The Analysis of a Never-Ending Fart
Why You Don’t Need Water Cannons When Ya Got Advertisers and Alcohol
A student’s so-called life…examined. Reprinted from an anarcho-punk fanzine that was edited and published by yours truly. The piece holds up pretty well, all things considered. Just remember that it was probably written by a first-year college student in the early part of the 1980's.
“An unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
In today’s mass, technological society, young people’s natural energy has been channeled into “acceptable” means of expression. These “acceptable” means are maintained by our cultural and social standards….
The propaganda of commodities, in the form of advertisements on t.v. or in magazines, entices young people into the passive role of being a consumer who is unable to determine what s/he wants out of life. Young people, surrounded with images of “stars” who are supposedly “beautiful,” try to live up to society’s standards of glamour and stardom; this too destroys their ability to think about what they want out of life or what is important to them. Many young people literally destroy themselves when they chase these illusions of beauty and glamour. For example, a recent Washington Post article documented that 13% of the students at a West Coast high school “purged to reduce”: They found that this 13% wanted to look thin, so they took up an unhealthy practice (being thin is promoted as being “pretty” — and who doesn’t want to be “pretty,” right?) Young people learn to confirm, follow trends, etc. In this process, they subvert their ability to think about what they want out of life. Young people are made powerless and bewildered in this society.
Youth are the future of the world. They are readied for the future. Their abilities are exploited by this society to satisfy this society. Young people are socialized so they are not able to challenge their society or the future this society offers them.
The youth of this society are a huge “force” that can be used by this society. They are the future of the society, but what sort of future is there?
Young people are noticed for their buying power. They are the audience for the grand parade of “stars” that perform for them. Youth are made to accept a passive role in the music field; they are not encouraged to make their own music. The stars have a monopoly on the ability to be heard by millions of youth. By instilling this passivity amongst young people, the record industries and other forms of the entertainment industry make huge profits. The youth idolize Michael Jackson, Prince, Culture Club, or whoever the spectacle is this month, so that the culture industries have an ability to rake in the bucks. Who would buy all of the crap like t-shirts, plastic cups, records, etc. if this idolization was not instilled in them?… The cult of celebrity makes millions of people passive, while it makes a few people wealthy.
The other side of the coin is that young people need the capital to do all of this buying. Unless they are spoiled by their parents, they will have to work. They work at McDonald’s, etc. They work at unfulfilling jobs that turn them into cogs in a producing process. They accept these jobs sometimes to get into college but also to have the ability to consume. In other words, they produce shit so they can buy more shit. Thus, youth are made to accept that 40 hours a week, they will be doing something they don’t want to do. This carries on into their futures as adults.
All of this is a historical development traced by Christopher Lasch in his book, The Culture of Narcissism. He states:
The American economy, having reached the point where its technology was capable of satisfying basic material needs, now relied on the creation of new consumer demands--on convincing people to buy goods for which they are unaware of any need until the “need” is forcibly brought to their attention by the mass media…. In the period of primitive accumulation (during capitalist development), capitalism subordinated being to having, the use value of commodities to their exchange value. Now it subordinates possession itself to appearance and measures exchange value as a commodity’s capacity to confer prestige--the illusion of prosperity and well-being…. Advertising serves not so much to advertise products as to promote consumption as a way of life…. The propaganda of commodities serves a double function. First it upholds consumption as an alternative to protest or rebellion…. In the second place, the propaganda of consumption turns alienation itself into a commodity…. It not only promises to palliate all the old unhappiness to which flesh is heir: it creates or exacerbates new forms of unhappiness--personal insecurity, status anxiety, etc.
These new fears that Lasch mentions help to make a certain few wealthy. It also promises a work force for employers. Youth are trapped in the passive consumer-producer roles that advanced capitalism upholds by our culture and society.
Young people perform countless jobs. Tourist trap towns, known also as vacation spots, are often run by young people during summer break. Young people’s idealism is squashed and destroyed in such jobs. They turn to consumption for relief, and the corporations turn it into profits….
The ultimate form of chattel that young people are used for is seen during wartime. Draft age is 18, and the state needs an army of unquestioning robots to do its dirty work abroad. The most glaring example of this is the Vietnam War, in which thousands of young people were killed.
The ignorance youth have about political issues, especially why the U.S. intervenes in other countries, can be exploited by the state. If one does not have an ability to question why a war is being fought, one is more likely to fight in it. When young people are made passive by their society (as illustrated above and below), they will be willing fodder. As the Dead Kennedys warn, they’re prepared for “when ya’ get drafted….”
Young people’s ability to think clearly is damaged even further by a supposedly recent trend discovered by Nancy Reagan. This, of course, is the use of drugs and alcohol (aren’t these the same things?)
Drug use has become acceptable among many young people. The “keg party” where people get drunk “off their asses” and perhaps “laid” is now a national symbol for American students.
Drugs usually make young people apathetic. Many young people admit admit that they use drugs to escape their problems. Drugs leave young people in the dark with an inability to think. Drugs create an euphoria to live for, instead of allowing for one to face up to the problem in life. Drugs decrease young people’s awareness.
“Drugs, department stores, and television are the opiates of the masses of young people.” — Jack Travers, 1985
Another drug or diversion in life for many young people is sex. Young peoples’ sexuality and their obsession with it leads them to insecurity and self-confusion.
Young people are brainwashed by films, magazines and friends to worry about their appearance (their sexual appeal). Young people are made into narcissistic worriers. They are performers who waste time on their masks and images. They chase illusions of beauty, while not being able to think about what they need out of life. Young peoples’ fears and worries about their appearances are exploited by advertisers so that corporations make profits. Products are promoted as being helpful to improving one’s “performance in life.” And young people are made more and more insecure by the images of beauty projected in front of them. They feel, as Christopher Lasch states, that they are “performers under the constant scrutiny of friends and strangers….”
Young people are not truly encouraged to become educated in this society. This society does not want or need creative, thoughtful people. These sort of people would not make for a reliance upon experts that people have today. “Pseudo-needs” are created within people to make them buy things and work to make capital so as to make an appearance of “happiness.” What aspect of our culture encourages young people to think or gives them the desire to become educated? Television, which an average young person watches a hell of a lot of — 20,000 hours by the time s/he graduates from high school — does not encourage thinking. It encourages a short attention span and manufactures a want (desire?) to buy. The desire to make money does not mean that one will learn anything. It means that people want to devise ways in which to strike it rich, usually going to business school. Education is seen as a means to making oneself rich. There is no longer a need to have knowledge of political, literary, or sociological history; all that matters is the ability to become wealthy.
Consumer society is in need of ignorant and powerless people, not educated ones. Youth are channeled into consumer society to wind up being obsessed with their personal drive for wealth, not becoming intelligent. Education is doomed within the present society….
Young people form cliques in school. They become separated into various in-groups. Countless trends create in and out groups, by which young people are made to hate other young people. There are always the jocks, the punks, the preppies, etc. All of these divisions mean that young people are less able to realize that they are oppressed.
Many young people chase illusions of consumer bliss, yuppie happiness, or whatever one wants to label it. They are channeled into “acceptable” roles of behavior….
They wear certain clothes, they listen to certain music, they work pathetic jobs, and they fight other peoples’ wars.
It is all in the best interest of other people. It allows for other people to maintain their positions of power and wealth (the two are usually interchangeable in a capitalist society).
The corporations profit with the help of their advertising cronies, employers profit by having a passive labor force, the government has a mass of unquestioning and apathetic young people who will fight wars and not threaten the status quo.
This is all done at the cost of young people and at the cost of their ability to think. Youth are made into passive and insecure spectators, all by the will of their implanted ignorance, all for the profit of a few.
Written by Kevin Mattson, a political and social activist, living in Bethesda, MD.
***I’m always open to hearing your thoughts on anything you read here, positive or negative; or if you just want to say hello. My email is jjankow63@gmail.com Thank you for bothering!***
