1985 and the Moving Statues Phenomena

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Cough.

Deleted User wrote: »

Absolutely not. The people have merely found a new outlet for their craziness: rampant consumerism. The gods of Dundrum Town Centre, incessant advertisements, a cult of celebrity imposed on even some randomer on a YouTube clip or "reality" tv show, or on a z list soap star/sports star. Every sport (sport!) now turned into a business rather than an outlet for community and health, where people seek to escape from the stresses of life by following teams with no connection to their own community, and indeed with increasingly little connection to sport.

In our brave new supposedly rational world where people sneer at people with religious belief, the same people cannot see their own outstanding irrationality. We have property bubbles and other get rich quick delusions, a massive increase in gambling that's so successfully marketed people don't consider it gambling (how much do people here spend per annum on a lottery ticket? And the odds of winning?). Human beings are still desperate for hope, and consumerist culture has stepped into the role vacated by the churches in most people's lives to offer that. What has happened since the decline of the churches is not so much rational enlightenment but a rational transfer of irrational hopes, followed by a denial of that transfer/ a delusion that people today are more enlightened.

Everything, everybody is a potential market for exploitation now- and it's all pushed by what used to be mere newspapers but which are now just cheerleaders for this consumerist culture. And we now need two incomes to pay for a mortgage when 40 years ago, even in Dublin, we needed a single income so now the child is sent to a business called a crèche to be looked after during the day while both people must work to just live in Dublin. Furthermore, because rural Ireland is being depleted of jobs it's not as if most couples have the choice to move there for the cheaper house so that one parent can look after the child. That time with a child will never come back in our short lives. That's a fairly fundamental change as a direct result of the deluge of the culture of consumerism in our society.

All the hopes, fears and delusions of people are directed into the various aspects of consumerism which will allow people to escape, to release emotional tension, to release stress. Other than where they are directed, the thinking and needs are no different to the thinking and needs of people in the 1950s. It's always harder for people to get perspective on the present.


Judging by how long it has taken people to come to terms with how much they have been deluded by their preferred cult (be it religious or royal), it may take 40 years for people to face up to their craziness today, but it will happen. The cheerleaders of unrestrained consumerism today are soulmates in mindset to the people who would have been cheering on their preferred cult (be it religious or royal) back in the 1950s. They can't see what's happening in the world in which they live, and they look back on the past as some backward period in contrast to their supposedly enlightened, superstition-free present as if human nature changes fundamentally so quickly. Now, that's utterly crazy thinking.

Deleted User wrote: »

Sorry for your inability to understand the English language.

jimgoose wrote: »

TL;DR: Mildred, the kids are all-righty. :cool: