another reason to never leave the house
Acceptable public discourse can be strange sometimes, and I always feel very chuffed when I can recognize bizarre discourse even in the service of causes I support. There was an interest rate rise in Australia today. The opposition Labor (no 'U' in Labor - eternally strange) party were all up in arms about the government failing on its promise to freeze interest rates and was chiding them for excessive spending promises. Labor, though, did exactly the same thing, promising interest rates would be frozen and promising perilous levels of pork during the election. A reminder, I guess, of what a big fake game our society has turned decision making into. You can be very...boring, as Dickie Greenleaf would say.
At the same time, I'm reading about hunter-gatherer societies, and the way they enforce egalitarianism. For example, rather than praising people who bring home large game in (I think) !Kung society, they ridicule them so that they don't take a position of power. Contrast that with today's NFL, where linebackers regularly dance after making tackles for 3-yard gains (not losses, gains). Big fake game. Big fake game. We all get forced to play big fake games.
It's that kind of eloquence Catcher in the Rye strove for, but could never reach.
At the same time, I'm reading about hunter-gatherer societies, and the way they enforce egalitarianism. For example, rather than praising people who bring home large game in (I think) !Kung society, they ridicule them so that they don't take a position of power. Contrast that with today's NFL, where linebackers regularly dance after making tackles for 3-yard gains (not losses, gains). Big fake game. Big fake game. We all get forced to play big fake games.
It's that kind of eloquence Catcher in the Rye strove for, but could never reach.
posted by H. Now at 7:41 p.m.
2 Comments:
You remind me of this Feynman quote (I keep lists of quotes so I don't have to think of clever things myself): "There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used
to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical
numbers."[Richard Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988)]. Capitalism sucks; it is inherently implausible & absurd; that was my point. But also it always annoys me when ppl go gooey eyed @ the hunter-gs. Probably they were puny, implausible, & evil too. How's that for a comment eh? - WRL
Agreed - one thing reading this book has made clear is the deep sexism in hg society. It's easy to get weepy for all kinds of pasts. Witness the desire to return to the 50s in America, a time of horrible repression. But it does raise the question, for those who desire social change, what is the model of a sustainable ideal society?
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