>http://www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/press/212vanderpijl.htm
In which he writes:
>Today, the missionary ideology constructed around the
>civilisation/barbarity dichotomy must satisfy the tastes of a
>Western public which has developed a specific set of sensibilities
>under conditions of sustained abundance and images of abundance.
>Cultural permissiveness, the freedom to consume and travel, and
>unfamiliarity with any direct experience of violence and oppression
>(to mention a few constitutive elements only), add up to a
>particular mental substratum on which an idealised way of life,
>which is the good life, can comfortably rest. This ideal is being
>continuously recycled by the media and politicians and held up
>before us as the only legitimate form of existence. Being poor is no
>longer just a condition that is deplorable, let alone something for
>which the West might bear any responsibility, but proof of the
>failure of a society to organise itself like a rich society and with
>the rich societies-to be culturally permissive, to allow freedom of
>consumption and travel, etcetera-brief, to be like us.
Am I totally corrupted that I find a lot to recommend this "good life"? I understand that much of the world's population doesn't enjoy anything like it, but one reason I'm a socialist is because I think more people should. It's a bit hard to find his point here.
Doug