Beyond Feminism

Spas seem to be all the rage lately. Every now and then one of them will appear on the news for the sole merit of having come up with a brand new gimmick to “treat” people with. Some time ago, it was stones. Now, I love stones as much as the next witch apprentice, BUT this use of stones seems to me to corrupt the whole principle of stones. Then it was chocolate. Now I think it’s immersing yourself in a bath tub of wine or something like that.

Oh, how I love laughing at the ridiculous practices of the ubber rich!

Or how this extreme commodification leaves us speechless.

From Wikipedia:

In Marxist political economy, commodification takes place when economic value is assigned to something not previously considered in economic terms; for example, an idea, identity, gender. So commodification refers to the expansion of market trade to previously non-market areas, and to the treatment of things as if they were a tradeable commodity.

I have blogged previously about the commodification of all things human. It has just occured to me that this commodification acts to, indirectly, censor speech. Al least, intelligent, meaningful speech. It stems from the fact that no one touches the big guys that make the moneys. Let me make it clearer with an example. Imagine you are a radical feminist (not so hard to do) and that you magically land a job as a columnist for a popular women’s magazine like Cosmo (a bit harder to do). It’s your column, so you can write whatever you fancy. Or not. Any criticism of the fashion and beauty industries would have to stay out, since that is precisely where Cosmo gets its bucks from. By extension, any reference to the objectification of women, the idea that women are things, and sexual things at that, any condemning of the male gaze, would have to go as well. Let’s see. Happiness is a no-no area too, as Cosmo makes some money out of promising its readers they will be oh so happy if they only followed this handy dandy step-by-step guide included in the magazine which, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, is anything BUT true happiness. Self esteem and true love suffer the same fate. If you dared write anything meaningful about self esteem or true love, the only kind of writing worth doing, it will be tantamount to saying that because of their complexity they cannot be obtained through a simple step-by-step guide, which immediately blows the business away. And Sex! One of the very cornerstones of Cosmo. What on Earth could you posibly say about sex that doesn’t uncover the fallacy that is its commodification, the only vision of sex Cosmo could possibly ever have because its the only one that they can get money from. We are quickly running out of topics here. Cross over consumerism and capitalism, unless you are planning to write condoning them. (YUCK!) Ehmmm. Nature? Again, only if we stay within clearly defined boundaries. Namely, “you can only enjoy nature by going somewhere and spending money, here, we’ll show you how”. The same applies to food and art. Dude, I don’t know you, but I’ve run out of ideas already!

Now it’s easier to see where this is going. The main flaw within the mainstream media: speech is powered by money. Sure, you can think whatever you want, but you can’t actually SAY whatever you want because, sooner or later, you’ll reach the money making wall. And in time, this gets worse and worse because more things are turned into commodities. Things which are re-defined in “money making” terms, which you cannot question because “thou shall not get in the way of the money making”.
In time, we cannot express any ideas. In time, we run out of speech.

If you’ve been hoovering the blogosphere lately, you must have stumbled upon a blog with a title strikingly similar to this post’s. It’s gotten obcenely huge. That blog has been alive for 1 month and 8 days and has gotten 4 million 7 hundred thousand hits. Meanwhile, my blog has been alive for 50 years, (feels like), and has gotten a grand total of 0 hits, (again, feels like). Is there a non-existing reader who is starting to think that I may be slightly jelous? Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. I have never complained about blogs which I respect and admire, regardless of their popularity. *cough-Twisty on the blogroll-cough*. However, I do NOT respect the tone of this blog, and here’s why.

First, the blog works strictly under the following premises:
1) All white people live in the US and
2) White people = upper middle class

Now, I feel slightly offended by those assumptions. I’m all up for mocking the habits and tendencies of the ubber rich, but I wouldn’t be so BLIND as to call them “white people”. The author seems to be entirely oblivious to the fact that there’s white people outside of the US, the countries from the ex URSS, for example. These people not only do not indulge in the sibaritic and consumerist orgy-like practises of the rich the world over, but also lack some things we tend to take for granted, like freedom and basic human rights. That’s right! There’s plenty of white people out there who are not even close to upper middle class. Some can even be found in the very US! And I’m so sensitive and bold to believe that the racist claim “all black people are poor” is a teensy weensy bit similar to the claim that “all white people are rich”.
But I guess Stuff “Rich” People Like doesn’t sound all “that” original after all. And here we encounter the other reason why I find this blog annoying: it’s NOT original. It has the exact same cynical and sceptical attitude that is the default of the “creative” ones of my generation and younger ones. They are what I call “The Simpsons Generation”, and one day I’ll blog about them. They don’t believe in anything and they look down at the few who do.

“White people spend a lot of time of worrying about poor people. It takes up a pretty significant portion of their day.”

Notice the slight swift of bullying? The subtle tone of mockery? How dare you think about something! See,it’s not what people are doing or thinking. It’s not that they are choosing to change their actions or beliefs for more ethical ones. It’s the fact that they have ethics in the first place. Because in this age of moral relativism, having a clear idea of what is right and wrong is tantamount to proclaiming that some ideas are BETTER than others. And that cannot be. It would get in the way of individualism. Anyone should be whoever they want! Even if that means being a pseudo racist copy-cat passing as “cool” and “trasgressive”.