Furthermore, I think what makes TAL great in this instance is its ability to appeal to the universality of Glen’s greed and subsequent shame. Those are feelings that we can all sympathize with, presented in a disarmingly honest way. (Your scripture quote is apt — the story is bringing up ideas that have deep roots in our culture.)

But I just can’t help but be a little suspicious whenever there’s supposed to be *no* politics to something!

To clarify: I’m not claiming that people are automatically captured in impenetrable “little boxes” by some anonymously evil anti-human force. Rather, using Glen’s story as a jumping off point, I’m claiming that identity is not a rigid thing — instead, it’s a process during which people have to continually negotiate with all kinds of values, stories, and positions circulating in society, all of which have something to do with power politics. Glen takes a critical look at some of those while retelling his story; I’m trying to take a critical look at some of them while listening to it.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

I’m not sure I actually disagree with you, but I certainly don’t think about Glen’s story in way that you describe here. Well, alright, I’ll go further than that. Talking about Glen’s story in terms of the evils of capitalism or the role society imposes upon us is a distraction from a problem that has deeper roots than a massive government and corporate conspiracy against the citizens of the world.

It seems to me that your analysis relies on the implicit assumption that people basically have no core problems, it’s only civilization and its institutions that corrupts them. I have no evidence on how satisfied ancient hunter-gatherer people were with their lives, but I just suspect that that’s wrong.

You said to me once that the libertarian’s mistake is to see everything in terms of government. I think you’re making a related mistake by seeing everything in terms of invisible structures in society that keep everyone “in little boxes,” as Mark says in that quote that I always bring up.

I don’t seem to have a thesis here and it’s a comment so I’m not going to rewrite it, but to your post I agree in part and disagree in part. I’m glad that TAL almost never engages in politics, but you seem to abhor the vacuum so much that you have to create a villain in a story where there isn’t one, which I think takes away from the importance of the message.

And I mean, at least from the stuff I’ve read, it appears that the public is actually not very happy about having the environment destroyed and the country covered in concrete…but that’s neither here nor there.

On the topic of stores, I saw some pretty crazy statistics about the retail grocery sector — like, the big companies that control it pretty much cooperate to each establish market share. So they don’t make investments with an eye towards increasing market share — instead each company already knows what their budget is gonna be…and they have to spend it on something…and they’ll get concessions from local politicians if they open a new store in such and such a district, to employ people and such…so why not open a new grocery store in the middle of nowhere? Who cares if its profitable? This is apparently a common phenomenon.

That said, I definitely believe in keeping an open mind when looking to see if things are “efficient” or not — the stock example is that it may be “efficient” for a country to burn coal to generate electricity, but it may also end up having greater costs down the line. Coal is cheap. If you look at easily quantifiable costs and benefits, then coal is definitely the way to go. But if you factor in other costs involved in mining, washing, and transporting the coal (which is pretty bulky, unweildy substance) not to mention pollution and climate change effects, the picture is a little more complex.

So yeah, I agree that cultural differences will be part of that complexity.

Are you gonna be in the area for Christmas/Thanksgiving??

The Spanish historian Americo Castro made some similar remarks in terms of Spanish historical identity. That Western society often ignores that which cannot be expressed numerically. I feel like a similar case can be made in determining whether or not Japanese Department stores are in fact inefficient.

Sorry this comment is so long, but I also wonder if a similar case might be made about Government spending in Japan, specifically on infrastructure. Basically, if the government is spending big money then the public is happy because it looks like the government is doing something. I’m not sure that the two are the same but it just struck me that sometimes western interpretation of eastern problems fails to take seriously societal differences.

B: I make my own choices. My life and the decisions I make are important.

Postmodern critics often turn language into a bizarre and seemingly incomprehensible artifice — but usually this is because the socially produced ideological positions inscribed within language are themselves the subject of subversion or critique.

Judith Butler, the queen of postmodern gobledegook and winner of the 1998 Bad Writing Contest, writes (in a very readable way) on this issue: https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/wash/www/butler.htm

That said, I’ve never really gotten the point of Baudrillard because on the face of it hyperreality doesn’t have much meaning in my every day life. But then I saw some interestingly absurd Frank Rich commentary…and hence the post.

Calvin & Hobbes

As you probably know, my heuristic for this kind of thing is strongly influence by 1. comparison with economics and 2. hostility towards things that aren’t easily comprehensible. just to name two major factors.

It makes me wonder what I would have to see from Baudrillard’s to convince me that reading him would not be a huge waste of time.

All by way of saying, I never read Frank Rich, so I have nothing to say about this post.

So yeah: my point here is that uncertainty is all the more reason to act drastically. The risk of catastrophe is unacceptable especially because we can’t pin it down — we can’t manage it in the straight forward way that Obama suggests. Paul Krugman makes a similar point in his blog today: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/weitzman-in-context/

They started airing the 6th season of Peep Show. I’ve seen the first two episodes. The second one is funnier than the first.