This last week and a half really seems to just be anti-corporate-capitalism for me. I just finished watching The Other Guys for a second time and while it's an hilarious comedy, I feel it's also an excellent commentary on the dangers and evils of corporate capitalism. If no one has seen it, you definitely should. If not for the somewhat anti-capitalist satire, then definitely for the excellent performances given by Will Ferrel and Mark Wahlberg.
I also was in a Toys R Us last week, shopping with my mother for gifts for the children she nannies and today I was at Chuck E. Cheese's with those kids. I'll be honest, both places kind of disgusted me. Toys R Us more than CEC, but both to some degree and I can't quite place my finger on why. It was just a general feeling of disgust, of discomfort, like I was somehow being manipulated and fooled. It felt alien to me and like something slimy was crawling over me. OK, maybe not quite so strong a feeling of disgust, but close. It was an amplification of the discomfort I feel generally. I feel like I was made more aware of my alienation.
The entire time I was at both stores I couldn't help but look at the people around me and think how unhappy they seemed. Generally speaking, I don't think I saw much more than a grin from anyone, apart from a couple guys I'm convinced were drunk at Chuck E. Cheese's as well as the fake smiles employees are forced to give customers. And I started wondering why that might be. I read a bit of Marx for a course last quarter and, while I don't claim to be an expert or to even understand Marx all that well, I think his concepts of estrangement and commodity fetishism are interesting and pertinent to this issue. Face it, we're a commodity culture. Pretty much everything in our lives is a commodity, from the clothes we wear to entertainment, hell, even education in the US is a commodity and I think that the the fact that almost everything in our lives is a commodity alienates us from ourselves, from those around us and from our purpose in life. Basically, I agree with what I understand to be Marx's theory of estrangement.
I think we can all agree that what we're looking for is happiness. That's why we do what we do, whatever we do. Whether it's pursuing wealth via capitalism or inner peace through spirituality or sensual pleasure through sex, we're all trying to find happiness and get it to last as much as we can. I wonder, though, do we really know what we're doing? What is it about corporate capitalism that makes us think it will bring us happiness? A quote from Fight Club I like is Tyler Durden saying "The things you own end up owning you." Happiness is freedom, genuine freedom, and that doesn't happen when you're a) bogged down by possessions and commodities and b) alienated from yourself and the world around you by those commodities and the way you relate to them.
Unfortunately, I feel that the system isn't conducive to finding that happiness. Let's be honest, corporations are, with a few exceptions, interested in keeping you distracted from your current situation and feelings of dissatisfaction. There's nothing in it for them if you're free; they turn a profit so long as we're part of the system and enslaved to corporate interests and our socially inherited work ethic and cultural values encourage buying into the system. And we start buying into this system from an early age. We begin relating to the world around us in terms of commodities at an early age, and so from very early on we become estranged. The older we get the deeper this goes and I feel most of us don't think about it enough to realize it's a problem. We're so distracted by our work and fill what little leisure time we have with frivolous pursuits that we never think about what might be wrong with the way we're living. Even if we do sit down and think about it, we feel there's not much we can do about it. Like The Matrix, we're trapped in a system given life by our minds and bodies, forced to live in but apart from the world around us.
I'm not saying I'm more enlightened to our current situation than anyone else or that I fully understand what's wrong with our society. I just feel there must be something we can do to address the existential malaise of our society before it gets worse.
From a Buddhist perspective, the answer is obvious. We're all fundamentally dissatisfied because of our conditioned perception; we view the world around us in a dualistic way, always using our mind to think and judge and label.
Maybe there's some way we can apply the Dharma to our society and pull it out of this corporate-capitalistic funk.
Or maybe I'm just full of shit and should focus on my own practice rather than rant about the negativity of corporate-capitalism.
Metta.
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