The Western World is so Comfortable

[Jason]

The west has fast food, shopping malls with a wide variety of affordable products, and fun leisure activies. If they want to be mean, they might mention toilet paper. :) Why complain about it? If somebody told you that, then what's your response?

[Yuppie Grinder]

If you're a slave in Republican Rome you're better off than the slaves in Egypt. That doesn't mean that your position as a slave is not dehumanizing.

[Yuppie Grinder]

"The working class owns nothing but their playstations." - Nihilist Communism

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Gilded cage.

[Hit The North]

The west has fast food, shopping malls with a wide variety of affordable products, and fun leisure activies. If they want to be mean, they might mention toilet paper. :) Why ***** about it? If somebody told you that, then what's your response?

Fast food joints, shopping malls and leisure organisations are staffed by millions of low paid workers.

Europe and the USA are bankrupt. In the UK six million people are in fuel poverty; food banks are springing up across the country because increasing numbers cannot feed themselves; unemployment benefit has been cut in real terms for the first time since the 1930s.

It don't look that rosy to me.

[Comrade Jandar]

Everything is relative. Dialectically speaking, as capitalism advances and guilds the cages of the proletariat, the bars of these cages become even stronger.

[LeonJWilliams]

People in the west (or more specifically the working class) do live much more comfortable and generally have 'better' lives than the working class in other parts of the world.
As leftists (the variant doesn't matter too much, primitivists excluded of course) we continually strive to make progress. So it's not so much that we "*****" about the situation but we want to make constant progress and not just for ourselves but for all people (in particular the working class) around the world, we are internationalists.

It is also worth noting that because of the global mechanics (globalisation) our reletive comfortable lives come at the expense of people in poorer countries.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Rather than ***** about it, in and of itself, one who is not a selfish sack of shit might consider that our first-world material wealth is dependent on strip-mining the planet, poisoning the oceans, committing acts of genocide against traditional cultures, and enslaving the better part of the third world. One might also point out that, for all our material wealth, we're still sitting in traffic, killing ourselves, shooting up schools, raping women every six minutes, functionally illiterate, and so bored we retreat to virtual worlds to play out the heroic adventures we can no longer imagine living.

[Let's Get Free]

The affluence and consumerism of the first world is dependent on the subjugation and brutalization of the third world.

[o well this is ok I guess]

fun leisure activies Like what

[hetz]

The west has fast food, shopping malls with a wide variety of affordable products, and fun leisure activies
I'm pretty sure you can find all of these in Brazil, Botswana or Bangladesh.

[Regicollis]

Don't get me started about shopping malls. I really hate those places. Everything about them is vile and revolting.

They are placed on the outskirts of the city so if you don't have a car you are forced to pay ludicrous overprices and spend eons of time using public transportation to get to them. When you get to the mall you will find yourself in a desert landscape with no real life happening besides shopping. These shopping wastelands are built in a way that makes cars happy and people miserable. The roads and the parking lots go on forever and you can't see where they stop because of the curvature of the Earth. Since there is no well-defined space and since everything is built in gargantuan proportions you feel small as an insect in those places.

The architectural nightmare continues when you enter the mall. Everything there is artificial. You feel like you are trapped in a middle class nightmare of a brochure. The sadists who design those things won't even let you see the light of day. Why? Because we loose our sense of time and keep shopping when we are robbed of dayligt.

There is no real life and no human touch in the malls. They are privatised 'public' spaces where the owners decide what happens or not. A shopping mall is a totalitarian place in the sense that unlike a real urban landscape everything is centered around one goal - to make you spend as much money as possible on pointless bulemic consumption. Everywhere you turn your head you see products on display and stupefying advertising.

And then for those 'affordable products'. I certainly can't afford to buy much of them and really don't want to. I don't need all that useless junk and I have finally realised that new stuff will not make me happy. Consumption has become the most widespread addiction in modern society. Everywhere you turn you will see people trying to fill that hole inside them with iPads and electrical cucumber slicers.

But consumption is not the answer. That hole inside of you will not get any smaller because you get your next fix in the form of some new toys. That hole is part of being human God damn it and the only thing that can fill it is meaningful human relations. Such relations can necessarily only exist outside the realm of shopping and consumption.

The Western consumption addiction is not only bad for us as individuals it is also the result of a revolting inequality where we westerners get cheap smartphones only because the minerals to make them were mined by child slaves in Congo. Furthermore consumerism is a recipe for an ecological disaster. The planet simply can't bear any more pointless consumption.

[hetz]

Everywhere you turn your head you see products on display and stupefying advertising.
It's like that in the smallest corner-shops though.
I find it hard to rant against materialism and iPods and what not when all around, even in the West, poverty is exploding.

[RevolutionIsComing]

A slave is a slave, wether they realize it or not.

[Green Girl]

Don't get me started about shopping malls. I really hate those places. Everything about them is vile and revolting.

I also ride the bus, however all I can do at a shopping mall is window shop as everything is more than I can afford. So it's been decades since I've been to a shopping mall.

I shop at Sac 'n Save and Dollar Tree for groceries and personal items. Thrift stores for other things. :)

[cynicles]

I am so fucking sick of this dichotomy. Being shit on by celebrities instead by donkeys is still being shit on. You could this game between nonwestern countries as well.

[Decommissioner]

"The working class owns nothing but their playstations." - Nihilist Communism

And more and more even those are being treated like something that is rented out. If you opt to mod your playstation in any way it wont be functional. Proprietary hardware and software ensures no one truly "owns" their gadgets.

[Richard Nixon]

poisoning the oceans, committing acts of genocide against traditional cultures,

As a side note I find accusations of "cultural genocide" by leftists rather contradictory considering that most lefitsts here would like to destroy or greatly alter many if not most aspects of cultures such as religion, and what they see as racism or sexism.

[#FF0000]

I think the "cultural genocide" thing is a little silly. Fuck all cultures imo.

But back to OP here, I don't think just having more things is what's important. One can have lots compared to another and still be powerless and in a position of great strain. I think I'm a lot better off than a lot of people I know and who post here. I own things that most people don't. But those things my family got during one good year, and as the economy collapsed, as we lost jobs, and as mortgages changed hands, we're now in a position where all of us work at least one job and overtime to get by, and still barely make it.

In the free time we do have, the creature comforts we've been able to afford are nice. But no matter what you have, the pressures capitalism puts on working people just to get by make it more than difficult to simply enjoy life.

edit: plus historically people who have been absolutely crushed by poverty and oppression are the least likely to revolt. Revolutions usually happen with people who feel oppression and constraint but still have a little.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

To clarify my usage of culture - I don't mean all of the superficial trappings of culture, except insofar as those things emerge from an autonomous form of life. That is, I think of culture as inextricably linked to particular modes of production, and their attendant forms of governance, etc.
Further, when I say "genocide against traditional cultures" I don't mean only the repression of various aspects of a culture (religion or whatever), but the literal physical destruction of the people of a given culture through systemic and systematic violence.


I think the "cultural genocide" thing is a little silly. Fuck all cultures imo.

What precisely is the not-culture from which point you condemn "all cultures"? Seeing as such a thing doesn't exist, it follows that what you actually mean is "Fuck all cultures that deviate from what identify as not-culture" which is, necessarily, a particular set of cultural norms. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this point has specific sets of classed, racialized, etc. assumptions attached to it. Which is to say, way to go hella chauvinism.

Bringing this back to the OP, I think this "no culture" which is to say, "capitalist culture" wherein our cultural practice is defined by commodities produced by alienated labour, is precisely what sucks about the West. One can eat whatever, dress however, and practice whatever religion one feels inclined to, but it's all Coke and Pepsi when it comes down to it, since any authentic cultural practice linked to a form of life is necessarily impossible within the logic of capital.

[Jason]

Rather than ***** about it, in and of itself, one who is not a selfish sack of shit might consider that our first-world material wealth is dependent on strip-mining the planet, poisoning the oceans, committing acts of genocide against traditional cultures, and enslaving the better part of the third world. One might also point out that, for all our material wealth, we're still sitting in traffic, killing ourselves, shooting up schools, raping women every six minutes, functionally illiterate, and so bored we retreat to virtual worlds to play out the heroic adventures we can no longer imagine living.


Yeah, that's the point, they don't care, and if bring it up they make fun of you. Now it's one thing to be whining about yourself, and that wouldn't be cool. But some people hate you (or ignore you) for seeming to care about anything serious. But this attitude has all been conditioned by the media.



As a side note I find accusations of "cultural genocide" by leftists rather contradictory considering that most lefitsts here would like to destroy or greatly alter many if not most aspects of cultures such as religion, and what they see as racism or sexism.

Many people who are not far leftists also complain about other cultures. But they are putting forth a "holier than thou" attitude usually.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Rather than ***** about it, in and of itself, one who is not a selfish sack of shit might consider that our first-world material wealth is dependent on strip-mining the planet, poisoning the oceans, committing acts of genocide against traditional cultures, and enslaving the better part of the third world. One might also point out that, for all our material wealth, we're still sitting in traffic, killing ourselves, shooting up schools, raping women every six minutes, functionally illiterate, and so bored we retreat to virtual worlds to play out the heroic adventures we can no longer imagine living.
Who is 'we'?

[#FF0000]

What precisely is the not-culture from which point you condemn "all cultures"? Seeing as such a thing doesn't exist, it follows that what you actually mean is "Fuck all cultures that deviate from what identify as not-culture" which is, necessarily, a particular set of cultural norms. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this point has specific sets of classed, racialized, etc. assumptions attached to it. Which is to say, way to go hella chauvinism.

nope i recognize the 'culture' i'm a part of and want to see it cast to the fire too.


Further, when I say "genocide against traditional cultures" I don't mean only the repression of various aspects of a culture (religion or whatever), but the literal physical destruction of the people of a given culture through systemic and systematic violence.

that's just called genocide then, dude.

[Yuppie Grinder]

To clarify my usage of culture - I don't mean all of the superficial trappings of culture, except insofar as those things emerge from an autonomous form of life. That is, I think of culture as inextricably linked to particular modes of production, and their attendant forms of governance, etc.
Further, when I say "genocide against traditional cultures" I don't mean only the repression of various aspects of a culture (religion or whatever), but the literal physical destruction of the people of a given culture through systemic and systematic violence.



What precisely is the not-culture from which point you condemn "all cultures"? Seeing as such a thing doesn't exist, it follows that what you actually mean is "Fuck all cultures that deviate from what identify as not-culture" which is, necessarily, a particular set of cultural norms. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this point has specific sets of classed, racialized, etc. assumptions attached to it. Which is to say, way to go hella chauvinism.

Bringing this back to the OP, I think this "no culture" which is to say, "capitalist culture" wherein our cultural practice is defined by commodities produced by alienated labour, is precisely what sucks about the West. One can eat whatever, dress however, and practice whatever religion one feels inclined to, but it's all Coke and Pepsi when it comes down to it, since any authentic cultural practice linked to a form of life is necessarily impossible within the logic of capital.

He's talking about the non-existence of proletarian culture probably.

[Thelonious]

There are millions of working poor in the US. Many of these workers have flat screen tv's, I-phones, and a few gold necklaces; but no health insurance.

There are people who work in Cuba, who have no cell phone or tv, and no other fancy gadgets. They have health care covered 100% by the government. That health care is much better than what most Americans receive.

Which is "better off?"

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

nope i recognize the 'culture' i'm a part of and want to see it cast to the fire too.

In favour of what? People don't exist in an absence of culture. Saying that you don't like "the culture [you're] part of" doesn't make you not a supremacist asshole for declaring that you want to destroy all others' cultures. In fact, I dare you to go talk to a traditionalist on a Rez and say that.


that's just called genocide then, dude.

I did just use the term genocide - I used the word culture because I was referring to genocide is organized against specific cultural groups. Another poster introduced the term "cultural genocide".

[#FF0000]

In favour of what? People don't exist in an absence of culture. Saying that you don't like "the culture [you're] part of"

a new culture silly


doesn't make you not a supremacist asshole for declaring that you want to destroy all others' cultures. In fact, I dare you to go talk to a traditionalist on a Rez and say that.psh ain't up to me to tell other people what to do. but either way i don't really care.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I'm totally in line with Bordiga on the question of culture. I have no sentimental attachment to any existing bourgeois cultures, including one's that aren't western.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The world would be a pretty uninteresting place if all cultures were "leveled" in favor of one universal culture. Especially when you consider the fact that "socialist culture" that was promoted in the USSR, Mao's China etc. was sooooo awful. Granted you could say "that's not what I meant when I said 'proletarian culture'", or that those countries/societies were state capitalist or something, but at the same time I don't think it's something that can be completely disregarded...

Cultural chauvinism, extremism etc of course, those things we all can agree are very negative forces in the world. But "culture" as an abstract entity? Isn't that one of the things that make the world somewhat interesting?

[Jason]

There are millions of working poor in the US. Many of these workers have flat screen tv's, I-phones, and a few gold necklaces; but no health insurance.

There are people who work in Cuba, who have no cell phone or tv, and no other fancy gadgets. They have health care covered 100% by the government. That health care is much better than what most Americans receive.

Which is "better off?"

That would be easy for a capitalist to attack. For instance, he could say "Well, they got all these gadgets, but they can't set aside money to protect thier own life.". :rolleyes: Whether looking at it from left or right perspective, personal responsiblity comes in.


Cultural chauvinism, extremism etc of course, those things we all can agree are very negative forces in the world. But "culture" as an abstract entity? Isn't that one of the things that make the world somewhat interesting?

Chauvanism is almost always fueled by capitalism.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The west has fast food, shopping malls with a wide variety of affordable products, and fun leisure activies. If they want to be mean, they might mention toilet paper. :) Why complain about it? If somebody told you that, then what's your response?

First my quick responce would be: come with me to the emergency room in Oakland's Highland Hospital on any evening and experience the wealth and leisure enjoyed by "real americans".

First this kind of material wealth is relative and can't be accurately looked at in this abstract way. In relative terms, people in the west were much more better off economically over a generation ago than today - average people had a much larger share of the national wealth, there were a lot more social benifits and consumer costs were less. If these sorts of relationships existed today then it would probably be like if starting wages were $60K, not 18-20K a year. People in the US in particular don't have much leisure time at all, not to mention health care. Most are in debt or living basically one or two paychecks away from disaster. 2nd, and part of the reason that things have returned to guilded-age level inequality, is that for working class people the "standard of living" depends on sucess in organization and struggle.

It's unbelievable that right-wingers would bring up fast food so regularly in such a Marie Antwonette sort of way: let them eat Big Macs! I mean I enjoy some fast food, but I wouldn't call it a choice of luxury. Or that editiorial that came out saying that the US had "no poor" because poor people had air conditioners - then like a week later there was a heat-wave that killed a bunch of poor and elderly people. Fucking sick.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

The affluence and consumerism of the first world is dependent on the subjugation and brutalization of the third world.

Damn straight! It's not my position i'm currently battling for. I don't have a lot of luxuries but still some.

I'm battling for those who have it worse. For the people being exploited and mistreated in third-world countries. For the children being exploited, for work and for sex. For the people in the First-world who are still living under the line of human-existence.
That's what i am fighting for!

Everyone saying we have it well and who won't care about other human-beings are selfish sacks of shit.
They are just part of the problem.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The affluence and consumerism of the first world is dependent on the subjugation and brutalization of the third world.Whose affluence? US workers have lost wages and ground even as US GDP and US imperialism grew in the last generation - in fact I'd say the only things US workers have to gain from US imperialism is a stronger ruling class and downward pressure on wages and benifits.

There is a conncetion though: an imperialist power that can maintain domestic class peace has more ability to exhert power overseas; an imperial power that is victorious overseas has more power to exploit at home.

[piet11111]

The west has fast food, shopping malls with a wide variety of affordable products, and fun leisure activies. If they want to be mean, they might mention toilet paper. :) Why complain about it? If somebody told you that, then what's your response?

So does the third world.

[Jason]

First this kind of material wealth is relative and can't be accurately looked at in this abstract way. In relative terms, people in the west were much more better off economically over a generation ago than today - average people had a much larger share of the national wealth, there were a lot more social benifits and consumer costs were less. If these sorts of relationships existed today then it would probably be like if starting wages were $60K, not 18-20K a year. People in the US in particular don't have much leisure time at all, not to mention health care. Most are in debt or living basically one or two paychecks away from disaster. 2nd, and part of the reason that things have returned to guilded-age level inequality, is that for working class people the "standard of living" depends on sucess in organization and struggle.

That's true, but a cynical capitalist might mention that people don't want to get an education or trade skills. Not saying I agree with that sentiment, but what would be a good comeback?


I'm battling for those who have it worse. For the people being exploited and mistreated in third-world countries. For the children being exploited, for work and for sex. For the people in the First-world who are still living under the line of human-existence.
That's what i am fighting for!


Many westerners don't support these horrible things. But they do ignore them, which is the same thing.

As Noixon mentioned the whole scene in the west is "Marie Antoinette". I have the pleasure of watching the movie recently, and it reminded me so much of western society.

[Jimmie Higgins]

That's true, but a cynical capitalist might mention that people don't want to get an education or trade skills. Not saying I agree with that sentiment, but what would be a good comeback?Such a claim bears no resemblance to reality. People are more educated and skilled today than in the post-war boom - but people have to compete more just to get less despite having skills and education.

Besides if people "didn't want" education, why have the capitalists been trying to raise costs and cut classes - and why has this attempt been met with protests and anger? Why are people willing to put themselves into huge debts for college even as tuitions have exploded?

People who think "people don't want an eduction" are wrong on two counts: that education automatically means mobility (even for college-educated workers this is not true and working class people who get college degrees tend to then just get skilled working class jobs while people from eliete backgrounds go to the same colleges but end up in eliete positions or go onto grad school). And secondly that people just aren't willing to "work hard" for education or jobs. The amount of people doing internships and all sorts of other part-time work, even with degrees, shows this argument to be nothing but hot air.

[Jason]

So does the third world.


It has fast food, but it's fast food restaurants are comparable to steakhouses in the US. Going to one is a big event and there is even security guards.



Everyone saying we have it well and who won't care about other human-beings are selfish sacks of shit.



They usually justify this attitude by blaming the poor for thier poverty. There are millions of selfish people.