kagablog

I am reminded here of the work of Antonio Gramsci who coined the famous phrase, “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” “Pessimism of the intellect” means recognizing the reality of our present circumstances, analyzing the vast forces arrayed against us, but insisting on the possibilities and the moral desirability of social change - that is “the optimism of the will,” believing in human values that will be the inspiration for us to struggle for our survival

I do not want to be too Pollyannaish about the possibilities of social change. It is not just collective values that need to be struggled for, but collective values that recognize individual rights and individual creativity. There are many repressive collective movements already in existence - from our own home-grown Christian fundamentalists to the Islamic zealots of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The task is not easy. It means balancing and integrating different views of the world.

As Ehrenreich writes:
Can we envision a society which values - not “collectivity” with its dreary implications of conformity - but what I can only think to call conviviality, which could, potentially, be built right into the social infrastructure with opportunities, at all levels for rewarding, democratic participation? Can we envision a society that does not dismiss individualism, but truly values individual creative expression - including dissidence, debate, nonconformity, artistic experimentation, and in the larger sense, adventure… the project remains what it has always been: to replace the consumer culture with a genuinely human culture. (Ehrenreich 1990 p.47)

The stakes are simply too high for us not to deal with the real and pressing problems that face us a species — finding a progressive and humane collective solution to the global crisis and ensuring for our children and future generations a world fit for truly human habitation.

Bibliography

Commoner, Barry (1971) The Closing Circle; nature, man and technology Knopf, New York.
Ehrenreich, Barbara (1990) “Laden with Lard” ZETA, July/Aug.
Durning, Alan (1991) “Asking How Much is Enough” in Lester Brown et. al. State of the World 1991 Norton, New York.
Heilbroner Robert (1980) An Inquiry into the Human Prospect: Updated and Reconsidered for the 1980s Norton, New York.
Leiss, William (1976) The Limits to Satisfaction Marion Boyars, London.
Leiss, William, Stephen Kline and Sut Jhally (1990) Social Communication in Advertising (second edition) Routledge, New York.
Marx, Karl (1976) Capital (Vol 1), tr. B. Brewster, Penguin, London.
Nelson, Joyce (1983) “As the Brain Tunes Out, the TV Admen Tune In” Globe and Mail
McKibben, Bill (1989) The End of Nature Randon House, New York.
Scitovsky, Tibor (1976) The Joyless Economy Oxford University Press, New York
Soros, George (1997) “The Capitalist Threat” in The Atlantic Monthly February.

Some of the ideas in this chapter have been presented by myself before in “Commercial Culture, Collective Values and the Future” (Texas Law Review Vol 71 No 4, 1993) and the video tape Advertising and the End of the World (Media Education Foundation, Northampton, MA, 1998).