the iphone punks
it’s been a long time since i posted, fact of the matter is my computer isn’t working at the moment, plus settling down and what not. despite that, i finally found some time to post here
i hinted at it on my last post. as i noted previously, i’m now living in australia. one of the things i did once i got here was go to the local anarchist book store and visit one of their people’s kitchens.
and truth be told, anarchists everywhere are pretty similar. concerned about gender issues, equality issues, racial issues, etc etc.
but life here is too good. the mining money, which comes basically from pillaging the aboriginal land and sucking out all the resources, makes life too easy. this surplus of money allows for an incredible standards for living. food from all over the world, beaches, sports, access to all kinds of technology, healthcare, education and services. fact of the matter is life is so easy that not even the anarchists find in themselves something to complain about beyond stereotypical catchphrases copied from the latest north american chomsky approved fanzine.
but this is not something exclusive to australia. the real title of this post should be “on the impossibilities of living virtuously while being a citizen of a privileged western society”. big cities are a mecca for activism, for vegans, queers, fixed gear cyclists or generally people who have enough free mind space to reflect and reshape their lives according to a perceived (though most of the times via propaganda) better, more virtuous way of living out their lives. cities are full of clusters of exuberant idiosyncratic ideological niches
but i argue that it is impossible to both enjoy the pleasures of modern western society and have a lifestyle that somehow would offset it. sure, a punk might dumpster dive for food, brew his own, steal and shoplift. but the artifacts that s/he carries, like cellphones, laptops and even clothes, are most of the time, if not all the time, made by exploited workers far away from their own sight. and while caught up in privileged problem debates like gay marriage, the real issues fall into the backdrop, and the hypocrisy of being both an activist for labor rights and owning an iphone completely ignored
one of the most shocking examples for me since i got here is how little is discussed and done about the aboriginal situation in the northern territories. all anarchists and activists i spoke to about this said basically the same thing: “yeah, the aboriginal situation is fucked up.”. full stop. then resumed whatever rant was on about some minor gender / economic situation they might be involved in.
this to me speaks to a deeper truth about most activist movements: bigger issues, bigger ideas, are left for the aging left wing activists that keep waving marx’s capital. the new young activist cares about a million tiny things that no one knows about, and none of the big things everyone cares about. carrying around the iphone while trying to be an activist is the perfect example of the cargo cult activism i’ve been denouncing for quite some time.
but certainly i wouldn’t end on yet another rant about how individualism has eroded virtue in our every day life.
what, in my opinion, makes this cargo cult activism so appealing is that it is intelligible. gay marriage is easy to understand. drug laws are somewhat easy to understand. labor laws? not so much. economy, property laws, native rights, etc, are issues that require a deeper knowledge, a desire to dive deep into what is involved in all these issues. it needs deep thought and reflective critical thinking, if you will. but most of the things around us are unintelligible. it is impossible to fully grasp what an iphone implies as an artifact: the extraction, manufacturing, propaganda, consumerism, externalization of costs, outsourcing of labor, etc. how could something so small that fits on the palm of our hand bring up all these issues? certainly having one wouldn’t be a problem.
but this is where we become complete suckers. if presented with one of these artifacts and a price tag, we accept the price as representing its cost. this is one of the greatest tricks the globalized market has achieved. nowhere in the price is the ecological footprint, the human footprint or the societal footprint. since money has no morals of its own, existing in this supposed aether of value, we gracefully pay from what we earned to support this incredible web of dependencies.
i believe the only way of fully restoring sanity into every day life is to have realistic prices (if we still want to live with currency) that fully reflect the whole chain of production. through lawful action prevent money from obfuscating what we are really buying into.
certainly i could go into a post-capitalism scenario. but today, i chose to take capitalism for granted and explore a possible transition.
ideally, it is my belief that no artifact should ever be both unintelligible and mass produced. it created this schizoid lifestyle where we eat greet but blog about it on blood laptops and smartphones
and above every thing else, i still can’t deal with the punks with iphones. oh how the mighty have fallen (if they were ever mighty).
this is why i am leaning towards exploring ideas like the civilization starter kit, which give us transparency for the whole supply chain. we have enough stuff. now we just need to learn how to use it