For me or for the masses?<\/p>\n
Sometimes we do things for the greater good, in support of a cause that reaches farther than our own little \u201cfirst place\u201d environments.\u00a0 Other times, we do things simply because it\u2019s what we want to do, because it makes us better or, at least, to feel<\/i><\/b> better.\u00a0 So, while the visible, net result may look the same \u2014 I pick up trash from the park across the street for example \u2014 the core motivation may be very different.\u00a0 I may care very little about the overall environmental condition of the planet and instead, selfishly desire to not have to look at trash as I gaze out my front window.\u00a0 Whatever the motivation, the end result is the trash gets picked up.\u00a0 There doesn\u2019t ALWAYS have to be a deeper sociological reason.<\/p>\n
For the authors of Rebel Sell, <\/i>this is unacceptable.\u00a0 There must be a deeper underpinning that animates the masses\u2019 purchasing decisions and thoughtful behaviors.\u00a0 People are found in polarities and if you can successfully group people at one end or the other a culture war is the result.\u00a0 This seems to be the formula for both sides of the culture clash debates.\u00a0 Create schisms along largely artificial differences and then exploit the emotions of each side for gain.\u00a0 Hmmm\u2026 does this tip the hand of the authors\u2019 fundamental orientation?<\/p>\n
Since people move in masses, swept along by the momentum of the crowd, to investigate sweeping movements, there must be sweeping statements of explanation.\u00a0 \u201cEvery\u201d \u201calways\u201d \u201call\u201d\u2026\u00a0 This unfortunate tendency culminates in a concocted argument between \u201ccapitalists\u201d and \u201ccommunists\u201d when in reality, most people do not land at either extremity on the continuum.\u00a0 Most people are found somewhere in the middle, perhaps leaning to one side or the other but for the most part, seeing the world in the grey.<\/p>\n
Back to the issue of core motivations\u2026\u00a0 An example illustrating the authors\u2019 opinion relative to motivations is found on page 263 of the book.\u00a0 They contend that a shift in motivation occurred when the \u201cpioneering culture\u201d (think pot-smoking HIPPIES!) \u201cdecided that the attempt to change the dominant institutions of society through the development of a new mass consciousness had been fruitless.\u201d1 \u00a0In other words, there MUST be a grander explanation as to why the early counter-culture people were acting in divergent ways other than simply\u2026 they wanted to.\u00a0 And since they MUST have had a deeper motivation than just \u201cI want to,\u201d it follows that when they weren\u2019t hitting the marks demanded by their \u201cmotivation\u201d (utopia) then a re-articulation was in order.\u00a0 So, \u201c[p]ublic activism gave way to exploring new ways of living at the grass roots level of society\u2026 counter-cultural rebels turned inward, and an entire generation of activists tried to move \u2018beyond intellectual alienation and despair to directly encounter the place where we are all one.\u2019\u201d 2<\/p>\n
It seems that Heath and Potter have a compulsion to interpret individual behaviors through the lens of mass societal moment rather than just recognizing that people are people, we all have our own modalities of life.\u00a0 MUST we always be driven by a deeper \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 Is it not possible that the explanation is as simple as \u201cI want to make a difference so I\u2019m going to buy fair-trade coffee.\u201d (a la The Community Coffee Shop, Find us on FaceBook and tell your friends!<\/em> <\/strong>(just a little capitalist humor to lighten the mood\u2026)) Or \u201cI would rather not look at trash in the park so I think I\u2019ll go pick it up.\u201d\u00a0 Or \u201cI prefer to drive the Maserati over the Hyundai.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m really not trying to push the system toward either pole.\u00a0 Simple.\u00a0 (Hmmm\u2026 is that Voluntary Simplicity????<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1. Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can\u2019t Be Jammed<\/i> (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2004), 263.<\/p>\n 2. Ibid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For me or for the masses? Sometimes we do things for the greater good, in support of a cause that reaches farther than our own little \u201cfirst place\u201d environments.\u00a0 Other times, we do things simply because it\u2019s what we want to do, because it makes us better or, at least, to feel better.\u00a0 So, while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[580,10],"class_list":["post-4295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dimnlgp","tag-heathpotter","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4297,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295\/revisions\/4297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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