[John]
Surely modern man needs in a deeply existential angsty way, tv
programs to give him the illusion of familiarity and sameness in his
eatery to prevent some mass psychic meltdown.
[Arlo]
Well, this plays into my first response to Khaled. "Modern man" lives
in a way unlike the thousands of years of history before him (pardon
the patriarchal language). Psychologically, throughout his history,
man has "naturally" sized his community groups around the size that a
reasonable human could, given the limitations of his cognition, keep
arranged and understandable. We would "naturally" form collectives
around "knowing" who our neighbors and co-collectivites were. And
this was not only psychological comforting, but formed a sound basis
for our collective activity.
Certainly, today (in following Pirsig's thoughts in ZMM) things have
broken down. "We are strangers again", is how Pirsig sums up "modern
life" (in the cityscapes). Communities have disappeared.
Neighborhoods have vanished. We are strangers in our own backyard.
And most certainly this alienation, or psychic isolation, plays out
in how people attempt to fill this void by reinforcing staticity in
other aspects of their lives. From demanding identical merchandising
in stores separated by a continent, to the popularity of "chains"
that provide us with not only uniformity in selection, but the
appearance of communal participation. It was said of "old television"
that when you watched Milton Berle you know that millions of other
Americans were sharing that moment with you (albeit it from their own
living rooms). Today its that same "feeling" of shared participation
that factors into our congregating into large national chains.
(Admittedly, its one factor, there are others to be sure).
[John]
In other words, its not a problem fixable by antagonistically zoning
Starbucks into oblivion.
[Arlo]
Of course not. Like Pirsig said about "tearing down a factory", if
you zone a Starbucks but the mentality remains, it will only
reproduce more Starbucks. It is the fundamental paradigm that we need
to examine and bring into a critical light (which was the purpose of ZMM).
[John]
But I've noticed many decrying this corporate culturalism and I don't
think there are any easy answers.
[Arlo]
No, there are not. In fact, the only "real" answer is in a
metaphysical shift in the way we think, collectively, as a culture.
The factories, the "stylized junk", the "funeral procession", the
"hyped-up ego fuck you" attitude of "primary America" are not
"fixable" as they are symptoms not causes.
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