stars and stripes and douchebaggery

^ One of the critical tenets of President Obama's fix for our nation is less
emphasis on reckless consumerism and more focus on education.

No More Hummer Nation | Maureen Dowd, New York Times Opinion

I heard a French scientist on a radio show once explain that Americans would always insist on supersizing things because our “reptilian brain” likes things big. We’re still big, as Norma Desmond said. It’s everything around us that’s collapsing and shrinking.

The Wall Street Journal had an article last week reporting that, now that gas prices have gone back down, almost half a million fuel-frugal small cars are piling up unsold at dealers around the country.

“I don’t think Americans really like small cars,” Beau Boeckmann, a Ford dealer in California, told The Journal. “They drive them when they think they have to, when gas prices are high. But we’re big people, and we like big cars.”

That’s the big nettle we’re grasping. How big do we need to be to still feel American? How big can our national debt grow? How big can our cars be? And how big is our clout abroad these days? Will Michelle’s style in Europe make as big a splash as Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s?

The cowboy push by W. and Dick Cheney to be a hyperpower and an empire left America a weakened and tapped-out power, straining to defend its runaway capitalism even as it uneasily adapts to its desperation socialism.

How do we come to terms with the gluttony that exploded our economy and still retain our reptilian American desire for living large? How do we make the pursuit of the American dream a satisfying quest rather than a selfish one?

What Maureen Dowd hints at here is the serious need to re-define what it means to be American. But first thing's first - where the hell did we get the idea that to be American means to own big things? I mean, physically big, literally big, expensively big? Unnecessarily big?

And I also have to ask, how much emphasis do we put on individualism before it spills over into selfish bragging rights and materialistic whoring devoid of larger social considerations and responsibilities? Sure, we as Americans can easily max out our credit cards on the latest gadgetry, fashion, and huge cars, and yet we can't even take care of our unemployed homeless fellow citizens, much less pay our mortgages on time. We even have the gall to brag about keeping our priorities.

I used to think that to be American is to be the best you can be - hardworking, educated, self made, socially responsible, generous, strong, and fierce. But evidently that wasn't enough. Or worse, we hide our shortcomings in those departments by relying on such things as Hummers, large screen HDTVs, and houses whose mortgages far exceed our annual salaries.

It's a classic situation: dazzle them - and ourselves - with the goods as a way to distract from our decided lack of accomplishments in the areas that truly matter. After all, isn't it easier to impress someone with an expensive SUV than having to go to graduate school and earning a masters or a PhD? Wouldn't it be more convenient to wow our friends with the latest iPod or Louis Vuitton bag instead of making them inspired and proud of us for having volunteered at a homeless shelter for the past year?

The pendulum has swung the other way, and swung hard. And yet many of us are still too stupid to come around - being smart, responsible, and thrifty is NOT the latest fashion trend. Instead it is now a necessary way of life, one that was birthed by our recklessness and lack of values in the right places.

Do you know why many items at 7-Eleven cost so much? Convenience. You pay extra for the convenience of being able to do a jaunt to that store at 3 in the morning for a carton of milk, a handful of Slim Jim's, or a Slurpee to satisfy a desire. And that is how we have been behaving. Patience has never been a part of American values, at least in the past century. And because of that we've created the pathetic mess we're now in. Yeah, we're that stupid.

Given our choice to create the current dismal economic situation, we have also now created an opportunity, one that offers possibilities to choose wisely this time - and for all time. A new choice has now emerged, though which one we pick depends on whether we have finally learned our lesson:

Do we choose to be big, or do we choose to be better?

are you what you do?

^ Welcome to Elsewhere, USA, where the American individual has become extinct.

Acclaimed sociologist Dalton Conley looks closely at a population of intraviduals -- fractured people who struggle to juggle professional, familial, and personal pursuits.

Gone are the days when professionals could count on clearly-defined work days with the same company for twenty years, and clearly defined roles within the family to come home to.

Instead, today's citizens of Elsewhere must try to satisfy their various selves simultaneously.

By examining three arenas – economic, familial, and technological – Conley is able to illustrate how we have all become inhabitants of Elsewhere, where division between home and office has been all but demolished; our wireless economy encourages us to work 24/7, marketing has invaded the most intimate aspects of our lives, and leisure has become a lost art.

- FORA.tv

You know when you meet someone for the first time, say, at a party, or on campus, or through a friend? Often one of the first things brought up between you are such questions as "What do you do?", "How long have you worked there?", "Where did you go to school?"

Such questions clue us in on how we define ourselves and each other, and how we define ourselves is often based on things like our professional life, what we do for a living, what things we own, where we live, how we were able to afford where we live and why we chose to live there, where we went to school, what degrees we earned, and the professional positions and similar things that our social circle holds.

I've had conversations with strangers before that were no different from this. But my answers usually diverge from what most people expect. When they ask me, for example, what I do, I say, "I currently read a lot of non-fiction, I blog, and I listen to NPR." Or I say, "I volunteer as a docent at an Asian art museum and work with grade school kids." Or, "I spend some afternoons at cafe reading and enjoying a coffee, and I help take care of my elderly mother."

These answers catch people off guard, and that's because of how we at large have been conditioned by our society to identify each other through things like a certain job and the social status that such a job would place us in, and other factors typical in a consumer driven society. I didn't lie to these people when I answered the way I did, it's just that we're set up to think and place each other in particular ways. My job is not necessarily me, and vice versa. I've simply gone and redefined myself more on things other than what I do to earn money, and what I buy with the money I earn.

Dalton Conley offers an overture on topics like self-identity and placement in terms of worker, consumer, social creature, and shifting values defined by culture, belief system, industry, and technological progress throughout the 20th century and in the foyer of the 21st century of America.

If you aren't busy this moment, have about an hour and a half, and a cup of coffee or tea, find out what Mr. Conley has to say about it. You may glean a bit more about where you place yourself in your life and why, and where life around you places you. Here? There? Elsewhere?