On 7/11/06, Dan Farrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Insulting rhetoric has no place in a civilized debate. I actually agreed with him, until he thought that all of this is just 'American.' It's actually 'capitalistic', and America isn't the only country in on that game.
I'm not sure "capitalistic" is any more accurate or any less insulting than "American". What we're talking about here is consumers believing that the natural state of affairs is for companies to devalue their customers. This notion is, among other things, fundamentally anticapitalistic--it undercuts the basis of capitalistic competition. I think that the phenomenon that Theo was railing against is a certain kind of authoritarianism--the idea that if you have an organization that is big and official then that organization's big and official wishes should be respected, and that any attempt on the part of customers to change the group behavior of the organization should be based on appeasement and taking whatever you can get, however small. I think that the idea that it makes sense for individuals to be victimized by groups (and just real nice when they're not)--or that it makes sense for one group to be victimized by another--is very authoritarian. I am an American, and I have observed that this is precisely how almost all law-abiding Americans relate to police officers (law abiding citizens are the customers, but we fear cops as if we were criminals, we are taught from a young age that the proper way to respond to police presence is to allow ourselves to be victimized, and we rarely try to change this state of affairs). My travel experience outside the U.S. is very limited, but I presume that America is not alone in being infected with this kind of authoritarian stupidity. Theo: Assuming that you were using "American" as a descriptive term, rather than as an insult, would you mind clarifying what it was that you meant to convey? Perhaps the effective vilification of America (and now a counter-vilification of capitalism) is due to a a misunderstanding. -Eliah
