Here I Sit

And here I sit holding the steering wheel
that long ago came off in my hands.

-Henry Mathews, The Journalist, 1994

Status Consumerism vs. Goods Consumerism

The link between material assets on the one hand, and status and power on the other, is not self-evident or given by the nature of things. The links are socially created and what we need to think out is what these links can become under the new dispensation. Material goods do still lead to power and status, but they are not the only path towards it. The allocation of position depends on the social system and not the economy.

Ernest Gellner on Self-Image
Plough, Sword and Book
U. of Chicago Press
1988

Knowing Not

“Of the two great transitions in human history – the Neolithic and Industrial, they were unplanned and unconscious.” Those who sowed knew not what they would reap. (p20)

and states further:
“…it is unlikely that the great transformation [from agrarian society] could have been…anything other than both unconscious and individualistic. The transformation was too profound, and too contrary, and indeed offensive to the established patterns of thought and values, to be understood in advance.” By the time it came it was too late. (p170)


-Ernest Gellner
Plough, Sword and Book
U. of Chicago Press
1988

Case2

CASE2, RIP2011

"I'm not doing it just to say I'm doing it, and then exploit it. I do it to see where I'm at, based on my high-classificated way of thinking for the advancement of what art is like!"

History of American Graffiti
Roger Gastman & Caleb Heelon
Harper 2010