Does Capitalism Create Superfical People?

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I've ranted before about my expereinces of horrible people from sneaky behaviours to get something, to valueing material goods over vitrues. I find it interesting the board game 'Life' originally planned to value virtues and condemn greed had changed it's morel code to reflect contemporary culture (of capitalism) and now is reverse in that it promotes greed and those with the most greed, win.

It's really horrible, from my x who thinks he's clever by taking £5 from his childrens weekly income (leaving them poor - while he buys houses), to my sister spending tens of thousands of my brothers finances on herself (that were entrusted to her as safe keeping - now gone on holidays and clothes and kitchen cupboards).. Someone else who values a designer bracelet more than fidelity, my stories go on and on and on.

THEY ALL HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON: they value matieral goods over virtues and this is capitalism. And I don't know any nice people who value a country scene or helping someone out more than what can be purchased. (Even here I'm given bad karma for trying to help people, that just sums up how badly people treat me). ;-)
But it's isolating to value knowledge, to value nature and to value relationships like I do. But my question is what is the future, I try to imagine planet earth and the behavours of people in another 20 years and I think as long as capitalism prevails people will just become more stupid, already I witness zombiefied people who arn't able to 'think'.. they've never been taught how to think, they've just been loaded with information that makes them conform to capitalism.

What is the future, will the morel code revert to valueing virtures rather than posessions. Will people become more stupid? I notice too that on youtube videos the most popular like x-factor comments people are arguing with each other, so ignorant, violent and stupid, whereas 'intelligent' videos have people sharing more knowledge and being civil and engaging in interesting discussions, not hurling abuse at each other with self ritous oppinions like the masses, unfortunatly those intelligent and civil are the minority.

The human race looks doomed, they are going backwards, not forward, how are we to progress?

[SWM]

capitalism promotes self interest and self gratification. ownership and exclusivity. capitalism gives rise to economic growth in unstustainable ways, which is why we have boom and bust bubbles controlled by financial markets.

we are evolving out of capitalism as many countries around us are still evolving out of fuedalist political structures.

Don Beck and Chris Gowan theory of social and personal evolution: spiral dynamics, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Dynamics in which capitalism would fit with a scientific and strategic paradigm.

evloution out of this paradigm is into a communitarian/egalitarian paradigm. which we are almost fully engaged with in some of our more developed countries including the UK.

evolution out of this paradigm is into a systemic integrative system or Synergistic system in which all of society benefits.

there is a good explanation of this in Farther reaches of Human Nature by Abraham Maslow see: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QbPVIsjlQ-EC&lpg=PR3&dq=farther%20reaches%20of%20human%20nature&pg=PR20#v=onepage&q&f=false

[hortonpilot]

Pretty interesting topic.

Ethics can make for reasonable behavior in the worst situations and it is a challenge for both religious and those others .
With the media-driven society people may not give anything much thought.

Short term vision and lack of seeing the consequences of actions present problems for many .
Thinking persons can survive in the capitalist world if they manage their affairs.

[acousticeagle]

Capitalism & superficiality. At times I've observed teens' use of mobile phone and gadgetry - and of course, peer pressure to have the latest technology. It seems to me that the mobile (cell) phone is an extension of the hand these days in many people. I was reading an article in a newspaper where a writer observed a young girl, who, having left her workplace, took out her mobile phone and started texting her workmates. I personally couldn't imagine being so reliant on a mobile phone (I come from a time where there was only landlines!), it all seems so trite. But it suits capitalist interest to continally produce updated technology, thus to continually market and capitalise on the sale of these items that have been so socially incorporated. We're a society of consumers and we are told in economic news items of the 'economy' and how important consumerism is - meanwhile the earth is plundered for her resources and rubbish dumps fill up etc.

So, there's plenty of promotion to be a consumer, and to desire the latest gadget. If the marketers can get the masses to buy and make the masses see that consumerism is 'good' then the desire to have things is what everyone else is doing therefore is ok. Anyway, that's what sheep masses do.

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Mobile phone serve to keep people sedate and stupid. Most people play games or social network & text with them. Apple have refused free press apps, that means they reject the facility for people to read impartial media. They control what the phone uses is exposed too.
Now lets take youtube, it use to be a place to upload home videos, now Rupert Murdoch own a massive part as well as google and slowly and subtly it's become part of their media machine promoting sony shite and murdochs empire and controlling what people are exposed to. It's true what they say about Jews running america and they do, the CEO of Sony is a jew, as is Rupert Murdoch and all the other big corporations.. But Sony make everything from movies to playstations to the games that are played on that playstation to the music that is played in the background and played in their movies, and they make phones and they own a big share of X factor.. You can not get away from Sony and their influence on culture is massive. They control western culture. The mineral (tin ore) used in mobile phone is only mined in the Congo and people die and are made to mine this mineral under gun point. See here. excuse the 30 sec advert, see this is what youbute has become, another media vehicle to sell people shit.

Yet people believe they should update them every year. Do they care or even know anything else? No, they don't care or want to know because they've had all their values corrupted by capitolism, by Sony and Rupert Murdoch and they're just sedate.

So that's where it originates, the corporations but if you were in charge of a country wouldn't you want to keep people stupid? with religion or with gadgets? Wouldn't you want to keep them sedate, you would have to mass manipulate them otherwise there may be mahem.
On the downside people are empty vessels, they have no knowledge and knowledge isn't promoted, as long as they have new clothes and look like celebrities they beleive they are of value. And they will get those new clothes by any means, because they value the clothes more than they value being honest. That's what capitalism is doing to the masses. It benefits no one except those in charge. It does not benefit people. I think the future poeple will either turn to paganism and start to value the natural earth again, or they will just become obese and dumb like the Americans who eat and watch tv.

[acousticeagle]

yes, PMother, and I've read many like comments by the enlightened over the net about rampant capitalism. It takes the individual to wake up and be aware of how things like media are used to brainwash the masses. Just before I watched a bit on tv of Good Morning America. On that show the presenter said, not verbatim, but as good as: "Now a look at the latest electronic gadgetry, things that we all want so badly...." She was surrounded by some people who had comments about how much they wanted this gadget.

Years ago the news shows were not smattered with these info-mercials - commercials in disguise of human interest stories. So...are we being conditioned to the superficiality of hyper-consumerism? The media give it their best push, and subtely the subliminal message could be 'go on, give in to the lust to want to have, it's what everyone else is doing'. The rich ultimately get richer from it all. And do we, the consumer, really need all this stuff?

I feel sorry for youngsters who are under much social pressure to be as their peers who buy and own 'stuff', but consumerism begins with buying Disney and Dora Explorer items so consumerist thinking begins from such an early age. It suits capitalism so very well. With it all so rampant, can the buying and owning of stuff replace inner human need for security, self-esteem, love and those important things that give us the strength of character to weather storms? Or provide only temporal security (etc.,)

So yeah, does capitalism create superficial people? I think it's possible. It depends on what people give themselves to.

[SWM]

obese and dumb like the Americans who eat and watch tv.

Americans Eat TV? urgh!

*jokes*

you can get the independent newspaper for free as an app not many others though.  

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Americans will eat anything :-)
Free Press I meant that wasn't from a tabloid source, as journalist are biased. Was it the Telegrpah that didn't run the story on explosing Vince Cable when he said to their undercover reporters that he had declaired war on Murdoch and would not allow him to own the majority of BSkyB.. That's because it will be a bad thing as the telegraph know which is why they didn't run the story.. they didn't want anyone to know. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/23/telegraph-conspiracy-theories

I don't bother with much news and if I do I get it from Russia Today and Al Jazeera which are independent and impartial.

Enlightened sums it up, but it's isolating and once enlightened you feel compelled to share the knowledge, but people don't want to listen. As an artist/writer I've always easily identified subtext and metaphor in the arts, and that is the only way to package & share knowledge and present it..  as 'entertainment'... I do it, although few would realise, but I see it time and again. For example: Dr Who is anti american - one storline is about the threat of aliens but is clearly about the war on iraq and having a missle pointing at London, written in the script are the words the media used, including "Weapons of mass deception"..

If people knew the story of United Fruit in Guatemala and many others it becoms obvious corporations cause war to profeteer. It's a repeat pattern and continues now in Iraq and Afghanistan. If people were educated in this, do you think they would join the front line and risk their life capitalist gain, soldiers arn't trained to think, they're trained to obey orders. They do the dirty work of corporations under a false guise, that allows capitalism to thrive.
It's really wierd but someone just commented on a music video I uploaded years ago saying it reminds them of being in Diego Garcia in the services. Goes on the say strangely that it's a UK island that at the time was leased to the US.. Now I've know the story of Diego Garcia for a long time, they took our government to court once to get back their land, they didn't win and it's a war crime and again it's a shocking story of western invasion on innocent land, just becase we wanted it. We still have it. The indiginous people can do nothing. It's tragic and shocking. I remember too they killed their dogs :-(
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=3702

[popcon]

I think any system creates inequality and a divide between the "have and the have nots". It's at the very least a system that rewards the ambitious tremendously, which drives society. I'm an American, so maybe the enemy on this one, but I subscribe to the Churchill notion of "democracy being the worst form of government, accept all the rest"... and capitalism is the most democratic form of institutional economy, with it's clear reward system of supply and demand being respected.

Whether this "makes" people superficial, I don't know. People will always be competitive with one another. In the Soviet Union the haves were chauffeured around in limousines, while the have nots were lucky to drive third rate cars. It seems to me to be the exact same thing as a man envying his neighbor's Lexus in the US. I think superficiality is more of a personality thing. I can say personally, I live in a fairly dull midwestern city, and I can't even think of a close friend or family member that I consider superficial. Just cause you live in a consumer economy doesn't mean you are destined to be swallowed up by it's most immoral excesses. Thread like this tend to always assume the most extreme examples are the norm, which I don't agree with.

My 2 cents anyway.

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Thanks for your 2 cents. Funny you say
"The haves were chauffered around in limousines, while the have nots were lucky to drive third rate cars"..
This is a capitalist view, this sentence says it all. You presume 'having' is material with limousines and 'not having' is having a 3rd rate car. In a non capitalist society having would be valuing virutes and not possessions, like being helpful to people, contributing to the wellbeing of others, helping to mend the 3rd rate car would be of more value than the garage owners overcharging for repairs and the limousine owner overcharging (which is why he's wealthy) etc..

I watched Blondes Have More Fun earlier and Maralins character was what I'm getting at 'Diamons are a girls best friend' she looked at this old guy 'Piggy' and his head became a diamond, that's what she valued and what she saw. I also watched Planet of the Apes (original), incredible movie and that also says it all. I just can't get my head around how people (of the same race) can be so different. And I think it's because our minds are so very easily manipulated and very eaily adapted to government agendas that suit them. However a few flee the net.

[hortonpilot]

In the moment of truth or suffering people see what is real.
But it does not happen often enough.

Horton

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Carl Marx I believe said there would be a break down of society and Capitalism was the phase before that..
Retail figures down so much at xmas, because of the weather and goods ordered online wern't guaranteed to arrive so people didn't spend, I hope it made them realise they really don't need all that junk.
I've seen people go through 5 kitchens while I've had the same one that came with my house for the same period. I've seen them so absorbed in detail of colour of grain, take a week to decide on handles, another week to choose taps, cornices etc... their old (nothing wrong with them BTW) kitchens dumped. It's crazy, capitalism makes a person obsessed with undating these things. People forget kitchens are to function. I don't have a diswasher and I couldn't believe that these things take hours to wash dishes. I was dumbfounded that people put a few dishes in a machine and use masses of expensive chemicals, loads of electric and in the time it takes them to JUST load them, they could have been hand washed.. CRAZY world.

[voodoo scientist]

If capitalism creates superficial people, does that mean you're superficial? If you're not, it would seem that capitalism doesn't create superficial people, or at least that it's not the only factor at work. If so, the question should perhaps rather be, "What creates superficial people?"

[hortonpilot]

Late one night i heard a interview with a female doctor from WHO, she doing a lecture tour of Australia.
Her concerns were the fragmentation of the family in the modern consumer society.
Workplace tension and need to keep your job at all costs place people in a different position now.
The power is held by the employer and for a whole generation of people work matters more .

It did surprise me this interview as she said discontent  and consumerism play into the hands of the new system.

Also that those at the top of the food chain do not have the tensions in their lives but are happy to inflict unhappiness on those below them in the food chain.

All in all very depressing stuff.

Horton

[SWM]

capitalism will not survive 

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/unconventional_wisdom?page=0,9

The only sure thing is that the present system cannot continue. The fundamental political struggle is over what kind of system will replace capitalism, not whether it should survive. The choice is between a new system that replicates some of the present system's essential features of hierarchy and polarization and one that is relatively democratic and egalitarian.