A recent study I just spotted here points to the fact that fairness is an inherent value in human beings. The deep, reptilian reward centers of our brains respond to an equitable resolution to division of resources.
This led me to wonder how, on a macro scale, this property of our evolution has been impacted by modern society. Developments in the past 30 years have done away with what's fondly looked upon by history as the shared burden, and shared glory of the rise of American society. It's also been said that we've been living in the rise of an economic system that could be described as Gotcha Capitalism, whereby the standard mode of operation is for every societal exchange be designed to screw you, the individual, as much as possible.
Take, for example, the everyday banking institution. By definition a bank profits from the interest charged on loans made upon what is essentially imaginary sums of money. This power to create and then profit from the medium of exchange which ordinary individuals must labor to attain is essentially unfair, and the basis by which our capitalist society maintains it's control over allocation of resources.
Why don't we take a look at something a bit closer to my personal experience, and that of many millions of entertainment consumers around the globe. A visit to a Walt Disney Co. theme park (I was once a costumed character performer at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL). The family-friendly atmosphere is painstakingly detailed, saturated and embellished to extract the largest sum of money per square foot as possible. This ethos did not always rule the Magic Kingdom, which is why comparisons between the ever evolving park maps tend to reveal ballooning numbers of ticky-tacky gift-shops, as well as a growth in the sophistication of retail placement and design. These sophisticated techniques, including store design, product placement, color, sound and even smell are engineered to throw your animal instincts off - essentially to overcome the pangs of unfairness you'll inherently feel when you pick up a $.02 pencil made in a Chinese sweatshop and check out the $12.99 sticker price.
This same pattern of manufacturing desires and overcoming the rational thought process in the minds of those exposed to this mass-market macro-psychology has been replicated across the spectrum of American consumer culture. From our weekly grocery trips to our political arenas, the power of persuasion continually fools our minds into making decisions which directly contradict our personal interests. Many Bush voters from the lower 98% of the economic stratosphere shot themselves in the foot, voting against their economic interests and even dooming many of their sons and daughters to violent deaths and danger in a war built upon egregious lies. What could cause someone to sacrifice their interests, even their own flesh and blood? A strong appeal to their fear, boosted by the repetition of a thousand talking heads in various, but interconnected news media, could distract a normally rational person the same way brightly colored stores scented like fresh-baked cookies would in the purchase of our $.02 pencil.
These distractions are what modern consumer culture relies upon, the system upon which they thrive could rightly be termed Mind-Control Capitalism- whereby the concentration of knowledge about human behavior and physiology allows for organizations and individuals to control, through the application of the social and physical sciences, the behaviors of individuals.
Getting back to the study about fairness, and it's effects on society at large, when entire generations are raised in this state of deception, a state where major organizations vie for a chance to deceive them into certain actions, the egalitarian fairness that seems to be hardwired into our brains' pleasure sensors no longer activates. We may have been driven to become a nation, and quickly a world, of clinically depressed beings, suffering because of the blunting of a hardwired desire to be fair to one another...
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 23
Thursday, January 17
Cleveland: Playing Witness to an Economic Malthusian Trap
Just a little thought about Cleveland. The endless butt of late-night TV jokes and the poster-child for the sub-prime mortgage lending crises offers, in my opinion, a fascinating study of the perils of de-industrialization and de-regulation upon the human psyche. The urban Clevelander's generalized apathy towards acquiring education, modern technological tools and, among a certain subset of the population, legitimate remunerative employment can be seen as a predictable response within the framework of Malthus' theory - often referred to as a Malthusian Trap.
When applied in an economic sense, this theory - which states that the peaking of production will limit returns to human beings and, in turn, reduce the quality of living - has already played through most of it's course in the urban center and inner-ring suburbs of Cleveland, the areas most dependant in the past upon unskilled resource-conversion and labor-intensive production work. When the economic returns to workers fall below the costs to acquire the basic trappings of subsidence (which in our day-and-age are warped by a commercially saturated media environment) an interesting psychological break can occur which can lead down many paths, the most dangerous of which delivered the world a German society primed for the hateful rhetoric of Hitler in the waning years of the 1930's.
My own experiences as a wayward slacker in Cleveland, and amongst the people who find themselves staring up from the bottom of Cleveland's proverbial dry well, have shown a direct correlation between belief in the ability to achieve success - and the actuation required to reach such goals. Surviving in some neighborhoods of Cleveland's inner-ring suburbs, the ones that most middle-class suburban (read: privileged white) folks merely drive past on the highway, requires life skills most commonly seen in third-world countries and areas devastated by war. The mere act of survival amongst the predatory thieves, mal-educated dunces and disabled or depressed individuals usurps any energy that remains after the struggle to keep food on the table and a roof over your head. After being failed by the city's corrupted public-education system, swindled by unregulated loan sharks, and left to fight over whatever scraps of employment remain for the city - the incentives to work harder, better or faster become ironic jokes to the hundreds of thousands who've literally been left-behind in the flight to the suburbs and exurbs. Solutions to this problem have inexorably focused on poorly managed re-training or re-education programs (of little use if no foundation of education exists in the first place) which generally just plaster neighborhoods and buses with advertising, serving as an underhanded reminder of the community's failures, as well as an easy buck to fatten the wallets of the advertising company.
My own suggestions for solving these widespread problems are decidedly pie-in-the-sky, and go against many of the basic tenets of liberty in terms of enforcing the rigid structure necessary to break free from the psychological hold of being mired in failure. Mostly, I can only imagine an intensive, incentive-based program of neighborhood revitalization that trains under-employed or never-employed youths in three basic areas - home repair, environmental stewardship and artistic expression. Similar to the Works Progress Administration programs in place during the end of the Great Depression, my dream programs would focus on improving public space (roads, sidewalks, adding parks, public art and public gardens) as well as improving private space (rebuilding porches, landscaping homes, repainting exteriors, repairing gutters and interior areas as well). These programs would come with odious three-strike participation clauses, but re-entry would not be barred, merely delayed, by a failure to uphold the standards of participation. They would have to include a healthy dose of optimism, while instilling the habits of success in each participant. In perhaps the most important and democratic side of the programs, all regional communities would participate in providing post-program support through internships, technology training, business training and scholarships - allowing a dialogue to open between the sidelined and the successful in our community.
By supporting individuals within a framework that allows for a snow-balling of accomplishment, I believe that both the city-at-large, and the people who suffer in hopelessness can achieve what years of pessimistic, politically expedient "solutions" have failed to reach. Urban revitalization, attitude adjustment and a reallocation of will.
When applied in an economic sense, this theory - which states that the peaking of production will limit returns to human beings and, in turn, reduce the quality of living - has already played through most of it's course in the urban center and inner-ring suburbs of Cleveland, the areas most dependant in the past upon unskilled resource-conversion and labor-intensive production work. When the economic returns to workers fall below the costs to acquire the basic trappings of subsidence (which in our day-and-age are warped by a commercially saturated media environment) an interesting psychological break can occur which can lead down many paths, the most dangerous of which delivered the world a German society primed for the hateful rhetoric of Hitler in the waning years of the 1930's.
My own experiences as a wayward slacker in Cleveland, and amongst the people who find themselves staring up from the bottom of Cleveland's proverbial dry well, have shown a direct correlation between belief in the ability to achieve success - and the actuation required to reach such goals. Surviving in some neighborhoods of Cleveland's inner-ring suburbs, the ones that most middle-class suburban (read: privileged white) folks merely drive past on the highway, requires life skills most commonly seen in third-world countries and areas devastated by war. The mere act of survival amongst the predatory thieves, mal-educated dunces and disabled or depressed individuals usurps any energy that remains after the struggle to keep food on the table and a roof over your head. After being failed by the city's corrupted public-education system, swindled by unregulated loan sharks, and left to fight over whatever scraps of employment remain for the city - the incentives to work harder, better or faster become ironic jokes to the hundreds of thousands who've literally been left-behind in the flight to the suburbs and exurbs. Solutions to this problem have inexorably focused on poorly managed re-training or re-education programs (of little use if no foundation of education exists in the first place) which generally just plaster neighborhoods and buses with advertising, serving as an underhanded reminder of the community's failures, as well as an easy buck to fatten the wallets of the advertising company.
My own suggestions for solving these widespread problems are decidedly pie-in-the-sky, and go against many of the basic tenets of liberty in terms of enforcing the rigid structure necessary to break free from the psychological hold of being mired in failure. Mostly, I can only imagine an intensive, incentive-based program of neighborhood revitalization that trains under-employed or never-employed youths in three basic areas - home repair, environmental stewardship and artistic expression. Similar to the Works Progress Administration programs in place during the end of the Great Depression, my dream programs would focus on improving public space (roads, sidewalks, adding parks, public art and public gardens) as well as improving private space (rebuilding porches, landscaping homes, repainting exteriors, repairing gutters and interior areas as well). These programs would come with odious three-strike participation clauses, but re-entry would not be barred, merely delayed, by a failure to uphold the standards of participation. They would have to include a healthy dose of optimism, while instilling the habits of success in each participant. In perhaps the most important and democratic side of the programs, all regional communities would participate in providing post-program support through internships, technology training, business training and scholarships - allowing a dialogue to open between the sidelined and the successful in our community.
By supporting individuals within a framework that allows for a snow-balling of accomplishment, I believe that both the city-at-large, and the people who suffer in hopelessness can achieve what years of pessimistic, politically expedient "solutions" have failed to reach. Urban revitalization, attitude adjustment and a reallocation of will.
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