Xev: And the price one pays for 'nobility' is social suicide. For some it takes years to realize this. Rebellion for rebellion's sake is only a tug on the chain, and the louder you show that you're pulling it only looks like you're playing with a necklace. I myself had to learn this. In later years when the show is over and no one is watching you fall in that paradox you spoke of (I believe it was you- not sure. No matter) of rebelling against rebellion. Protesting that canned defiance so common to innocence. This grasping for character in a fragmented world devoid of That Comfort - this grasping is what happens when shackles are exchanged for another. Borel is one of those French bohemian dandies you'd like to rip apart for being so fake but he wrote about being conscious both of his power and of his chains at the same time when he 'woke up'. Those chains are valuable, wouldn't you say? They keep you from proving that you really have the power you'd think you have without them but secretly question the veracity of your own gospel and fear taking them off. All social ties are shackles. And know what eats me? That as women we are the worst demographic when we shoot for nobility. Let her wiff freedom and she'll waste it on the pilgrimage she'll make to some other social net that will never be cast wide enough to protect her, some mirror to find herself in since she's lost without shiny things to look in. You, me, them, mankind will never be noble so long as you insist on having domestics to ensnare you. The cost is social suicide. Wouldn't you agree? Fountainboy: You've got Freud's signature written all over you. (Andalusion dog #3)
gendanken: Of course. And that's the problem - the more free you become the harder it is to function. The more (mentally) powerful you become, the less possible it is to be (socially) powerful. How do you conceal yourself? How can you conceal yourself? Exactly. Yes, one does question one's gospel yet fears removing them. Are we? I've always figured that the choice would be clear - nobility requires ultimate solitude, otherwise the people you associate with will hold you back. But perhaps it's just a matter of finding the right associates and not becoming dependant. Yes.
I don't know if "replaced" is really the word, seems more like someone changing hats to me. Genius boys like boom are just finally getting around to seeing that their end of the stick may be just as short as the girls' end. Soon enough they'll pretend that there's another "in crowd", like being fashionably homosexual. Does that mean that the people in charge are now "metrosexual"? Nah. Just means they changed tacks.
BigBlueHead: Clarify please? You're arguing that those who run society are - well that there are people who actually run society? And that they've changed strategies?
Xev: It is but I think you missed why I think so and its here: The fear is not removing that gospel- by “gospel” I mean that bold voice inside that amplifies this sense of dignity in the midst of swine all around one. The fear is in removing the chains. Somewhere in there, don’t know if this is the case for you, but somewhere in there you realize both power and shackles (as in social ones, no matter with whom and how) ...you realize both those things simultaneously and in one breath you detect the unthinkable- you’ll actually have to exercise this power once you tear those chains from the wall and are you sure you have it? You've just questioned what you thought was unquestionable. In bondage you don’t have to prove anything. Its almost like the angry man screaming behind bars- he’ll bellow and torment his captors with the vengeance he’d rain on their heads as soon as he gets out or he'll ~nobly~ romanticize his future success to their face once given the freedom but what will come of him as soon as they let him free? Give him a chink to slip through at night and prove himself- his brief pause soon after betrays the value he placed on those fucking cell bars without knowing it. You ask how one can conceal her and himself and the easisest answer is ugly. The true one is impossible. Maybe. We'll see. I asked: "The cost is social suicide. Wouldn't you agree?" to which you replied "Yes." I'm not talking pretty stabwounds or fashionable gashes in neat places. I'm talking totallity.Social suicide. Out there is a yawning chasm of middle classed throngs SO easily disposed of. That's nothing. Those lost souls with the puppy eyes that follow you around because they're still young or dumb and don't know better- just as easily disposable. I'm talking leave this place and all those people you keep around as anchors (you know what I'm speaking of, yes?)- all of this to complete it. There's no "...perhaps it's just a matter of finding the right associates and not becoming dependant". Suicide cuts everything off while the blood's still warm. T-o-t-a-l-i-t-y. Impossible? Or does it only require more dedication? Bigblue: Wrong, blueboy. The girly's end is always shorter.
K, I'll try to explain - apologies if this gets long-winded. In general, in society, there is a large group of people who wish to have membership in a group. The benefits of having membership in a group are often advocated both directly and indirectly, but even without this sort of advertisement there are often people who want to be given a sort of direction for their lives... to be told what to do, if you like. These groups often have a leader or implied leader of some sort that effectively hands down the orders, although the orders will be handed down by way of several proxies in most cases, and may change quite drastically. The Catholic church, for instance, may discover that some of its ministers preach tolerance of homosexuals where official doctrine does not. All the same, all of the people in the group still believe themselves to be the same kind of people, even if their beliefs are opposed (as in, antagonistic) in some cases. Usually, sufficient excuses are made by each subgroup to consider the others "still brothers/sisters/whatevers". The actual breakup of a group usually only comes after much conflict. Now, these groups are not discrete and can overlap, as I believe you mentioned. A common problem of most groups is the splintering thereof; a good thing to remember is that, in every group you are a member of, there will be a smaller group that you are not a member of. (Unless it's your group.) The "feminist" movement, such as it was, suffered this kind of splintering between various subgroups of its members when they came to understand that their banding together as "women" couldn't reconcile their non-gender-based differences of opinion (relating to their age, racial background &c.) BUT each group generally has either a real or illusionary leader that gives the original orders, however much they may be reinterpreted by proxy leaders. (The simpler the orders, the more easily they are disseminated, for obvious reasons.) Often the initial orders are wildly reinterpreted by the proxies, of course - a good lot of people decided to accept Richard Dawkins as their visionary in terms of genetics, which they took to imply behaviour, and ended up saying what seemed to be nearly the opposite of what Dawkins was originally trying to say. So... often there will be a very vague group of people, like "American men", who as a group have almost nothing in common other than the nationality and gender implied by the name of the group. These people, though they might not agree on much else normally, still somehow agree on their membership in the group. Now comes the large proportion of these people (as there will be in many groups) who feel that they benefit much more from external guidance than from their own consideration of how they wish things to be. I agree that the mass media now exerts a strong hold on these people, because it constantly tells them how to dress, behave, what to want, and so on. It comes down not as orders from a single leader, but in the form "Everybody X", where X is a phrase that denotes some behaviour, mode of dress or whatever. Does everybody really X? Probably not. But if enough respected political figures, such as Jerry or George or Kramer, say everybody X, then the guidance seekers will believe that - since no counterargument is offered - enough people X that they should X too. Along with Xing, they will claim that "everybody X", possibly in the form of a joke used on their favourite TV show. This becomes a form of social pressure for the other guidance seekers, who may be slower on the uptake, but still want to feel that they are doing the right thing according to accepted social rules. So it comes to pass that a group of people will follow some arbitrary rules placed upon them by their own mutual assent. NOW Not all of these orders are created for a reason. The "five-second rule" of edibility in dropped food is not much of a social doctrine, and doesn't really support or detract from the position of any higher-up group of people. Not all of these orders have their particular structure for a reason. The "little boys play with toy cars" rule helps to bolster the sale of toy cars, but if the toy car companies had instead made concrete kachina dolls, they could have said "little boys play with concrete kachina dolls" instead and had much the same effect. BUT Some of the groups are receiving their "everybody X" orders from an actual organization with an actual agenda. The orders will be tailored to that agenda. The organization may disappear, but if it does, it leaves a headless monster which runs around begging for another head... consequently, the change of leadership usually isn't noticeable from the ground level, because it doesn't necessarily coincide with the change of ideas, since an organization that wants to control a group will usually come armed with the ideas that the group are already supposed to believe in.' So it's circumstantial, but usually there is an organization controlling any large group of people that all claim co-membership. It may change, but large and widely-spread groups of this kind generally do not lead themselves and are vulnerable to this kind of control.
Bigblue: Smooth. I can sit here and read that till my eyes bleed. Humans have this nasty habit of feeling life only through membership, and so long as there is a collective to run with he won't have to think about why it is that he finds himself with those people, he'll never define his beliefs in any other words but his neighbor's or the fact that they look, think, or act alike and it doesn't matter a lick that his monster changed heads so long as there are others in its tummy with him taking up the cause they know nothing about as righteously as he is. And just as long as the monster moves at least one of its limbs could you make them feel like they're going anywhere- even though they're all trapped in its tummy choking on bile. And for these feminists- they'd like to think "sisterhood" once rescued is the most powerful thing in this world but let a man kiss her hand and watch all that fiery patriotism crumble like pie crust. Fucking women.
Which feminists? There's a bloody lot of different kinds, that group has splintered so badly that only the Popular feminists think that they're still part of anything... and they're the ones who read fashion magazines and fantasize about Colin Farrell chain-smoking in their beds...
gendanken: No, I understand - one appreciates the chains because they keep you from having to prove that power, from doing the things that you may well not want to do. Deep down, are you ruthless enough? Smart enough? Strong enough? But the chains keep you from having to risk it all. There - do you even know what the fuck you're doing? The chains at least keep you knowing, instead of throwing you into absolute confusion where you'll have to find yourself. Again. And again. And again. Gendanken, I know how to conceal myself. What I did made me vile - I smiled a lot and tried to be likable. When I snapped out of that I released my aggression like a fury, like I was trying to prove something to myself. Now that's spent, and I'm wondering if I even care about concealment. Oh yes, I do. I don't know. I've come close enough to cut everyone off, but I kept returning to humans. The point where you have liquid nitrogen instead of blood? Know it. But still here I am. I've come so close to the bottom - and I keep bouncing back. And every person is a chain. You know what that means: camraderie is just another way they control you, sex is just another way they control you, understanding is just another way and love is just another way they control you. Rarely do they even know what they're doing. And the alternative is being fucking alone. I don't mean the noble "I have no masters" type of alone, I mean utterly alone. Where's weakness, where's strength? And your destiny or nature or whatever the fuck it is keeps tugging at you. BigBlueHead: The real ones. Yeah, the movement has split but the core ideals remain the same. Just because a dumb whore like, say, Suzy Bright or Christina Sommers claims to represent feminism doesn't mean they do. Information theory, I like it. You have one or two primary meme bearers, and then you have their ideas spreading out throughout the group in diminishing strength (like the law for universal gravitation) and being modified and enforced by the bulk of the group. An individual is nothing, but their role is essential and yet replacable at the same time. Depending on the organization and tradition of the group, the meme bearers are either strictly controlled (like in traditional Jewish societies) or pretty much left up to their own devices (American consumer society) and the group forms its shape based on that.
Quote:And for these feminists- they'd like to think "sisterhood" once rescued is the most powerful thing in this world but let a man kiss her hand and watch all that fiery patriotism crumble like pie crust. Too true. As Simone De Beauvoirs admits in The Second Sex a woman's allegiance to her man outweighs any solidarity towards other women. Quote:camraderie is just another way they control you, sex is just another way they control you, understanding is just another way and love is just another way they control you. Rarely do they even know what they're doing. And the alternative is being fucking alone. I don't mean the noble "I have no masters" type of alone, I mean utterly alone. Xev why do you see this as their way of controlling and not an opportunity to open up? An expansion?
I've been trying to convince her of this myself. The dream of the 'overman' has condemned many to an endless reaching for something they can never reach. This ideal is reserved for a species other than ours, for a species that is inhuman. Solitude is a prerequisite of nobility but the experience of being human is not always a noble endeavour. Death, our own mortality, our limitations, our unavoidable weaknesses forces undignified action and thought upon us. As social beings we must accept our need our dependence on a supporting group, our limitations and our weaknesses cannot be denied only minimized. What distinguishes one from another is not some absolute state of separateness but a difference in degree and the quality and spirit of the becoming. It is not that we can become noble in some idealistically absolute way, but only that we can become nobler than the other or in comparison to what we were. Superiority inferiority is just a matter of gradation in a universe of no absolutes and no perfections. So if we are to be imperfect let it be with those that share our degree of imperfection. If we are to be dependant, let it be on those that deserve it and that will appreciate it and reciprocate. Many in their youth get caught up in the ego, one of the lower levels of lucidity, and so perceive the ‘I’ as the beginning and end of what they are. In fact man is both individuality and multiplicity man is both a singularity and a part of a whole. Dionysian/Apollonian, Ying/Yang, Mind/Body, Intellect/Instinct. The acceptance of both sides of human nature or what is called the human condition and the contradicting ways they often relate to one another is the acceptance of the totality of the human experience. If we are to be servants let it only be servants to our own nature.
Gendanken/Lucysnow: That (Simone de Beauvoirs &c.) is why the Lesbian Seperatist feminists came about... pursuit of a stronger form of membership with one another by cutting out the men. Often they make the claim that having men around clouds their real identities... Identity is often the battle cry in situations where people are trying to claim membership in a group. (I always thought this was strange, because I don't really think of "identity" as being the same as "having a place to belong". But, the comments on chains in the last few posts may argue against that division of mine.) Some people even address their identity as being the sum of their relations with other people - "I am Rosemary's granddaughter, the spitting image of my father blah blah blah" as that one song went. I am still unsure how to feel about people who judge the quality of their character by their social proximity to/popularity with other people, since this seems to carry the implict premise that "any large enough group of people is correct". Xev: Aside: I'm not sure if I like the idea of memes exactly, because I think the evolutionary model of information propagation ignores the importance of agendas - that is, natural selection on organisms has no agenda and is basically random, where social selection on information is more like a kind of "information breeding", whether it's intentional or not. End aside. Now, you mentioned the media before, which I think is an extremely important development... by having a media presence, the leading organization can reduce its number of proxies (which used to be necessarily large, because it's a kind of pyramid scheme) to a very small and recognizable group. The ostensible leader can speak to you directly as a member of the group. (You can't answer, but that doesn't matter, because information doesn't need to go up the mountain, just down.) Now what does this mean? First! The media teaches division between people; they start by teaching you about membership in a group, and then teach you that you'll be unable to communicate with the people outside it... and then the people inside it. The goal is to bring you to a position where you don't feel that you can communicate sideways... only up the ladder. (Of course, information doesn't go up the ladder, just down.) This way, they develop a situation where the only judgement you are told you can trust is theirs, and where you aren't capable of sending out information, only absorbing it. Then they sell you stuff. Ordinarily, this is the goal. By getting people in the position where they believe that the only thing that makes sense is their media (which we often like to feel is uniquely ours) the media can convince them that their personal value is connected to those material things that they buy.
Lucysnow: True, economic marginalization fucks people the hell up. On the other hand..."gender" is a poor thing to owe allegience to. I don't say that they do this deliberately. However, personal ties become just that - ties. You're afraid to risk yourself not simply for self-preservation but out of concern for others. The question ultimately becomes more than whether you can bear pain but whether you can give it. Blue: Point taken on memes, but that's off topic. Oprah. Yes, the proxies can be fewer but more public. One question - you speak of goals and intents. Do you believe this is done deliberately or as a natural process? I'll respond in depth later, I have class.
Unhhh... hard question. I believe that it can easily be done without intention, but may be done deliberately by a skilled organization. I'll try to explain, although I know this isn't clear (that is, it's a matter of degree to some extent). Least degree: When you communicate with another person in any way you have to adopt a context with them, so in a very simplistic way you demand their membership in your linguistic context. This is a hideous oversimplification of behaviour as product, however, so I'll say that it's possible to communicate with another person without "selling" them anything. Greater degree: When you try to adopt someone into your group in an attempt to increase your group's numbers - i.e. recruiting - the techniques you use may be relatively intuitive/unconscious. When someone says, "Don't you want to have a group of people who will love you and take care of you?" this may not be a deliberate attempt at sales exactly, but only an appeal to the emotion that they are feeling. This may be just as manipulative as any other technique but is not necessarily deliberate. Still greater degree: Some of those who sell products/ideologies may use a technique without understanding the nature or degree of its effects. This is the case with a lot of advertising, where it will be implicitly claimed that failure to buy a product will result in your life continuing to be as shabby and unfulfilling as you fear it might be in relation to others. "Lifestyle advertising" (as an example) is an appeal to the fear of the individual that they may be disrespected by others for being of lesser quality or achievement, but at the same time its effects are largely obvious and avoidable to a person who is educated in its nature. That is, when someone points out that the only time a commercial will refer to a dog as "she" is when it's a fat dog on a doggie weight loss commercial, you may thereafter notice that there's a prevalence of media which implies that all females are fat. These are the sorts of effort that a single person can easily spot without help by observing. Greatest degree I have yet to find words to describe: As a support to the previous kind of manipulation, a new technique has begun to be used deliberately, although I'm sure it existed before. A commercial will cast two people, a wife and husband for instance, as opposing sides in a neverending war of natures that cannot be won by either side. By attempting to drive a wedge between people who would normally communicate freely, the advertiser can restrict the viewers to the kind of self-education listed above. That is, they hope that the wife will not listen her husband when he says "These commercials make people psychotic about dirt in their homes. A sparkling clean home is not a healthy home, because of the chemicals. Do less housework; we will both be happier and you'll have time to do better things." The husband will not believe his wife when she says "Diamonds are kind of nice but I like my security better. Pay off the mortgage first and worry about frills later, and we will both be happier." Normally when an advertisement shows you something that you're not sure about, you would feel better with the opinion of someone whose intelligence you trust. You: "I dunno Pat, d'you think that Raid Yard Gard will really kill all mosquitos in a two-mile radius, and then continue to kill them for up to six hours?" Pat: "Sounds like a lie to me." But if the Raid people can get you to distrust Pat by convincing you that Pat has different priorities: "Studies have shown that people named Pat have no concern about West Nile virus, and die in droves for their stupidity. People like You, on the other hand know about the terrible dangers of West Nile virus, and that it could potentially kill millions of people every year. So, who are you gonna trust, Raid? Or some loser named Pat who wants to see you dead?" Then they have removed Pat from authority in this context, and you only have the Raid people left. Do you believe Raid now? Maybe not. But even if you don't buy their Yard Gard, by not asking Pat his/her opinion you've may already have accepted the division. By striving to create these divisions all the time, the advertiser is trying to ensure that whenever they present you with information, there is no one that you can go to for help with analyzing it. The advertiser doesn't have to worry about other advertisers blocking out their information, because information is only blocked from going across, not down. One of the reasons that this technique is successful is that your competitors actually make more business for you; If you are Pepsi, Coke may be trying to get your market share away from you, but at the same time they are making more for you by advertising. The number of cola drinkers will increase regardless, which is good for both of you. By following this "disciple" model of the customer, you can ensure a greater degree of consumer loyalty by promoting a lesser degree of education. The corollary effects of the lesser degree of education may hurt us all in the long run... but if we're too stupid to care, then no one will know...
BlueHead: Can be done deliberately...and can you point to an example of this being done deliberately? It amuses me that even the most adept at manipulating humans don't seem to know exactly what they are doing. As if it was something done without thinking. Even a genius like Goebbels doesn't give much indication that he used a method. He applied his observations - but more than that, it came naturally. If people were smart enough to have those sorts of conversations. It's an interesting observation. Advertising fosters competition - or taps into the competitive side of human nature. You buy the product, you best the other, whether it be the neighbors who are in awe of your car, your buddies who are in awe of the models you attract by drinking Budweiser (eww) or your husband who is just stunned by the clean house. It taps into, but does it foster? I'd say yes, television seems to be a profound medium for influencing peoples ideas of reality. On the other hand, the ties of kinship are lessened in television reality, but the ties between people otherwise opponents are strengthened. Racism doesn't exist, sexism doesn't exist, class is irrelevent and only shows that some people have more - but the have-nots do great and are just about to move up into the ranks of the haves! Interestingly, as intimate ties between individuals lessen, distinctions of race and class are no longer as relevent (distinctions of gender must be relevent, they sell too well) as they were. A couple might split over monetary issues but two strangers are no longer concerned about the other's race. Well frankly I'm just waiting for the return of the great Hobbesean "war of all against all" so that the world can be remade.
I'll concede that the method is never exact - but... I'll try... it's gonna be circumstantial, of course, but here goes. Disney tries to create an ideological division between parents and their children. It is too prevalent and obvious to be unintentional. It shows up both in their movies and advertising. Examples: Monsters Inc. - All children are terrorized by monsters coming out of their closets, which are real in the context of the movie. At some point, the monsters stop coming out of their closets, presumably when they get too old. Eventually, they grow up and get married and have children of their own. When their children are terrorized by the same monsters, the parents call them liars. Message: Your parents will never believe you about some things, even if they implicitly know that you are right, because they have successfully deluded themselves about the real nature of the world. The Little Mermaid: Ariel is a 15 year old mermaid who collects human artifacts. Her father believes that humans are dangerous, and in one spectacularly violent scene he uses his magic powers to smash and destroy her entire collection. Message: Don't piss daddy off because he may murder the whole family and then burn down the house. Treasure Planet: The main character's father abandoned him and his mother when he was young. His life becomes a series of desperate, criminal cries for attention, until he goes on a trip and finds a new father figure in Long John Silver, a murderous cybernetic pirate who nearly kills all of his friends at various times. Message: If your father left you, your life's purpose is to find someone or something to replace him. Bambi/Finding Nemo: Don't look away, because when you look back, your mother could be dead. Trust is meaningless in a violent world where no one can guarantee their own survival, much less yours. The Great Familial Disappointment Moment: Nearly every recent Disney movie has one of these, the overwrought emotive scene where the young, impressionable one screams "You lied to me! I hate you!" and runs away to sob desperately in the corner. (The most distressing such moment was in 101 Dalmatians 2, where the big "you lied to me" moment came when little whatsisname found out that his big role model on TV was not a real person, but only a character played by an actor. Cruel reality...) Message: Though there are quite a few examples, the overriding message is that your family is destined to fail you at a crucial moment. These movie messages form a sort of continuum of distrust of your family, which might have been excusable as an unintentional/emotional attempt to gain support or display the feelings of those in charge. However, there are two things that argue against this (at least, in my opinion). The first: There is a product sold at the Disney store which looks like a bag with a Bambi (or other famous character) head sewn onto it. However, the bag doesn't open, so it's a little difficult to figure out what it is. As you handle the thing, you slowly come to the horrible realization of what it's for. It's a security blanket. Disney has taken one of the great universal psychological traumas - seperation anxiety - and used it as a way to advertise. Does mommy abandon you every night? Are you alone in the terrible, shifting darkness? Well, severed Bambi head blanket is always there for you! The second reason was a commercial that contained as much of a mission statement as I've ever seen for the Disney campaign. It talked about children growing up, and enjoying their childhood while it lasts, and showed many pictures of a man playing with his son at Disneyworld - the happy springtime of their family life. The turning point in the commercial is the Question, which I believe was: "When you're not there anymore, who's going to hold their hand?" A human hand is shown reaching across the screen, implicitly that of the son, and it is gripped by the immense gloved pseudopod of a giant sponge Mickey Mouse. The human hand is revealed to be that of the son, now all grown up. (The father is not depicted, so we're not sure if he actually died or is just forgotten by history. They don't visit his grave or anything.) They don't run this commercial anymore, I don't think, but it was as much as saying that Disney's purpose was to replace the parents in every family as the "entity to look up to for love and guidance". This could not have been unintentional, it was like a bald statement of their desire to own everything. When viewed in this light, the other "coincidental" messages of the movies start to seem a lot like a coordinated campaign to drive parents and children apart so that Disney can install themselves as replacement parents. So far this is the best example I have found.
I entirely agree. Once communication between individuals has been sabotaged, the value of the individual can be played up immensely - presumably this helps promote higher spending. 1) "Be yourself" advertising that shows "you" drinking Coke or using some other such product - promoting an image of individual power that nonetheless states that everyone buys the product. 2) "You deserve better" commercials that, no matter what their actual sales pitch, always seem to involve fat, old, balding loser men who are married to twenty-three year old retired models and have two or three kids that look exactly like their father. Recently there's one for women as well, which is less common - that McDonalds commercial with the ballet practice, where all the women are hiding behind the one-way mirror watching their kids. Aside: First of all, the idea of using a one-way mirror in a dance studio makes my skin crawl to begin with. Imagine if, at the age of sixteen, you found out that the locket your parents gave you when you were seven had a hidden camera in it... Second, the "mommies" all begin to leer at some ballet guy behind another one-way mirror, the guy that the soundtrack describes as being "on the menu". The only way that commercial would seem right to me is if the guy woke up screaming at the end of it. Eeeenyway. 3) The "come together" commercials. I believe there was actually a Telus commercial which used the (Beatles?) song "Come together"... promoting one-ness in the purchase of a product. Kind of the same as #1, kind of different. Haven't read any Hobbes, not even Leviathan, so I can't say much of the Great Remaking you describe. Usually, we get Marxist Dialectic Collision or whatever it's called, like when they finally decided banner ads didn't work and a million sites went off the net; big change small context.
BlueHead: *Smiles* If only Soren Kierkegaard had a severed Bambi head blanket. Excellent examples. I've focused on analzying things aimed at the needs and fears of adults, but children are most vulnerable to that sort of thing - being most needy, fearful and gullible. Disney has become a representation of childhood by manipulating those fears and needs - quite consciously. Precisely. Now, I have nothing against egotism - but consumer individualism is not individualism at all. Not only does that communication foster a focus on individual spending, it allows for greater fears to be played into. Take gender - The "war of the sexes" is a often used cultural cliche. You mentioned the married couple, of course such communication issues would be solved by the couple's reaching for some book on 'how to communicate'. The notion is that the Other's gender is so inherently different from yours that it takes all manner of artiface to form a relationship with him or her. The fear of not reproducing is primal and strongest, second perhaps only to death. The anxiety is heightened by the constant message that - well, the other is completely alien. Read women's magazines and you have a plethora of tips on 'how guys think' 'what guys like' 'what does he really mean when he says X' and the same goes for men's magazines - although of course the focus is on sex rather than relationships. One needs a plethora of goods and skills - for women it's cosmetics, clothing and various fitness regimens, as well as learning how to properly act. For men the items are more big ticket - car, house/apartment, whatever high end luxury is fashionable. Anxiety sells incredibly well. Bingo. The white man and the black man find a common ground over burgers. Television forms ideology now. Ah, the great remaking is nothing he destroyed. Hobbes argues that without a strong government man is condemned to constantly war against himself. I don't have a good grasp of Marx - just Capital.
