It is heard often these days that tech addiction is on the rise; flashy, bright little screens have hypnotized the nation into a collective hallucination, so I'm told. Porn, games, instant response gratification, generally bright colors - whatever. Apparently, we all are going to go brain-dead soon and become zombies or something. OK, so maybe it's partly true, but you would only be getting the Faux treatment if you listened to that narrative and actually believe it.
Often overlooked is how our nation is built; let me give you an example. I returned from Poland a number of years ago and wanted a chance to engage in life with my fellow citizens. I would drive all around Suburbia looking for a place to engage with people in a community-building endeavor.....I couldn't find an outlet during this pursuit.
People often say that it's hard to date: "Where do I meet people?" Boy, that can be a really good question sometimes in America. Maybe you go to Walmart, maybe some other store, maybe you flag someone down at the stoplight in your car, maybe you go to church. But this raises a serious question then. What conditions has our nation cultivated for purely community endeavors? Walmart is a store, a church is exclusive and well, your car is your car and the extent of your engagement with your fellow citizenz is relegated to a glance while passing.
Is our public space in America a store? Maybe you live in a place where you have better community-based lifestyles, but sometimes it seems to me that life in America is despotic and inhospitable. To tell me that America has a TRUE technology addiction, you would NEED to tell me what the next best alternative is for large percentages of people. Go shopping? Take a stroll around Suburbia on the sidewalk while you watch your neighbors who you NEVER talk to zip to and from the store to buy things to satisfy an inner emptiness that he mostly fills through technology?
Neoliberalism is one of the biggest scourges to ever exist. A nation should be proactively engaged in created a culture for its citizens - a culture that is not mediated from one neighbor to the next through the television. It sounds noble to some people to talk about the 'tragedy of the commons'; this idea sounds pragmatic especially to a profession dominated by philosopher kings, AKA, economists. There is perhaps only secondary concern for healthy lives for citizens. The solution always tends to fall under such a sharp and unavoidable dichotomy of choice, (higher GDP vs quality of life), and for the economist, the solution is always to privatize property.
But a city that has too much private property is a city without a heart. Our cities ought to have a center of balance for citizen engagement. Cities should be planned better than they are now. You complain about consumerism so much? What about Big Pharma? Where there is supply for pacification of pain, capitalism is always happy to oblige. Citizens can even be happy about it all. Legal, clean, happy-drugs.
One of the best ways to combat many societal ills and decrease consumption, therefore, would be to change the way we build our cities. One of Obama's goals should be to tell Americans to build cities differently. There could be no other better solution to so many problems at once. Climate change, oil usage, Gross National Happiness. This is an often overlooked problem we have as a country and it is crucial that it gets looked at as a solution. I just don't think that a carbon tax will solve all of this, it just won't.
I wish neoliberalism a quick and painful death,
Thanks for reading