Usually, ‘a bit of a shock’ during the weekly household clean-up would mean something like discovering an unpaid bill fallen behind the fridge, or a sandwich from last term’s gym bag quietly decomposing in a lunchbox under a bed. Maybe a dead cockroach or so. This week’s surprise came in a different form.
One of the kids likes to keep their room quite tidy, and is particular about the décor. Power to that. A few weeks ago a fluffy cushion appeared, along with some fairy lights. This week, there are scraps of paper taped to the side of the full-length mirror. Turns out, they’re tags. Brand tags. Cotton On, City Beach, Dotti, etc., displayed with the same zeal as the karate and school trophies on the other side of the mirror.
Whoa. I’m well aware that this individual is more fixated than even the average teenager on brands and their borrowed power, but this is something beyond expectations. OK. So this is their identity. They’re taping it up here to remind themselves. This is the type of person I am: someone who buys X and Y with their hard-earned cash.
I continue mopping the floor in thoughtful silence.
A few days later, I find myself drawing a polite ‘stop’ line on an online conversation regarding the dangers of vaccination. I find it slightly disturbing. Somewhere in the mass of article links they threw at me there might quite conceivably be at least some factual information, but the couple I followed up were woefully detached from reality and choc-a-block with polemical rhetoric. Life is short. I tell them I’ll continue to read information as it comes up, as long as they continue to consider an unrelated point I was making. They sort of agree, but add the caveat, they’ll ‘be hard to convince’.
The wording reminds me of another discussion I’d been having with someone on a MOOC. Someone closing the doors on a discussion stating ‘I don’t belong to your groupthink and I’m unlikely ever to do so.’ Nothing to do with reality or truth, whichever ‘side’ is more correct. Everything to do with… branding.
Branding.
One of the kids likes to keep their room quite tidy, and is particular about the décor. Power to that. A few weeks ago a fluffy cushion appeared, along with some fairy lights. This week, there are scraps of paper taped to the side of the full-length mirror. Turns out, they’re tags. Brand tags. Cotton On, City Beach, Dotti, etc., displayed with the same zeal as the karate and school trophies on the other side of the mirror.
Whoa. I’m well aware that this individual is more fixated than even the average teenager on brands and their borrowed power, but this is something beyond expectations. OK. So this is their identity. They’re taping it up here to remind themselves. This is the type of person I am: someone who buys X and Y with their hard-earned cash.
I continue mopping the floor in thoughtful silence.
A few days later, I find myself drawing a polite ‘stop’ line on an online conversation regarding the dangers of vaccination. I find it slightly disturbing. Somewhere in the mass of article links they threw at me there might quite conceivably be at least some factual information, but the couple I followed up were woefully detached from reality and choc-a-block with polemical rhetoric. Life is short. I tell them I’ll continue to read information as it comes up, as long as they continue to consider an unrelated point I was making. They sort of agree, but add the caveat, they’ll ‘be hard to convince’.
The wording reminds me of another discussion I’d been having with someone on a MOOC. Someone closing the doors on a discussion stating ‘I don’t belong to your groupthink and I’m unlikely ever to do so.’ Nothing to do with reality or truth, whichever ‘side’ is more correct. Everything to do with… branding.
Branding.
Have you noticed how the media, in particular the online ‘alternative’ media, are becoming more and more partisan? Compare the level of emotive language and phrases in even mainstream media, and those of ten, fifteen years ago. The difference is astounding. In fact, we have to go right back to find a comparative degree of polemical writing. Round about the mid-1940s.
‘Anti-vaccer’ is a brand. ‘Pro-life’ is a brand. ‘Liberal’ is a brand. And ‘Trump’ is most definitely, absolutely, a brand. The vehemence with which brand adherents proclaim their affiliations is more akin to religious zeal than logic. Martyrdom in the name of Apple. A brave soldier of the GOP. A disciple of Liberalism.
Is it a coincidence that the proliferation of the internet, which has allowed esoteric groups so fortuitously to find each other online, has ushered in this age of extreme branding? The branding which includes the whole race relations scenario. Logic, of course, doesn’t come into it.
The whole world is madly sticking metaphorical clothing labels on their bedroom walls to remind themselves of who they are. We have to feel the clothes on our skin to know our identity.
Which again takes me back to the war years. Hannah Arendt’s theory that in totalitarianism, the ideology replaces the individual. There is no individual, just the ideology – even to the destruction of the individual promoting it. The individual can no longer even experience its own experiences. She gives an example from the Stalinist trials in the 1930s, where a man is arrested on the grounds of being a saboteur. He says, well, I don't think I'm a saboteur, but the Party's always right, so I must be a saboteur.
The Yellow Star was a brand. Concentration camp tattoos were, literally, a brand.
| There is no individual, just the ideology |
When we say ‘extremism’, we think of some armed incognito, with a head typically covered with a scarf or a helmet or a white KKK hood. We don’t think of ‘ordinary’ people who happen to identify with one niche ideology or another, in opposition to any evidence that might deem this to be unwise, or unfounded. We respond, with extreme intolerance, to extremely intolerant groups, spawning more and more extremely intolerant groups.
Perhaps we don’t know the difference between ‘intolerance’ and ‘individuality’. Between confidence, and pride, and arrogance. Between faith and ignorance. Between trust and insanity.
Perhaps it’s time to take a step back, look up from our brands, and calm the fuck down.
Perhaps we don’t know the difference between ‘intolerance’ and ‘individuality’. Between confidence, and pride, and arrogance. Between faith and ignorance. Between trust and insanity.
Perhaps it’s time to take a step back, look up from our brands, and calm the fuck down.