Ishmael part III

Ishmael’s right. He says, “You’re exploring a deep complex of ideas, and you can’t expect to get to the bottom of it in twenty minutes.”  This is indeed “true.”  But as with everything else, the more you strip something of its superficial layers you grow ever closer to exposing the truth at its core.  I echo what Ishmael confirms: what you find is disturbing; in short, “It is ugly.” (207) I seek to explore the connection between the culture of the Takers, the Leavers, and how they relate to my understanding of consumerism.

This is what the Inca empire created.  Beautiful. The Leavers
had a clue, folks.  I hope we some day get clued in too.
http://www.machupicchumystery.com/

Here’s my thinking. As Quinn suggests, the Leavers—in short, the peoples who were connected to the generational vine of humanity, “hadn’t forgotten how to live” while the Takers “were scratching their heads and saying, “Gee, I wonder how people ought to live.’” (205) In this telling example, Quinn inverts the Taker perspective on historical knowledge and reminds us of the ridiculous ways in which Takers live their lives like the main guy in memento.  Every generation, the knowledge is recreated rather than building on the previous hundreds of vessels of wisdom.  Anyway, this reminds me of how in the last several generations we’ve seen the growth of existentialism.  The idea that “what is all this about”—the “I wonder how people ought to live” (205).  And I wonder if this has something (or everything) to do with the fact that we are in fact unable or unwilling to tap the wealth of knowledge our ancient civilizations provided.  I mean, European conquerors, for example, took one look at the Inca Empire and dismissed it as a mere flock of pagan savages without a clue.  Reality check: weren’t the Incas the masters of architecture, ceramics, and frankly, medicine (they performed successful skull surgeries, for example).  Not that I’m an “anthropology buff” either, but honestly, it is frustrating to learn of the history of Takers.  Because the reality is as retrograde as it is ridiculous: “the people of my culture had forgotten, had cut themselves off from tradition that told them how to live.” (205)  This has become our culture: recreate the past, control the present, secure the future.  George Orwell knew this only too well.  It’s all about the agents and benificiaries of power and what the former deem is the “the one right way to live” (205).  

 “You have nothing. You’re naked and homeless.  You live without security, without comfort, without opportunity.” (225)  This is what Takers say when defending an exploitative and greedy culture that affords them a “comfortable” standard of living.  And on this note, I wish to go off on a relevant tangent.  Last year, Aviva Chomsky, Noam Chomsky’s daughter, came to speak at my work on the issue of immigrant rights.  She corrected her audience before even beginning her talk.  Refrain from saying “standard of living,” she told us; rather, say “level of consumption.”  The reason for this is simple: we—the Taker culture—think that somehow our standard of living is a universal and inherent human standard.  What we fail to realize is that this “standard” is only achieved by exploiting the masses, impoverishing the agents of production, and acquiring more material assets.  The name of the game is to consume.  Consume more and more and more.  And as Ishmael illustrates in the conversation with Bwana, what the Takers want is, in a word, more:  “You’d be able to say, ‘Well, this year we’ll have more yams, this year we’ll have more beans, this year we’ll have more strawberries.” (223)

The Takers probably pay homage to this picture.  No more "Amen;" instead, "more"--"must consume more and more and more."
https://honors.rit.edu/amitraywiki/index.php/Consumerism_Group_(Simpsons)

Watch it if you are at all interested in being honest with yourself about your own privilege.  It is right up there with Earthlings in terms of its impact on your dormant social and universal awareness.
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/06/blink_and_youll_miss_premiere.html

This is so odd.  I’ve been thinking about this idea for the last week.  I recently got back from the border over the break.  Every time that I return, I am humbled and fiercely reminded of my power and privilege as a citizen of the first world and consumer.  When I allow myself to “dig” deeper, I catch this sort of fever or mild psychosis (219).  It is made all too clear to me when I realize that for every hour that I work, I am getting paid twice as much as my compañeros are getting paid a day in sweatshops on the border.  When this sinks in, I am for a moment catatonic.  I do not work harder.  I am not better.  So why the disparity in “level of consumption”—or “standard of living.”  It didn’t help that I just recently saw the movie, The Fever.  The movie addresses these very questions.  In brief, a woman is driven nearly to insanity by the mere thought of her privilege and the fact that her money and inheritance and social/economic privilege is not in fact god-given, but tainted with blood. Anyway, in the same way that this movie rendered me, for a time, sleep-deprived and pondering, so too has the following conclusion:  “The premise of the Taker story is the world belongs to man….It’s almost too neat.  The premise of the Leaver story is man belongs to the world.” (239) There.  What a legacy we Takers have created, no?  We are all-powerful.  We have it all.  We must have it all.  This is disgusting.  Perhaps I only seek the stories...to know that this is not the only way to live.  That it wasn't always like this.  Too often I lose faith in the system we have created but never dig deeper to find an answer.  All I know--and frankly, I don't think I'm alone in thinking this--is that what we are doing and where we are and who we are as a capitalist, consumerist people is in short, not good.  It is as simple as that.