Spent Youth
The global marketplace aims to create a world of adolescents: children with consumer power and adults with the appetites of spoiled kids.
By Benjamin R. Barber
IN THESE PALTRY TIMES of capitalism’s triumph, as we slide into consumer narcissism, Shakespeare’s seven ages of man are in danger of being washed away by lifelong puerility. Pop-cultural journalists depict a new species of perennial adolescent-kidults, rejuveniles, twixters, adultescents. They are discerning the consequence of a powerful new cultural ethos of induced childishness, an infantilization that is closely tied to the demands of consumer capitalism in a global market economy.
In an epoch when fear of jihad is as prevalent as the infringement on liberties to which fear gives rise, it may seem self-indulgent to fret about the dangers of hyper consumerism. When poor children in the developing world are being starved, prostituted, and impressed into military service, anxiety about the prosperous young in the developed world who may be growing up into consumers too fast, or about adult consumers being dumbed down, can seem solipsistic.
Yet as James Madison said long ago, the pathologies of liberty can be as perilous as the pathologies of tyranny-and far more difficult to discern or remedy. The diseases of prosperity that are the afflictions of capitalism do not kill outright. They violate no explicit laws. Yet capitalism’s success breeds new and dangerous challenges.
Once upon a time, capitalism was allied with virtues that contributed at least marginally to democracy, responsibility, and citizenship. Today it is allied with vices that-although they serve consumerism-undermine democracy, responsibility, and citizenship. The question is not whether there is an alternative to markets but whether markets can be made to meet the real needs capitalism is designed to serve, whether not just democracy but capitalism itself can survive the infantilist ethos upon which it has come to depend. Either capitalism will regain its capacity to promote equality as well as profit, diversity as well as consumption, or infantilization will undo not only democracy but capitalism itself.
cont'd
6 comments:
Hey donkey, if i wanted to read this kind of stuff i would have gone to college...... I mean if they would have accepted me.......screw it, i'll just read it again and see if my headache goes away...
Well what I would tell Billy Shakes in regards to his Seven Ages of Man is....
that thats, thats good. Thats good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with Six Ages of Man. Then you're in trouble, huh?
Classic.
What the heck is wrong with consumption, I ask you? People have always aquired "things." Hell people used to sell their daughters. Look at the third world, they still sell people to get things.
To answer your question... nothing. There is nothing wrong with consumption. Im a big fan.
But it does not bode well for our country when you have a portion of the populace sucking off the welfare teet all the while wearing two hundo dollar sneakers kicked up on italian leather sofa couches watching 50" plasma televisions.
Democrats instill resentment in the poor towards the rich whereas the real and just resentment should be the other way around.
This past week there was a kid soliciting donations on the subway to help fund his trip to Italy. Fuck that I make good money and I've never been to Italy. (Well thats bcuz i-ties aint nothing but no good filthy nig...)
Besides for dining, boozing, gambling and whoring I personally make a point of living well bellow my means or perhaps it is a result of the above, who knows.
There was time when to the victor went the spoils and to the successful went the fruits of their labors. The non producers dont fucking deserve shit. Not the sneakers, not the cars, not the tvs, not the disney fucking vacations.
We (and by we I mean them) have become a country of entitled lil brats and our Country will be the worse for it if it continues.
That being said I dont agree with everything that the author says but thought it was an interesting read and as a card carrying capitalistic pig want to ensure its survival and prosperity in the face of overwhelming globalist and socialist forces.
Now excuse me, its time for a cocktail. Ill be at Wifey McBeateys if anyone wants to join me.
here, here, donkey!
abuse of the welfare state makes me sick to my stomach.
a good friend of mine was working for a couple months at a shelter for battered women in harlem (before she was fired for being white, but that's another subject altogether), and she said a full quarter of the residents were women there to exploit the system and get a free place to stay.
some of the stories were despicable--girls with infants leaving them unsupervised so they could go meet some guy or buy crack or sell their mouth... women who had faked abuse to get in... ugh.
but i'm with you--i work really hard to afford to live in this city and i make pretty good money (especially for my age) and i still can't blow my money like some of these welfare frauds.
it's frickin irritating.
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