Adam Curtis, I have long enjoyed the work of Adam Curtis, I enjoy his quirky use of old movive clips interspersed with shaky cam news footage, often with post rock soundtracks from God speed you! Black emperor and Siver mount Zion.
In 2007 his last documentary esxplained how western society became infleunced and eventually trapped by a simplistic model of behaviour developed by econmists and John Nash, the Paranoid Schizophreniac, Game Theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAluyt5_kic
Friday 16 October 2009
Consurmerism and Citizenship.
I often find myself nearly violently opposed to the idea of green consumerism as a method of activism or participation in society. The paper by Shaw quoted by one of the groups in last weeks practical ( Shaw, D, Consumption as Voting: an exploration of consumer empowerment, European journal of marketing, 2006) made me quite upset, to me the idea of consumption as a form of citizenship seems very un-empowering, but when faced with the alternative of a system that actively ignores citizens it might seem a bit of a panacea. I also found the paper a bit shaky, the approach was heuristic with an attempt to understand a phenomenon and at this it succeeded but I would have preferred a case study or more structured questionnaire of say students at a union undergoing a boycott or people in shops that offered a choice between sustainable and "normal" options.
But can consumerism as a method for action actually acheive a sustainable society. First of all as a basis it no longer gives everyones voice the same wieght in a democracy we are all (ostensibly) equal, our votes have equal weight, but in this model is it not diffiicult to visualise the disenfranchised?
But obviously, I would say this as the Willian E Rees paper from the same practical mentioned the phenomena that our brains become patterned into ideas and memes that we prefer and that we actively seek these ideas out and when we encounter ideas that are counter those already nesting in our brains we will actively try to disparage them and altogether ignore them.
I much prefer the idea of Environmental citizenship, put forward by Dobson in 2003, it is almost marxist in its approach to rights and responsibilites, it emphasises these responsibilites and extends them over the public and private spheres. It also implies transnational responsibility like socialists and international solidarity.
There are also proeblems with citizenship as a method for action on sustainaibility, it stresses induvidualism, unless this responsiobilty can be focused into enacting sturtural and social change then this approach might amount to nothing.
But can consumerism as a method for action actually acheive a sustainable society. First of all as a basis it no longer gives everyones voice the same wieght in a democracy we are all (ostensibly) equal, our votes have equal weight, but in this model is it not diffiicult to visualise the disenfranchised?
But obviously, I would say this as the Willian E Rees paper from the same practical mentioned the phenomena that our brains become patterned into ideas and memes that we prefer and that we actively seek these ideas out and when we encounter ideas that are counter those already nesting in our brains we will actively try to disparage them and altogether ignore them.
I much prefer the idea of Environmental citizenship, put forward by Dobson in 2003, it is almost marxist in its approach to rights and responsibilites, it emphasises these responsibilites and extends them over the public and private spheres. It also implies transnational responsibility like socialists and international solidarity.
There are also proeblems with citizenship as a method for action on sustainaibility, it stresses induvidualism, unless this responsiobilty can be focused into enacting sturtural and social change then this approach might amount to nothing.
Friday 25 September 2009
Why I chose the title...
...Karl Marx said that either we choose to follow a new method of economic organisation or capitalism will drown us all with its own contradictions, aptly summed up as "socialism or Barbarism"
Capitalism thrives through overproduction, which has terrible consequences for ecology, climate and human well being, sustainable consumption may not follow in socialisms footsteps (although I would argue that it has to in order to successfully live on a planet with finite resources) but it'll definitely have to redress some of the capitalist methods of production.
Capitalism thrives through overproduction, which has terrible consequences for ecology, climate and human well being, sustainable consumption may not follow in socialisms footsteps (although I would argue that it has to in order to successfully live on a planet with finite resources) but it'll definitely have to redress some of the capitalist methods of production.
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