotiated deferential consensual way. Our efficacy within a field of experience is mitigated by not bringing a judgmental or discriminating view with us, and to see the whole or oneness within that experience.
To sum it up in American redneck terms: “We all make our own bullshit.†To see all or a part of humanity as either good or bad is a choice. Humanity is neither good nor bad, but both. How you choose to see and act both confirms and reinforces that viewpoint. Your view of humanity, it’s capacity and potential is your creation, and has nothing to do with the reality.
And now in a desperate bid to get back to the thrust of the thread, how we see Americans or any other nationality, or humanity as a whole is through our own colored lenses. Accepting the stereotypes says more about us than the reality of people we would judge.
I contend to disagree. Duality, paradox and paradigm are contingent upon the manifest action. Thus sway upon the pendulum. Overtly, the pendulum doth sway to far from the center, and the hearts of humans are too oft lead astray by the aberrant ideal of “For I, and I alone”.
This is where the materialistic attitude becomes ever so destructive. We won’t find agreement here.
I don’t think we are really disagreeing. I too look out at what the world presents, the suffering of innocents, the rapacious greed in all quarters, and I wonder if we even have the capacity to express the best of what we might be. If there is any difference, it is perhaps in what we choose to focus upon. As a collective group, we certainly leave a lot on the table, but I’m just me, and I haven’t control over any but myself. It is in our individual understanding and acting out that finally becomes that which is important. The world will be as it is, and I will be as I am. Does this make sense?
I have yet to find brother tenative to be anything other than understandable.
You are correct. I have been lectured throughout my life by my father, who is a consumate materialist, that I “bare the angst of nations” when it is not my place, I should just worry about myself, as I’ve been told.
This then, is the crux of my contention. It does not bode well for the human animal that it constantly strives for self satisfaction through material gain, and often, material gain alone. Then to further compound the issue by saying, “That’s just the way it is, deal with it”, seems summarily defeatist.
You needn’t reply, I am well aware of my cerebral freakishness in this respect. It will avail me of nothing, hence my disdain.
But you see my friend, there is nothing defeatist in saying that is the way it is. It is only defeatist if we say that it cannot change, and the change begins with us. I can’t change anyone else, but I can change me. To the extent that how I am, impact’s others, then change is possible. (I hope some of my impact is positive) Is your cup starting to fill just a little bit?
You see, if it weren’t possible, why would we be having this conversation?
brother tenative is certainly positive, none could refute. Possibly to the point of mild annoyance, when someone else is incessantly being as starkly, candidly maligned about the situation as the present medium allows.
Perhaps my problem is that I am certainly, and most completely, unaware of any effects my person has upon another. The only time I am aware that I am effecting anything in my environment is when it becomes apparent there is revulsion at something I have done/said, or at times, it is initiated by my mere presence.
Mayhaps you believe there is more of an effect created from one individual to another than I. The next step of this discourse is for you to enumerate the statistical possibility of the “butterfly effect” whilst liquidangel and Old_Gobbo do a stirring rendition of “Kumbayah My Lord”.
<they could call themselves the LiquidMonkeys and the Velvet Viragos, using Bessy, Kriswest, Shyster and Philosophy Girl for backup singers>
We converse brother tenative, out of a weakness of a need, of a particular kind. Shouldn’t we view that as a truly sad instance, in the proper respect?
Possibly the rudiments of human communication come down to the most mundane fact that we require acknowledgement, and little if anything is accomplished by the words we share?
Weakness of need? How about desire to share? and now sad is glad.
And how would one know that little if anything is accomplished by the words we share? Other than by arbitrary definition, there is no way of which I am aware. What is the impact of this conversation on you? On me? On all who may have read through these posts? And now we are full circle, are we not? I don’t mean to come on with some Pollyanna smarmy crap, but how we see is how it is - for us.
I have serious doubts that any cup does measure so well the words we banter. I further reject that in the sheer simplicity of our dialogue that anything we have shared goes further than our own minds. (Mind you I am a father of four, and have yet to sink anything of use into any of their minds. Yes, I have tried, repeatedly, infinitely, ad nauseum. Of the most stubborn intellects is the youngest, the only girl, who at nine may actually be my intellectual superior. LMAO)
Perhaps I have never seen that any effect has occurred to one that has been engaged in dialogue with me. Have you?
I wonder at the audacity of words quite often. Further I wonder about this effect of words that so many profess to be apparent. Still I wonder.
I know my needle is stuck, but I too have raised a brood of three, and each has managed to ignore their sagacious father more times than I want to remember. But to say that I haven’t impacted their way of seeing and acting is way past reasonable. All of us are our unique selves, but each and every experience of another person leaves a little ‘smudge’ on both parties.
I have four. Each one unique, inextricably so. The eldest two are (21)twin males, and utterly, demonstrably antithetical.
Christopher is deep in emotion, short of temperment, semi-logical but requires far too much peer attention.(lazy child, but obedient)
Joshua is subversive, street smart, shifty and actually believes he is a, ahem(not), “ladies man”.(hard worker, anti-authoritarian)
I, myself, am mostly logical, short on emotion(save rage), combatant, argumentative, and hardline moral. Neither of them show any likeness to me, other than in physicality.
My younger two are even more disparate from my personality. My experience says that to each individual comes a unique life of experience, which may share some commonality, but in the greater sense, is individualized more than is accepted or punctuated.
