Back in September the folks from This American Life did a financial crisis recap episode (which I’m just now getting around to, since I’ve been listening to my podcasts via Google Reader, which seems to rub TAL the wrong way for some reason?)
Anyway, here’s a snippet of dialogue between Adam “Planet Money” Davidson and a guy called Glen, a “mortgage company sales manager” i.e. one of the people who used to package risky mortgages together and make oodles of money selling them. Glen has since lost most all of his money and undergone something of a transformation:
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Glen: I’m driving a car now that has no paint on it…you know, it’s a piece of junk. And…I used to think that it mattered, you know? But, it doesn’t.
Adam: I’m picturing an alternative Glen — the Glen from the world where there was no bubble bursting, the Glen who’s still making $100,000 a month, who still has that lifestyle…and I’m picturing meeting that Glen today. And I feel like I like this Glen a lot more!
Glen: Yeah, without a doubt. Well, because…how do I explain this? Other than…that Glen was about Glen. And this Glen, is about what I can bring to — trying not to sound cliche — society. What I can bring to my family. What I can do to make sure that we don’t keep creating that Glen. You know?
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It is very emotional stuff. The jarring change in Glen’s life forced him to essentially create a new Glen. This allowed him to look critically at his old identity — particularly as he had performed it through wildly conspicuous consumption.
There’s an old sociological conundrum here: how much of our identity is unequivocally our own? How much is produced as a “role” by the social institutions and ideological structures around around us? Further, what powers benefit from enforcing those institutions? I mean, my liberal arts alarm bells really went off when I heard that sentence in bold, because it was Glen acknowledging that society had something to do with creating “Glen.”
But…I also suspect that TAL as a text wants me to have this reaction. If you listen to the whole podcast, the hosts are very careful to shift blame away from Glen or any of the other individuals profiled in the show and towards “society” or “culture.” I do think this is appropriate in this instance since the financial crisis was clearly an institutional crisis — but I also think that this bemused, albeit well informed, detachment is part of the TAL brand. Like, they are clearly not going for outrage and righteous indignation, the bread and butter of Rush Limbaugh and legions of other ultra conservative talk radio hosts. Instead, the antidote to that — there is really no discussion of politics at all!
We are supposed to identify Glen as having fallen victim to American “rugged individualism” gone haywire, or the craven “corporate culture” of Wall Street financial firms — views which, incidentally, I agree with. But of course I’m the ideal white middle class listener!
Also note that we’re not really supposed to bridge our analysis into any kind of action, nor are we supposed to hold Glen (ourselves) accountable. No, the corruption and redemption of Glen is a narrative arc that fits neatly into the TAL genre which, largely by masquerading as realism, gives us listeners pleasure.
I will go even further out on this limb and claim that we’re supposed to internalize Glen’s plight as we work towards a greener, more diverse and democratic (community-friendly) capitalism — the supreme symbol of which is Barack Obama! Yay America! etc.