XPost: alt.arts.poetry.comments   
   From: dmh7@skypoint.com   
      
   Chandra P Das wrote:   
      
   >>   
   >   
   > Very good, I agree. Some additional thoughts:   
   >   
   > It's pretty easy in our society for anybody at any rung of the   
   > socio-economic (or even the purely intellectual) ladder to feel like a   
   > 'loser'. This was probably supposed to be a light-humor article but it   
   > has some serious undercurrents. It is precisely the creation and   
   > branding of losers that keeps our capitalism-gone-wild going. To take it   
   > a step further: *everybody* has to feel like a loser in order for our   
   > rabid strain of capitalism to keep flourishing. The system has to   
   > constantly keep reminding everyone of what they don't have, all they   
   > could have if only they worked harder, etc. -- it's a rather simple   
   > message: there's more, much more to be had than you have already, no   
   > matter what you may have. This is the key to sustaining a robust   
   > capitalistic climate. Notions of rest, contentment, adequacy and   
   > security are mortal enemies of capitalism. If an Investment Banker   
   > (probably the biggest champion of hyper-capitalism) who got a bonus of   
   > only $100,000 this January isn't made to feel like an underachieving   
   > loser in his environment then how is he going to be expected to motivate   
   > himself to bust his balls harder through the year?   
   >   
   > But anyway, hyper-capitalism is not as crude and simple as it may seem   
   > at face value to discerning minds -- it performs a very fascinatingly   
   > delicate balancing act. It must make everybody feel like a 'loser' yet   
   > all the while it has to keep everybody feeling like they're still in the   
   > race towards 'success'. Drop out of the race for a minute (for whatever   
   > reason -- leisure, art, meditation, injury, pregnancy ...) and you   
   > become a liability. Capitalism has one message, and this message must be   
   > received by all of its constituents: you are only a minute away from a   
   > million! This is what drives America. Even a homeless guy strumming a   
   > guitar into a tin cup outside of a grocery store knows that he is only a   
   > minute away from a million bucks.   
      
   Certainly: this also partly explains (apsrt from longstanding cultural   
   ideals of "rugged individulaism") the level of violence in America: when   
   "losers" finally figure out WHY they keep "losing" and that they are in   
   a hamsetr wheel, there is bound to be a certain number who lash out   
   rather indiscriminately. When I saw an aerial photo of Columbine High,   
   it somehow didn't surprise me that someone might feel "lost" in such a   
   huge "education factory." And - of course - capitalism operates on that   
   anxiety edge between inflated material expectations and deflated   
   financial potential. This also underpins some of the political   
   "stupidity" we see; almost everyone is brought up to think that we can't   
   "gouge the rich" because - after all - they'll be rich themselves some day.   
      
   Oh well...   
      
   dmh   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)