Impression - 14 (I’m leaving this raw and unedited) As always AI free
Value,
I have been trying and trying to write something about value and society for the past 3 weeks.
I had originally started with a quote from Dragonheart.
“The peasants are revolting!”
“They’ve ALWAYS been revolting, now, they’re rebellin.”
I was gonna tie it into how I’m in open rebellion against our value system as well as hold up a mirror to how we view ourselves and each other. Trust me, it was gonna be great.
Then a gummy came along and flushed the whole premise down to the land of forgotten ideas at the bottom of my imagination.
So I was left kicking around more ideas in my head, attempting to wrap my head around how little our society values people and humanity and how best could I explain how frustrating it is for me, and maybe for us.
All while trying to think of a way to write it that keeps people from using that damned dreaded care react.
(one day I will write a piece in which no-one will feel compelled to use that ambiguously defined emoji, probably not today though. 🙂)
Consider the new Trump savings accounts that just got a huge donation from some people who don’t want to pay taxes in support of our culture and society.
$1000, in a savings account, for any kids born this year through 2028.
Parents of employers and add up to $5000 a year and then turn the account over to their kids when they turn 18.
Seems nice doesn’t it. Accept it’s not that great of an investment account. Anything that gets added after the initial government investment of $1000 has to be added by the parents, via their own money, or employer contribution, or charitable donation.
Who does it really help though?
Conceivably it could help future generations. Honestly though, the only reason we can even think of these savings accounts that way is because neo-liberalism has absolutely destroyed the ability to pass on generational wealth for any but the richest Americans.
So,Trump savings accounts are basically just money handed to banks to use as collateral for investments. If you have financially stable parents who put money into it. You might have a decent starting nest when you turn 18. Until then, investors get to play with that money.
So when it comes to valuing children. Trump accounts value money and market investment over investing in children’s health and future abilities.
Money: 1 Human: 0
Let’s see, what’s next.
Prosperity Gospel
I have a dim view of Evangelicals in general but I have a special set of opinions for Prosperity Gospel.
I feel like the name is enough, but basically. Prove your value to God in some way specified by the preacher (usually by giving the preacher all your money), and God will reward you with material wealth. That you just gave away.
I guarantee the preacher is going to give it back to you. You might get some cheap oil in a little bottle to daub on your head while you’re praying for more food though.
The message of prosperity gospel is pretty clear though. Money is more valuable than your average everyday human, even to the human. It works, a few people get rich by off the manipulated beliefs of others.
Sure the argument could be made that regardless of the belief, it still builds a community. I guess, sure.
But really, “Be good, and God will give you money.” pfff..
Money: 2 Human: 0
Advertising.
We have reached a point where the economy is so driven by marketing that we have built a whole value system around it.
Actually, I should probably define our value system the way I perceive it. For the most part I think we only really value things based on how much of that thing can be denied to others. Or Exclusivity if that’s what you prefer.
With faith, it’s the community that comes with knowing others aren’t “IN”.
With money, it’s obvious, if you don’t have it, and don’t have the ability to work to build debt to constantly give others some of it, you have no value.
With advertising, your only value is in how much you can consume, or how much you are willing to pay to not be constantly pestered by advertising.
In real estate, wealth can buy you the space to keep other people out of yours. In marketing, it has become the same.
Want to listen to music ad free, how much are you willing to pay?
Want to watch tv ad free? Break out that credit card.
Ad free email.. Money.
If there’s a screen, or a speaker, someone is planning on how to run and ad through it while simultaneously coming up with ways to charge for privilege them not doing it.
Marketing has become the equivalent of your sibling sitting next to you going “I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you!” then charging you a monthly subscription, for each finger, to simply be left alone.
If you don’t have the value to make purchases, or the value to pay not to be advertised at, you are a commodity of very little value.
Money: 3 Human: 0
Creativity.
It needs to be said. We don’t value creativity. Not unless you can creatively trick people into giving you lots of it. Maybe that type of creativity is valued.
But actual creative work is not. It’s not just AI, it wasn’t really valued all that much before either.
I remember once trying to explain that talent and skill are two very different things, and that always complimenting someone’s talent over their skill is a little derogatory.
Why?
Because talent is something we assume comes effortlessly. We act to devalue creative work even as we try to compliment it. Here is the thing about creative work. The people who are truly good at what they do, they put A LOT of freaking work into learning how to do it. Saying “oh my, you are so talented!” is almost like a spit in the face for all the work people put into being “talented”, pretending they just sort of magically acquired those skills. In a way, it exemplifies the fact that we don’t value knowledge and experience so much as the end product, and how exclusive it is, or can be.
If you want to value an artist, compliment their skills. Trust me on this, they will positively bloom in front of you.
As for valuing creativity. We simply don’t.
We have become so used to valuing the end product by how exclusive it is that we don’t value the creativity that went into creating it.
Which is why it has been so easy to start replacing creative work with AI.
Essentially, as a global society, we don’t really respect the difference between doing the work, and the result of the work.
The only thing that has value is how little you can value the work done so you can inflate the value of the end product to sell it to others.
Money: 4 Human: 0
MAGA and immigration.
I constantly wrack my brain trying to figure out why and how Trans issues and immigration issues are so effective in manipulating the people least likely to be impacted by them.
I guarantee you, most of the people angry at the idea of a trans woman in the woman’s bathroom because there may be a little girl in there, will never personally meet a trans person in their lives. Not ever.
And really, Netflix is more likely to show a peen than a trans person in the bathroom is. Far more likely.
As for immigrants. Economically, you give them the ability to work and survive and they overwhelmingly add to the economy of the community. They literally bring wealth to dying neighborhoods and towns. Which is why I find it difficult to understand why so many Americans fear them and blame them for all kinds of stuff.
Marginalized groups intimately understand one part the reason. Family and living density. Often times immigrants are able to live with a person per abode that is completely anethema to american society.
Live with your kids? Hell no.
Live with extended family, cousins, aunts, uncles. Distant relatives. Hell. To. The. No,
The middle class was conditioned on the idea of solitude for each family. So that everyone had to buy their own set of stuff. Appliances, cars, everything.
American society doesn’t really value community. Unless you can pay for it, you have no value. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, is the common mantra. The dark side of that is that if someone gives you a free lunch, the perception is they are valuing you over others.
Enter immigrants, especially asylum seekers, but any one that gets any help at all really.
The thing is, the middle class nuclear family of the 50s and 60s is completely gone. It wasn’t even really that pervasive considering it was a system geared toward specific mayosapians gaining the ability to accumulate wealth at the expense of minorities and marginalized.
The nuclear family had a 30 year run, at best, then got crushed under the weight of actual living.
As Kurt Vonnegut said “A husband, a wife, and some kids is not a family, it is a terribly vulnerable survival unit.”
To the point though.
YT america is being left behind, being shown they also have no value to the market, to investors, to the rich. They don’t like that realization, society wasn’t supposed to fail them like that, even though it failed them every step of the way.
So the American middle class is struggling, some mightily, some due to minor inconveniences. Then they are told that these people who aren’t even citizens are having everything handed to them. Even though they aren’t really. Trying to claim asylum is not a road to an easy life. You may get a small leg up, but after that, you’re on your own, and you’re paying taxes for services you don’t even have the right to access.
So yeah, palefaces see this, and they think immigrants have more value than them, because they didn’t get any help, they don’t qualify for assistance, they didn’t get a free Lexus. (I chit you not, some woman truly believed asylum seekers got a free Lexus.)
Suddenly, all the MAGA people who have been having the fact that they really don’t have any value in our society, are faced with seeing and believing that immigrants do have value. Believing that immigrants are valued more than they are.
AKA How dare this person gain access to help I don’t have access to. Exclusive access.
To money. Apparently endless amounts of it. Which is not at all true. “Welfare” the way most people think of it doesn’t even exist anymore, most people aren’t even aware of that. An ignorance politicians exploit constantly.
In those terms, it’s a bit easier to see how people can be manipulated into hating immigrants or trans people. By our societal standards of valuing money over humans, any aid going to anyone can be viewed as saying those that don’t qualify have no value to our society.
Money: 5 Human: 0
Anyway.. I’m getting bored with writing this. It feels important, but I’m aware enough to realize I’m not going to fix anything by continually opinioning all over the place about it.
What I’m trying to say is. Culturally, we don’t value people beyond how much wealth can be taken and then withheld from them. We value wealth over people so much we fuel our economy not on the productivity of today, but of the potential productivity of tomorrow. Shunting people into new and inventive styles of debt thought up to keep them constantly pumping the wealth of the few that actually play the market. We literally borrow from the future for the illusion of endless growth right now. Kind of crazy really. Nothing about our overall culture truly supports humanity in a way that is healthy or even beneficial.
We built everything around the car, now our lives are so sedentary we are making ourselves diabetic.
Every void once filled by human contact and connection has taken away or pushed away and then sold back to us at a premium.
Every need has been divided by levels of wealth, tiers of experience, where you have to pay a premium, just to feel like you matter to someone. Even if it’s just the flight attendant on a plane. The crux of that though, is the main way to make those expensive experiences so special, the main way to give them value, is to deny them to others.
We accept a system that makes living and existing suck, simply so some wealthier people can pay to have it suck a little less and feel like they matter a little more because of it.
It’s no wonder billionaires believe they have a right to rule. By our standards they are the most valuable people on the planet.
I have to laugh at myself.
I keep losing the point of this post.
Funny thing is. All I have really been trying to explain is that I abhor this system that is creating a subscription based life, even though I understand the need from a creative person trying to make it point of view.
I am in rebellion against this system.
This system devalues humans to be able to make other things valuable.
I don’t know exactly how to work totally against it. Living in a way that values humanity, but I’d like to try.
Which is why I don’t put the images I make and the writing I behind a paywall.
I don’t want to create a mini classist system simply to let people read my opinions about stuff and view my photographs. Even if they find enough value in that to pay for it.
I do have subscriptions. On the unnamable sites and here on facebook as well. If you’d like to help keep me able to keep doing what I do, please grab a subscription. I’ve got them all set to the lowest setting possible, just understand that it doesn’t come with exclusives.
You can also buy my book Left Astray if you want. That helps a lot, but again, I’m going to put it here in chapter by chapter form for anyone to read if they want.
Mostly what you will get here. Is the process, the thing we don’t value. The trials, the screw-ups, the lack of motivation, the rallying, the ideas that never come to anything, the ones that do. Me angry, me silly, me fed up, me tired, me misinterpreting, me apologizing, me confidently talking about things I know very little about, me frustrated with people, me feeling magnanimous. You get the product and the process.
I share my work because it is important to me and I want people to see it. I want people to experience it, regardless of whether or not they can pay for the privilege.
I just know I am tired of trying to build something out of my work with a system that requires us to devalue the many so we can overvalue the few and pretend like that means something.