Thanks to my sister, I am now reading yet another anarchist book. This is probably the most extreme of the political/sociological books that I have read so far, and it has given me even more to think about. It not only attacks government and corporations as the source of our problems, but the structure of our society at it’s base.

I tried to write a brief description of what it is about, but I rambled on and on with no end or point in sight. In essence, what it says is that Capitalism is not healthy for us, and until we can shed the societal rules that bind us for the principal purpose of creating consumers, we will not be free nor happy. It is very idealistic at times, but makes some outstanding observations.

For example, we are consistently led to believe that it is immature to seek adventure, sex, and spontaneity out, yet within 10 minutes of turning on a television, you will be bombarded with advertising for products that sell the idea that the product will bring sex, spontaneity, and adventure to your life simply by purchasing them and that without them, your life is dull, and you are incomplete. No one is more of a victim of this than the American woman.

I am of the opinion that if you have access to an American woman, it is in your best interest to try to make her feel beautiful, because no matter what you might give them to lift them up, advertising will bring them down 10x. Their asses are too big, their boobs are not big enough, their hair is not pretty enough, their clothing is not nice enough, and the minute that they cross out of their teen years, they are utterly invisible to males. Horseshit. Some guys can’t stand teenage girls, and actually like big butts.

CrimethInc. has a fake beauty ad with a really thin model in a bikini with these words…

Nobody looks like this. It’s not even healthy. But millions of women worldwide paint themselves, starve themselves, even have medical operations to live up to social standards of beauty. Who sets these standards? We do - we, the fashion and image industries, with our magazine covers, “miracle” diets, and synthetically engineered celebrities.

Why is this in our best interest? First, insecurity sells. The more unreachable the standards we set for you, the worse you’ll feel about yourselves, and the more of our products you’ll think you need. Second, it’s important that we keep you thinking of yourself as a body, first and foremost. All our images of women as bodies, from classical art to twentieth century perfume advertisements, conspire to make you think this way. If you conceive of yourself as a body, and you measure your own value as such, then you’ll believe it is our body accessories you need most of all to be happy…not an exciting life, creative projects, a safe and beautiful world, etc.

For the sake of these absurd “beauty” standards, we’re willing to kill dozens of women with anorexia each year, to make thousands and thousands more sick with bulimia and malnutrition, to make women pay thousands of dollars for plastic surgery and dangerous breast implants, to make non-white women pay money for products that will supposedly make them look more like the white beauty queens, to make millions of women and girls across the world miserably insecure about their bodies and themselves. And men’s desires are shaped by our conditioning, too, so that they end up pursuing a glamorous image of “woman” that doesn’t exist in reality, while missing the real beauty right next to them on the streets and in their homes.

Why do we have all this power? Because in this competitive “free market,” our mercilessness in the name of profits has been rewarded by higher sales than our more humane competitors. Our way works in the capitalist economy, our way sells more, it dominates and conquers in a system where money has more value than human happiness.

CrimethInc. You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.

Ladies, don’t believe everything that you breathe. Ask Sir Mix-A-Lot.

Posted in Misc., Philosophical BS