The End (?)

Returning to the country from my conference in Austria, I was greeted with a wonderful surprise: Obama elected as president. We, as Americans, have reached a new milestone in our political history, the race barrier has been crossed. But what does this mean for racism in America? What seems to be the trend in the treatment of social problems in America is a Band-Aid effect. Something like the Civil Rights Movement or the Women's Liberation happen and then most Americans think that these problems are solved. For example, if you asked most Americans whether or not women received the same pay as men and they would say yes; however, this is still not true. I am afraid the same will happen with racism (well, it's happened already), the election of Obama will, for many people, signal the "end of racism" in America. Nothing could be further from the truth. First off, Obama is not an "African-American", he is multi-racial, but his multiplicitous identity is too nebulous for the American public; thus, he is shoved into a much more simplified category than he actually belongs to. So, the problem will become - at least I fear the problem will become - that people will view Obama as the final "proof" that racism is over, though this couldn't be further from the truth. And here are two reasons for this:

First off, let's look at an over-the-top example. I was browsing Mother Jones and came across this article. The last of a dying breed of KKK Koutures. The article is horrifying, but this picture is the most horrifying of all:

Honestly, I don't think I have to say anything else.

Second, Missouri has passed a law saying that English is the only language that could be spoken in governmental settings. What some people may not realize is that Missouri has a rather large Hispanic populations in certain areas. I grew up in Carthage, MO, which has a Butterball Factory, Dynamo, Leggett & Platt, and numerous other factories. Needless to say, there is a large number of Hispanic workers, many illegal. However, many who are legal only speak Spanish, or do not speak English well enough to understand it in a legal way. This is the modern Jim Crowe, these people are being disenfranchised, because if knoweldge is power, and to gain knowledge you need to understand the language, then you are denied power. How can a person vote if they can't read the ballot? How can a person help themselves if they can't understand anything around them? This is a deleberate racist move by White Missourians to oppress the people they view as overtaking the White majority. And this is not some wild speculation, I grew up around these people, they have told me this in person. In Carthage, soon there will be more native Spanish speakers in the grade schools than English speakers; how can the parents of these students make the right choices for their children if they can't participate in the process of education? The majority of students will be marginalized because only the native English speakers can vote for school board members, or participate in meetings.

Even with a non-White person elected as president, racism is still alive and well.

Towards an Egalitarian Pedagogy

Hey, I know it's been a long time, this semester has been absolutely killer, but here is a new post that I am trying to get put on the blog Enough.

In the beginning of December, I will have turned in all of my graduate school applications, starting down the path for the next big step in my life. As I work myself through these processes, I can’t help but examine the way class plays a role in the decision to go into graduate school and the programs in general.

Obviously, the decision to go to graduate school is presupposed by the decision to go to college for an undergraduate degree – which in and of itself is a statement of class. Indeed, in one way, graduate school can be a tad more egalitarian in the fact if you are qualified you can often find funding. However, most of these fellowships go to students who have had the resources to excel, and acceptance to top grad programs is usually influenced by going to a top-tier school for undergrad. Thus, the acceptance into grad school is driven by class: first you must be able to afford 4 years of undergrad, and then from 5-7 years of graduate (assuming you are getting your Ph.D). This cost goes beyond tuition; it must also be possible for you to subsist on a meager salary – thus excluding any single parents from low-income backgrounds. Even before you can be accepted into graduate school, you also must be able to afford the $50-$75 application fee for every school you apply to. It is a good idea to apply to many schools in order to find a program that is (A) a good fit and (B) will give you funding.

Moving beyond the economic disparities in the application to grad school, there is the problem that I, as a cultural studies scholar, face in what I study and how it is studied. In my work, I use Marxist, post-colonial, and queer theory quite a bit – movements whose work is supposed to “liberate the voice” of the oppressed. But does it? When you read someone like Gramsci, who suggested the idea of hegemony, and Spivak, who rallied against the silencing of the subaltern, you realize: These people are doing EXACTLY what they are writing against. A dialogue about oppressed people is created and carried out in a register from which they have been systematically excluded! So what purpose does this theory hold? Obviously I love theory – I am going to spend 5 to 7 more years of my life studying it and then after that as my profession – but if theory begins and ends only in the ivory tower of academia, then it is useless. In fact, if theory remains only within the collegiate setting, then it no longer serves as a site of resistance; rather it functions as a cog in the machine that oppresses people – academics serve as the necessary dissidents in society, but ones that never actually challenge anything.

Thus, those of us who carry on the torch of academic enlightenment are left with a challenge: How can we, who have made our lives through theory, help people who have made their lives through the concrete better? Books on how to make money sell like crazy, books on Marxism do not. Books on heterosexual relationships that enforce gender stereotypes are bestsellers, and if you asked a random person on the street who Judith Butler was, how many do you think would? What good does it go for those who are educated to say, “The machine of capitalism is oiled with the blood of the worker” and “gender does not exist” if the majority of the world does not share our views? Should we be content to rest on our own laurels and degrees when there are people who desperately need to hear what we are writing in a language they can understand? The answer is no. The first step towards social change is education; let’s start with that.

Fixing A Famine

I heard something on the radio that I haven't heard of in a while, I had kind of thought that things like this had gone away, but it seems I was wrong. What I heard on the radio was about a famine in Africa.

A famine of Bibles.

Yes, it seems groups are trying to get people to donate $40 to send Bibles to poor people in Africa, not food, not medicine, not clothing... bibles.

I find it hard to believe that someone would actually choose to donate money for this as opposed to actually helping out. Let's forget for a second that I'm an atheist, these people couldn't possibly come to a full understanding about religion because their basic needs are not being met.

From the atheist side of me, how can these people think that what poor people - not just in Africa but everywhere - need is religion! I mean, it's one thing to package aid with a religious message, but it's completely something else entirely to only give a book when more is needed. Christian charity indeed...

The American Dream?

Hey folks, sorry about the lack of writing, the last month has been insanely busy with work and now school, though I am going to resolve to write at least three posts a week!

So, I made it through an entire summer working at Wal-Mart - and am still there, incidentally. What have I learned from this experience?

First off, it makes me want to rethink Jonathon Swift's Modest Proposal. OK, maybe not that extreme, but let's face it, this place is overrun with children. More over, people who don't control their children. I feel like an old person when I say this - and that I am joining in a cliché that dates back to the Ancient Greeks - but it just seems that people don't watch their children anymore. Now, this could have just been an idiosyncrasy of my parents, but if my brother and I screamed in a store, my parents would take us to the car until we were quiet. Now it seems as though people just aren't bothered that their child is making a huge fuss in a crowded place, making the experience horrible for everyone within ear shot. This is made doubly bad for people who work there. Alright, I'll concede that this first part was nothing more than bitching, but whatever. Now on to things substantial.

The biggest thing I realized is that there is nothing more alienating than working in a box store. I sort of got an inkling while I was at Target, but I think Target does a much better job at keeping employee morale up than Wal-Mart. The basic thing remains the same: my labor and what I produce are two completely seperate things, resulting in zero job satisfaction. In other words, what I do doesn't affect what I make. Even when I help a customer out, what do I get? I mean, I feel nice helping people, but more often than not, I barely get a thank you. Mostly, I get blamed for not having something that we used to have, and how stupid it is. You just feel helpless because the entire system is beureuacratic and you are nothing more than a pawn, whose purpose can be swapped out by almost anyone on the street. We are told to think of ourselves as "a family" and yet the feeling of your own replaceability hangs over your head, the feeling that knowing what you do is not dependent upon you but rather on a position.

Perhaps, though, I'm merely imposing my values on a job; perhaps for some people this is a fulfilling line of work and it makes them genuinely happy. In fact, I know I shouldn't say "perhaps" for many people it is. At the same time, I often feel when I talk to many of my coworkers that this is situation from which they see little means of escape. And that saddens me...

How terrible...

It seems that athletes may be forced to breathe in smog at the Beijing Olympics!

This entire article discusses the repercussions of Beijing's poor air quality will have on... tourists. Not once does it even deal with the fact that millions of people have to deal with it every day. What's more, in order to accommodate athletes and spectators, China is shutting down factories and businesses. While I'm all for cutting back on pollution, this is of course a band-aid fix and while the article doesn't say (of course), I'm going to assume some workers aren't going to get paid while the factories are shut down. China has messed with the lives of so many citizens just to host the Olympics. Aren't these games supposed to bring the world together? The upside is that more people have (hopefully) taken notice of the human rights violations that go on there because of the Olympics. Let's just hope it doesn't go to waste...

I don't have anything to say except...

NO SHIT!

Oh baby it's a wild web...

In the New York Times Magazine section there is an article about trolling in Internet subculture. At first I was afraid it would be some lame ass article showcasing what trolls were to people who maybe read the news online. Maybe. Which is what it appears to be on the first page, but after that, it goes into a very interesting discussion of ethics in the cybercultural age we are entering.

What these trolls are doing is trying to give themselves power, this is why they give out peoples' private information. This is intellectual capital, the ability to control information, to use it, and to manipulate it.

Obviously these people are trying to make themselves be intimidating on the Internet, because I doubt they are that intimidating face to face. Instead, they are able to become something to be feared because this power they have is entirely constructed through discourse and rhetoric and the control of information. The control they have been denied in the "real world" (if you can even call it that, I say that the cyber world is also the real world, and as this demonstrates has real consequences), but online they have power.

But, even by their own admission, their power only stems from the consent of those they abuse. These trolls have realized something that most people haven't, power dynamics function differently online then they do in the face-to-face, and you have to adapt to be able to survive. I've been the victim of trolls, and I got upset for a bit, but then got over it; so in the end, I won. If more people would realize that, then less people would get hurt. What they're doing is wrong and juvenile, but hey, that's the way of the world. The Internet's a scary place.

Fast Food for Fags

Interestingly enough, fast food giant McDonald's supports Gay Rights. Needless to say, I was stunned. So was the usual religious right, who are now calling for a boycott of McDonald's.

It's not that McDonald's will make you obese and give you heart problems; no, the reason you should hate McDonald's is that Double Cheeseburgers support Double Manlovin' (yeah, I know that was a really really bad pun).

Honestly, even after watching Super Size Me, I still eat at McDonald's occasionally. Sure the food is horrible, but it's cheap, and grease is tasty when you're drunk. My biggest beef with McDonald's is the working conditions (which really is just how working minimum wage is in this country) and the fact to make all that beef contributes to world hunger. Other than that, I don't really have much of a problem with it. I mean, we all knew it was bad for you before Super Size Me, and since the film they have made strides to provide better (but still not good for you) options, and they give you the nutrition facts up front. Sure, you really didn't need Morgan Spurlock to tell you that eating 3 Big Macs a day is bad for you, but since the film you have no excuse, it's up to people's personal decisions now.

So maybe I'll have a Double Cheeseburger once a month from there, just to show a little gay rights support. Well, I'll wait until 2:30 in the morning after a couple of beers....

Eating from home

I was reading the New York Times and I read this article on people in big cities such as San Francisco and New York who make it a point to only eat locally grown food. They even hire people to come in and grow and tend for their organic gardens.

While I think it's awesome to eat locally grown food, I wonder about the legitimacy when it is just another yuppy fad. I suppose it is a matter of ends and means, and perhaps it is not fair for me to say these people don't legitimately care about supporting local farmers and helping out the environment. However, when neologisms such as "locavores" (yes, I'm not kidding, and the N.Y. Times didn't even put it in quotes or bother to define it, it took me a while to figure it out) appear it makes it hard to believe people really care about the environment and are instead just trying to look cool. Mostly because these people are just paying someone else to do it for them: "Oh, I am too busy doing my job that just serves the corporate machine, but yeah, I'm an activist... well I pay someone to be an activist for me, but that's O.K., right?"

On one hand, I get the feeling these people are the same people who bought SUVs a few years ago; on the other, they do live in New York and San Francisco, so that doesn't seem that likely.

I suppose I should just quit my bitching and be happy people are doing something that's good, even if it's for the wrong reasons. I just wish people would care before it's the cool thing to do...

Edit: Apparently locavore is now a word in the dictionary, at least according to QueenMelian. God help us all...

Happiness

Sorry for the hiatus, I didn't mean to disappear for so long, but life sort of just happened...

Anyway, I was reading articles in the blogosphere and I found this article about the correlation between political leanings and happiness.

Turns out that liberals are often sadder than their conservative counterparts, and the main reason for this is that conservatives are able to rationalize inequalities away to just being the result of people's actions and not society as a whole.

This news troubles me, I do agree with it - it often feels like a very very uphill battle - but does this necessarily equate unhappiness? Shouldn't the struggle become a source of happiness because we know we are fighting for equality and justice? I know it's kind of cliché, but I think we should just look at someone like the Dalai Lama, who despite great hardship is happy because he knows what he is doing is the right thing. Also, I find it troubling that such selfishness brings happiness.

My friends and I were talking about this the other night, and my friend remarked how "Liberals only believe in Darwinism in the sciences and conservatives only in society." Interesting indeed.

Good Tidings

Sorry I haven't posted in a while since my last post, I have been very busy in my personal life.

The good news, however, is that I have been accepted to present at an international conference on the erotic in Austria this fall. I am pretty psyched! :D

Just another name on another database...

It appears that YouTube has lost out to Viacom, where the media giant now has access to users viewing habits on YouTube to see who has been viewing Viacom's copyrighted materials. It looks like privacy on the internet has taken another hit.

Viacom says they aren't going to prosecute people who watched the videos, it's just evidence. Somehow I think they will find a good way to use the "evidence" to create a marketing campaign...

Another one bites the dust...

Why does it always seem that things I love, which I agree with on certain values, have to come back and bite me in the ass.

I love Bolthouse Farm juice, it's tasty and nutritious and I love to sip on a glass of Green Goodness. Turns out that the Farm is really just a front for fundamentalism. Yep, the company is a crazy Christian organization that loves to hate queers. Looks like I should do more research before I put something in my cup. It seems that conservatives really know how to sell things to the people they hate.

As for now, I will just have to learn to love Naked and Odwalla. Unless, of course, they turn out to be baby seal clubbers.

A little late, but still...

Congratulations Thomas Beatie, the no-longer-pregnant transman, for your healthy baby girl!

News Link

Happy America Day!

As you should all know, today is the 4th Of July, which is one of my least favorite holidays. This is not, as many right-wing talk show hosts would want you to believe, because I do not love America, but rather because it results in two things that should never mix: fireworks and drunk people. Other than that I love the chance to sit back and enjoy the fact that I could have been born in a much much worse place, and that even though it has its problems, America is a pretty cool place. I <3 freedom after all.

There is an article that I saw a while ago, and I feel like this would be the perfect time to write about it. I found it on Spiegel, and it deals with the rise of people wanting autocratic systems of government over democracies. [Link Here]

The gist of the article is that due to American involvement in the Middle East, many feel that democracy is an ineffective form of government and prefer autocratic systems of ruling. This is actually an argument that I have been having with one of my coworkers recently, and honestly I am sort of torn on the subject. On one hand, I don't like the idea of power being so centrally located, on the other, I don't really know if democracy really exists. And by exists, I mean that one person is actively participating in their government. For one, I doubt the existence of a subject, who is doing the acting? Certainly not one person, but rather a collection of ideas and forces that have shaped this lump of flesh, but definitely not a subject. Which goes directly into the next point of democracy often acts as if it were an autocratic system, just an autocratic system that changes the autocrats more often. I mean, if we look at political parties as "bodies", you will see that the whole body does not ever accurately represent its parts. I know for one that I am barely a democrat; in fact I don't even identify as one except in my voting, since I would rather cancel out a Republican vote than vote for a candidate I believe in who I know won't win. (Sounds a bit like Nietzsche's lion, eh?) So I vote democrat, and still get pissed off when there is no universal health care, big business isn't severely limited, and rich people can still easily get out of paying taxes because they can afford people to weasel them out of paying. The things I want will probably never come to pass, and though you could argue that they could "if I convinced enough people" the fact of the matter is that the "subject" is really so influenced by ideology (as I know my own Marxist ideology is merely a product of my experiences and situations) that most people won't agree with me. So how is that any different from existing in an autocratic government?

Despite all these flaws, however, I am still all for democracy (even though I think that a socialist-anarchy would be better, where the socialism is implemented via a grassroots effort as opposed to a state power, but I know that most people wouldn't follow). Even if my views are usually overshadowed, I still love that I can hold them without fear of punishment, and I like that even though I will probably not get what I want politically in most things, I still can influence things in a direction I am at least OK with.

As for autocratic governments, well, I want to discuss a quote by Michel Foucault in his preface for Anti-Œdipus by Deleuze and Guattari:

Last but not least, the major enemy, the strategic adversary is fascism. ... And not only historical fascism, the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini - which was able to mobilize and use the desire of the masses so effectively - but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us. (xiii)

In order to truly celebrate the freedom that America grants us, we must not allow ourselves to be lead, and we must fight our desire to submit to power. Truly loving America is not to become enamored with a candidate or political party, or guns, or pro-life/pro-choice, or gay marriage or anything topical and passing. No, the way to love America is to lead your own life, and question authority and demand it respect those who it governs.

So happy 4th of July everyone! I am going to celebrate in the most American way I can think of: spending the day at Wal-Mart. Hell, I might even go to McDonald's for lunch.

I leave you on this quote:

"America was not built on fear. America was built on SUVs, on fast food and an unbeatable determination to go to Wal-Mart. Fear is just the fun prize like in the Happy Meals!"

---
Recommended Reading:
Deleuza, Gilles and Félix Guattari. Anti-Œdipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. - The guide to living a non-fascist life. [Get it on Amazon]

LeGuin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed. - A pretty cool sci-fi novel (and I'm not really a fan, so you know it's good) which compares a anarcho-socialist society and a hyper-capitalist pseudodemocracy. Pretty good as far as dystopias go, and a lot better than most as it critiques two types of government as opposed to one. [Get it on Amazon]

On buying, may I recommend Amazon's marketplace, as you can save trees and a book from being unloved! Plus, it's cheaper!

Facebook Can't Tell If You're a Girl or a Boy!

A few days ago, I got this article posted on my Facebook wall: He said, she said: Which is it? Facebook asks. The article basically says that Facebook will begin urging its members to start specifying what the sex of each member is (or I suppose what the gender is, I guess it depends on which the particular person chooses to specify).

Today, I got the question:

Which example applies to you?

Right now your Mini-Feed may be confusing. Please choose how we should refer to you.

Please select either Male or Female

• Theo edited her profile.
• Theo edited his profile.
  

The article says that this is a move made because Facebook has gone from English-Only to supporting multiple languages, and many languages do not have a gender-neutral pronoun like English. This is, of course, only partly true, as English has no gender-neutral singular pronouns. The pronoun "they" just gets bastardized and used incorrectly (my grandfather would rail against this endlessly, as he got his PhD in grammar or something). The problem is many languages, such as French, don't even have a gender-neutral plural pronoun.

This leads to the point: How can we fight a gender binary system when it is embedded directly in the ways we communicate in the world: Language. Returning to French, when you want to say "they" you either use the masculine (ils) or the feminine (elles). As it was taught to me, it wouldn't matter if there were 1 million women and one man, if there was a man you would use ils. The rhetoric behind this one grammatical rule is that the presence of one man negates any number of women.

Language is inherently sexist, but it is what we use to communicate ideas that combat sexism. What is one to do? Well, the most effective way would be to create new language (Esperanto 2.0), but definitely not the easiest or most likely. I think the only thing we can do now is to just break the rules of language and reform it from below. Sort of like linguistic grassroots sabotage.

As for now, I will continue to keep my sex off of Facebook, and force it to guess whether "Theo updates his profile or her profile."

New blog!

Unlike most musicians, I have decided that my next online project is going to be a group effort. Thus OtherVictorian and I have decided to start a side project for both of us called Carrion Bag. It's an assortment of reviews, examinations, and general ranting about pop culture, or not-so-popular culture.

I urge you to check it out, the first feature is a review of Katy Perry's album "One of the Boys". If you hate the song "I Kissed a Girl," then you will love this review.

Cheers!

P.S. If you are interested in becoming a contributor to the site, let me know!

NERD ALERT!

This is different from what I usually post, but hey, variety is the spice of life after all. This is just a program that I found from a list of helpful Mac Software, and I am in love. It's called Schoolhouse, and it is basically a Calendar for assignments and the like.

It's a Mac program (sorry Windows/Linux users), but if you use Leopard you will need to run the program through Rosetta. To do that Ctrl-Click on the icon for Schoolhouse and under "General" check the box that says run in Rosetta and you are set.

Enjoy!

Gay for Pay

I am no longer gay.

I refuse the title, I want it stricken from the record that I ever identified as gay and I want people to quit referring to me as such.

Unlike my Facebook stunt earlier this year - where I made my profile look like I had joined an ex-gay ministry program - I am not saying that the focus of my sexual and emotional desires have changed; rather I am embarrassed by what being gay has become.

Labels such as "gay" or "straight" are, to use José Gil's term, floating signifiers; that is, they are terms which do not have a fixed thing they refer to. When you say "gay" you say more than just "same-sex desire", rather you imply a certain lifestyle, a mode of being. You are also including other connotations, such as the coloquialisms of flamboyantly heterosexual boys, where gay means stupid. Which usually leads to a lengthy apologetic about how they don't mean "gay in that way." Despite this, people still believe that the word is refering to a specific thing, and deny its elasticity.

At one time, and even still to some extent in certain situations, to be gay was to be subversive, to represent threat. Being gay was being something "other." Now it seems, that it has become something that has been streamlined into mainstream society; rather than representing something that is revolutionary, it becomese another accepted lifestyle.

When I say this, it appears that I am lamenting the fact that homosexuality is more acceted. I am not saying this, but I am wary of it. I am echoing the sentiments of Andrew Sullivan, that this acceptance causes gay culture to "die". Like Sullivan, I worry about what comes with assimilation. Gay culture at one time was a creative force - it had to be. Today, on the other hand, being gay has become merely another way to consume. Buy GAY THINGS! If we put two men or two women kissing go out and BUY THIS YOU WILL BE BUYING GAY! No thanks.

To be gay, then, has lost its revolutionary drive; rather than creating my own life I am now told I can just go out and buy it. Now I could get married to a man. Once again, no thank you; marriage is bad for everyone (but that's another blog for another time). I still want my sex to be on the outside of Gayle Rubin's circle, even as homosexuality moves closer and closer to the middle.

Thus, I disown being "gay", rather I choose the term "queer." I take on this label because it identifies me as queer in more than just the sexual, but also "queer" in the sense of values and ideas. Queer has a fluidity because, unlike the term of gay, it embraces its nature as the floating signifier; it realizes that it is different things for different people, and does not attempt to homogenize. I did not choose my desires, but I can choose how I utilize them. And this does not only apply for those with same-sex desire, I believe queer to be a term that can apply to anyone who does not conform to accepted norms.

(This really should be a longer post, but the last one was too long and so many people are victims of tl;dr)

Adventures in Designer Denim and Computing

In his book Mythologies, Roland Barthes describes the ways in which goods have become part of our cultural mythology; how we deify the brands that we buy and how they shape how we see ourselves:

"Advertisements... also indicate the effect of the product... but they chiefly reveal its mode of action; in doing so, they involve the consumer in a kind of direct experience of the substance, make him the accomplice of a liberation rather than the mere beneficiary of a result; matter here is endowed with value-bearing states"

Despite the fact that Barthes wrote this book in 1957, I would say this belief is true now more than every. To start off this discussion, I am going to use a recent acquisition of mine.

A few months ago, my brother went to New York City for a visit; while there, he picked me up a pair of "7 Jeans for All Mankind". I wore them for the first time today, and here is what I thought:

1. Comfortable
2. They fit nicely
3. Feel to be of high quality

And these three things they should be, the original price was $130 for a pair of jeans (granted my brother did not pay anywhere near that price). But those three things alone are not enough to warrant a price that high.

So what, in my ever so humble opinion, set these jeans apart from others I've worn?

The pockets.

They are lined with a satin like material, very soft and slick.

So that is the difference between this and other jeans, the pockets. Jeans that have been touted by celebrities as "their personal favorites and the best jeans they have ever worn."

What do the ads say? Well, I think the best way is to look at how they are defined by what they are called: 7 for All Mankind [Seven Jeans for short]. I also think it is important to look at the other brand they are grouped with: True Religion (as immortalized by that wonderful diva Fergie). The brand name of both of these jeans imply something that should be universal, something that is true and benevolent. Something that defies social status and situation and applies for everyone. Thus, returning to Barthes, the ads for 7 Jeans and True Religion want the consumer to believe that by buying the jeans that they are involved in the liberation of the world, of releasing universal truth through denim. The performance of an act that is defined by exclusivity is supposed to signify universalism.

Interesting, huh? This is also true of the "lesser" subsidaries of designer houses, such as Moschino's "Cheap & Chic", Armani's "Armani Exchange", and Dolce & Gabanna's "D&G", which are advertised as the cheaper versions of the designer's main collections. Cheap for who? What does the participation of the consumer mean in this scenario: "Oh, I'm just going to buy off of the ready-to-wear rack, I'm not that full of myself" when really they are only presenting the facade of being an "everyperson".

This idea of participation in a movement and ideal through consumerism is also apparent in the "green" phenomenon. When I worked at Target, a line of "eco-friendly" message T's was released and they sold like hot cakes (and no, they weren't on recycled or organic T's). My thought was, "If they really cared about the environment, they would have shopped at a thrift store..." In our society, we are told that activism goes about as far as our checkbooks, that if we buy the right things we will be DOING the right things: the (red) campaign and Ethos Water (both of which are total crocks, in my opinion) are great examples. Rather than give money directly, buy something at an outrageous markup so a small percent goes to the charity.

After saying this, I would like to say that I am definitely guilty of falling into the trap of consumerism, and I have a good example of that from this weekend. As posted earlier, I have been having computer troubles for a long time. Long story short: I won't ever shop at Best Buy again, and I ended up with a brand new MacBook. Oh the joy of joys in my heart, I could finally break away from Windows!

But now, looking at it from this angle, I see things that trouble me. Why do I like Apple so much? Because it represents something to me - operating outside of a giant that monopolizes the computer industry. But then I realized something: Mac had monopolized my digital life. I ended up buying an iPod, now a MacBook, and as soon as I can I plan on getting an iPhone. Aren't I just as bad as those people I mocked earlier about the jeans and the Product (red)?

Well, I am going to be big enough to say it: I am just as bad. But I think another question is, are we being told that there is no other way to think about things? Another Barthes' quote I love is: "advertising is responsible for promoting the myth of free will". We are bombarded by advertisements virtually every moment of our connected lives - even face to face contact is plagued with advertisements if you know what symbols on clothing to look for. In advertisements, we believe that we can make the difference in our lives, and choose what we buy. But I want to pose the question: Do we actually chose what we buy, or are our purchases already decided for us by advertising/marketing/branding?

Let me put this another way: Considering that products are so specifically targeted towards people, can we ever get away from what is sold directly to us? I would actually argue no, we don't really chose what we like. I consider myself an individual who likes to stand out and be different, so I buy things that say that about me, which are, surprise surprise, items that have been specifically marketed towards people like me. If we look at things this way, did I really have any other choice than to buy an Apple?

Even those who want to try and escape still fall into the trap. For example, I don't like to buy clothing that has the name of the store written on it (well, maybe if it is on an outside tag, but it can't be obvious). Now, I love American Apparel, because I think the clothing is good looking, well made, is basic, and - most important, for me anyway - I know it hasn't been made in a sweatshop. But even this says that I was destined to buy these products; workers' rights are important to me and American Apparel is exploiting my soft spot for companies' paying their employees living wages.

What can we do to escape this system? The problem lies in the fact that we exist in an epistemic system that entraps us within a series of signs that is reliant upon brand name and advertising. I mean, think about the use of words like Xerox, Kleenex, and even Google; these have become an integral part of our linguistic systems, and thus in our very formation of the world. I have often said that language is a radical problem in oppressive systems, because the oppressors can define what language is allowed, and how it is used. The problem is: I don't have a solution, I guess that is something that will just have to be worked on.

Until then, I will enjoy my MacBook, even if I had no other choice than to buy it. I would like to not seem so fatalistic and think that my use of Macs stem from the fact that it is a superior product. Honestly I believe they are, but I know that my INTENSE desire to have one, even though it means paying more, is because it has been targeted to create and fulfill desires that I have.

That said, I sure as hell don't regret buying it. :)