I keep saying this each week. But, I’ll be damned if it isn’t true. This was my favorite night of lectures so far. They just keep getting better and better. Oddly enough these two men are involved in two of the fields of history that I study the most: Popular Culture and Activism. As incongruous as it may sound, these are two of the main fields that I am studying in my program.
Avila’s lecture on Mass (Popular) Culture was really fascinating to me. His studies on the commodification and administration of movies, water, cars, housing, and food to the American masses provide a very important insight into what we are. In saying what we are, I mean our role in society. And our foremost role in a capitalistic society is as a consumer. And the largest question right now for intellectuals and your average American right now is: Does what you own, own you? And is this good or bad?
Gottlieb’s lecture on reinvention was just a gratifying to me. And his questions of How does a place reinvent itself? Can it? Should it? And Where does one start? are extreme important to us as we are living in a time of seeming chaos wanting to find a way that is better for all. Of course we are the same as Americans have always been. Americans all ways feel this way, due how mercurial democracy is and how it is carried out?
I was very pleased to see a man as experienced as Gottlieb be so hopeful. His quote from Antonio Gramschi (“One must have the pessimism of the intellect and the optimism of the will”) was very encouraging and empowering. That attitude is very important in a world of constant change. You need to have and keep the above in mind if you want to make a difference.
Comments
I have thought often about that question "Does what you own end up owning you?" and I think in some cases it may. When you think about physical possessions, there are some which might necessitate the purchase of high cost insurance, security systems, storage spaces, etc. to maintain. To earn money for these extra costs, one might have to work more hours to earn the money for such upkeep, thus becoming enslaved to you possessions. Perhaps some possessions are so nice one might even hesitate actually using it for fear of somehow damaging it, therefore negating the intended pleasure of purchasing such items. You ask another question “Is this good or bad?” Again, I would look at author Chuck Palahniuk who delves deep into this question in the novel Fight Club. He would definitely see this as a negative. His portrait of the main character is one of an upper-middle class working stiff who has purchased everything he thinks he needs from catalogs and still finds himself unhappy. “Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”[1] Thus begins the characters existential quest for meaning through a Zen-like friend/alter-ego who points him towards enlightenment, albeit on a self-destructive path. The novel, and probably more importantly the film adaptation (dir. David Fincher), “has been compared to The Graduate as a work of popular art that speaks of the frustration and resentment that at least a large segment of this generation harbors toward their predecessors for the world they have been handed.” [2]
[1] Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, (New York, London:W.W. Norton & Co., 1996), 44.
[2] Kelton Cobb, The Blackwell Guide to Theology and Popular Culture, (Malden,MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 11 (see 10-12).