Culture Change e-Letter
#43
The corporado's life and its antithesis
by Jan Lundberg
The image of the corporado — executive,
investor, bandito of
business, marauder against the public trust — obscures the interesting life
of a consumer generally at rest in a social bubble. From what I
observed up close, for many a
corporado the relations with family and friends are so shallow that the terms "family" and
"friends" are too generous. But a so-called master of the
universe grins and bears it.
The sudden and permanent
deprivation of fossil-fuel efficiency for the masses is about to close an
interesting period of history: The beginning of the end of the climate as
we know it is at least as noteworthy as the relatively recent advent of
fantastic plastic electronic entropy devices. Corporados, you're clever,
and most of you are basically nice people, but gracias para nada.
With no regard and with little hope on the part
of the affluent player for his or her descendents in an increasingly uncertain
world, the fancy car is not yet going out of style. Having more material wealth is far and away the
main measure of happiness for all who cling to the dominant culture. A lot
of that happiness depends on status achieved by acquiring property and lots of
cash. Other values such as family, career, and artistic creativity are
runners-up, usually in that order.
Respect and accomplishment in societies more
traditional than the U.S. are not so dependent on material wealth. It used
to be even in the U.S. that someone's experience, knowledge and ethics supplied individual wisdom
that was vital to pass along to the
family and community. Now, it is widely considered appropriate to pick up
some commercial magazine's tips on family relations or — even more
"crucial" to society's happiness — losing weight. The elders
and their wisdom, love and willingness to help guide the younger generations are
ignored and put away in retirement- or nursing-homes — often in such a fashion
designed to suck their money.
The typical corporado's life and that of many of
his or her family members is to a great extent empty of meaning. This has
been said so often that there must be great truth
in it. We can go further and say that most corporados are sell-outs; that they
sold their souls. Maybe it's not rare anymore that few people used to
aspire merely to make a lot of money by sacrificing their own independence for
a materialist dream.
Due to mass media and state schooling, the
background of people "lucky" enough to come into the corporate world
is the pursuit of materialism and being followers. The propaganda conceals
this and portrays a great culture — that can't quite comprehend U.S./corporate
genocide of Iraqis, Vietnamese, and other peoples.
A day in the "life"
The feeling between friends within a corporation
or inter-corporation is a semi-warm experience where the best they can do for
one another is go that extra mile by taking the time to get together, by
God, to hang out over cocktails or racquetball. This cuts into time for
the two dominant portions of the corporate worker's routine: working in the box
(punching the clock), and being in the box-sanctuary called home. The norm
is that there would be family there who expect the corporado to predictably be
present for breakfast and, often, dinner. Lunch at home with a
siesta? Try some lazy, backward country, buddy!
The corporado couple gets a baby-sitter and goes
over to another corporado couple's house. This is bonding: They can talk
about their bosses or underlings and the fine ways of spending money —
adding a room to the already more than adequate-sized house or trying that
expensive new frou-frou restaurant.
The worker drones/slaves are worse off
according to material values that have overtaken cultural traditions such as
family togetherness. A non-executive worker is more preoccupied than the
corporado with paying bills and avoiding job-harassment and termination.
These are considerations for the corporado as well, but the lower-paid working
class gets the repetitious, tedious, dangerous work.
At the Arcata Post office recently, a sign was visible
that says "I used to have a life, then I got this job!" What
a way to live: to kiss your dreams goodbye and wake up to the illusions of
freedom and the pursuit of happiness. People assume the present
predicament and rigged game is the only way. This brings us to the
alternative to the lifestyle of the corporados and most workers.
Corporado's opposite in Babylon
Unfortunately, for most of us to grasp the
concepts of many a free person's ways of living, it is first necessary to see
all too close up the dreary, limited consumer life that is dominated and manipulated
by corporations and government. Some free thinkers have a natural aversion
to compromising their principles, or may want to live only in a less artificial
environment (such as Humboldt County, whence I write). Large, overcrowded
cities are a main feature of the corporate empire's domain. A federation
of competitors euphemistically employs the masses and thus has its way with law and
commerce. People's rights and the environment are not corporate
concerns.
But the narrow corporate mind-set can dominate
persons and their families where no one lives in urban sprawl or has to commute
by toxic transportation. It is the same mind-set of mediocrity — of
accepting the latest U.S. war of aggression, generally bowing down to
flag-draped or religious authority — that pushes certain children or ex-spouses
away from the corporados' dominion, toward building a life of honoring the inner
self and respecting community.
A community benefiting from a corporation's
sponsorship of a sports team does not really reflect a strong community when the
corporation's pollution may be giving aspiring team members asthma or
cancer. "But hey, those logos on the jerseys are sharp. And
what do you say we go rent some DVDs afterwards? But no documentaries on
native people's environment being stolen — no more accidental turkeys from
that video store!"
Living a free life is not easy in Babylon, but
it is done all the time almost everywhere. To a reggae beat, in B minor,
when you can feel you've escaped from the box:
I wanna be free
I wanna be free
I think I'll get some bread
With local goat cheese please
Free is in my head
Not manifestively
I wanna be free
I wanna be free
There is no doubt in me
In this economy
Freedom is around
And sometimes can be found
Who's free
Who's free
Our things material
Have made us very ill
In nature and my heart
Is where I'll make a start
I'm free
I am free
I'm free
I am free
You're free
You are free
We're free
We all have some kind of artistic talent.
When we go for it, when we share it, this fills us and some of our observers with
contentment and inspiration. As creators, we cherish art's
feeling and concepts and would not trade the experience for a more opulent home
or newer car. We find ourselves applying our art to our beliefs, such as
for peace or for the protection of an ancient forest.
Movements thus receive their impetus,
not from the corporado and drone. Ironically,
oppression prevents much participation from those who should most be protesting and getting
active. Saving the biosphere is still considered too offbeat and
uneconomic. Brainwashing tells us, for
example, we can just buy our food and water instead of obtaining them directly in clean forms that we can trust
through intimate, local knowledge. Rather than participation and creation,
the spectacle generally occupies corporado and drone alike.
The liberated soul may be cast off from the
corporado-led system, except for (a) walking on the corporate-state's property,
or (b) availing oneself of the fringe institutions such as thrift stores, food
banks, and Earth First! groups that provide support
during campaigns.
It's quite a challenge to live freely and in
freedom.
It requires solidarity if one is not rich, but some money is needed at least on
occasion. For
someone living in this Babylon, even a mellow rural part of the U.S. where a
peace sentiment prevails, there are ties that bind in harmful ways. One
needs a room that he or she can call one's own, but to have it securely without
a huge outlay of cash may mean not
being able to leave for long until one would come back to it. The presence of family
or a commune helps provide security and continuity. By
contrast, the corporado has a relationship with someone else based more on money, and the home is
not ancestral much anymore in modern society. The corporados' and workers'
security may be in hand, apparently, but can't be easily held for one who could
somehow get an extremely rare sabbatical and go off to live in a very foreign
land for a half year.
It is an illusion that security is achieved for
the corporado and the rich when it is material-based: the economy is false, as it is more and more
reliant on consumer spending.
The affluence of American Life (i.e., rich U.S.
citizens) is dependent on sucking the life out of the soil, depleting the water,
fouling the air, and changing the climate. Foreigners far away and
immigrants in the U.S. are exploited for the consumer fantasies of the
unconscious corporados and wannabes.
Leading any life that includes frequent motoring
and using a computer is not the opposite of the corporate life. The Nazi
who revved up his motorcar to serve the Reich and do personal errands made no
more pollution of the air and water than the similarly dutiful and self-centered
executive/worker of today who — more knowingly — distorts our climate and
adds to noise pollution.
A different kind of life is one that no longer
serves the corporate state nor puts up with it in one's daily environment.
This can take the form of stopping thoughtless motorists from idling their noisy
machines when someone is trying to sleep. The solution can be to leave the
"neighborhood" altogether to reside where it is clean and quiet —
without a car and other polluting technology. Good luck if you try this
during pre-collapse in civilized (occupied) areas.
Cultural revolutionaries are on the loose and
making things happen. They provide occasional novelty for the nightly TV
news. They may not succeed in depaving the middle portion of your street
for nut trees and berry bushes — leaving bike/walking paths in front of each
row of residences that lead to renewable-energy powered trolleys. But the
residents themselves may all too quickly wish to bring such changes about when oil
virtually runs out. As the imminent peak of oil extraction starts to choke
off the extremities and limbs of the corporate entity/dominant society, the
heretofore unfree masses will at first be at a loss to provide for
themselves. It's probably going to be an ugly scene as strife is pushed to
the limit as most petroleum-dependent people will not survive.
Meanwhile, the freedom-loving, independent
segment of the population should be tapped for its knowledge of sustainability
before the curtain of delusion comes crashing down.
*****
- Pravda (Moscow) printed the
above Culture Change Letter in Spanish: Corporado's
culture.
- Read related articles: Shattering
illusions; Tragedy
of money relations and the alternative; Why
money and materialism aren't the answer; Civilization's
weakness evident in family trends
- A new Gandhian movement is explored in
the previous Culture Change Letter, #42
- The next one is on water privatization.
- check out the Fall of Petroleum
Civilization
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Jan Lundberg's columns are protected by
copyright; however, non-commercial use of the material is permitted as long as
full attribution is given with a link to this website, and he is informed of the
re-publishing: info@culturechange.org
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