The Left, The Public, was Re: Ideology....

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote: >
>>  Why of the infinite number of false categories one can extract from
>>  daily life in the United States should one pick on the SUV drivers and
>>  invent a mystic explanation holding them together as a sort of Platonic
>>  form?
>
>[...]
>
>>  Please offer
>>  me a sociological, historical, or psychological interpretation.
>>
>
>I think the answer is "because it works", and the restriction of the grounds
>for treating SUV owners as a cateogry to "sociological, historical or
>psychological" is inappropriate.  Human beings flock together like sheep,
>presumably for the same reasons as do sheep, and people who have made the same
>kind of choice in one area are likely to have made the same kind of choice in
>other areas.  I personally harbour a deep suspicion of the following groups as
>likely to either have repulsive political views, or to be bores, or both, in
>descending order of their performance as more or less reliable indicators:
>
>People with highly polished shoes
>People with skinhead haircuts
>Yound male owners of Sony Playstations
>Drivers of Porsches
>Drinkers of alcopops
>Men with goatee beards
>
>There are other groups of people who I tend to like, but naming them 
>is nowhere
>near as much fun.  Choosing a vehicle has always been something of a statement
>of personality for the class of people who can afford to choose 
>their vehicles,
>and I'd be surprised if the SUV thing was any different.
>
>dd

Your post humorously complements Carrol's, instead of contradicting 
it, in that it shows late capitalism has a way of proliferating false 
categories _endlessly_ in part because of its style of marketing 
(which leads us to think that goods are statements of personality for 
those with consumer choice).  False categories are marketing 
categories -- ways of grouping human beings as first & foremost 
consumers in relation to what they buy, not as classes in relation to 
the means of production.  Furthermore, as you note, it's fun to 
participate in naming & interpreting marketing categories, as if we 
were all marketing experts.  Thus advertising sells not just goods 
but advertisements themselves -- or rather _the acts of advertising & 
responding to it_ -- as fun.

Yoshie