I’m currently reading Rob Walker’s 2008 book, Buying in: the Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are. I’m finding Walker’s chapter on “Hello Kitty” especially interesting in its own right and also because his description of the success of Hello Kitty has helped me to understand Sarah Palin.

Walker repeatedly points out that corporate logos are symbols and it is the consumers of modern corporate symbols (not those who create or promote those symbols) who imbue these symbols with meaning. Hello Kitty is an especially good example.

The Hello Kitty logo was created out of thin air in 1974 by the Japanese firm, Sanrio. Hello Kitty was not a character in a movie or story. When Hello Kitty was created, the symbol was “empty of specific meaning.” The Hello Kitty artwork was the work of an employee of Sanrio, Yuko Shimizu, who had been asked to design some logos to place on some small vinyl purses. Fast forward to the present. Hello Kitty can now be found on toys, clothes, computers, watches and lingerie. The symbol has had “astonishing success.” The Hello Kitty line has developed under licensing arrangements worth more than $1 billion a year in sales.

What is the secret of hello Kitty? According to Sanrio, “We work very hard to avoid things that would define the character.” The “mouthless cat” cannot be said to stand for any social or cultural idea, according to Walker. “Hello Kitty stands for nothing.” Yuko Shimizu indicates that she was simply trying to make an image that would appeal to little girls. A scholar named Brian McVeigh (quoted by Walker) indicates that Hello Kitty succeeds because the symbol has “projectability.”

Hello Kitty’s blank cryptic simplicity, he argues, is among her great strengths; standing for nothing, she is “waiting to be interpreted,” and this is precisely how an “ambiguous”– and let’s be frank: meaningless– symbol comes to stand for nostalgia to one person, fashion ability to another, camp to a third, vague subversiveness to a fourth.

“Without the mouth, it is easier for the person looking at Hello Kitty to project their feelings onto the character, explains a Sanrio spokesman quoted by McVeigh: “A person can be happy or sad together with Hello Kitty.” Hello Kitty, McVeigh argues, is a mirror that reflects whatever image, desire or fantasy in individual brings to it.

Belson and Bremner (also mentioned in Walker’s book) return to this theme repeatedly in their own book on Hello Kitty.

“What makes Kitty so intriguing is that she projects entirely different meanings depending on the consumer,” they write. The cat is “an icon that allows viewers to assign whatever meaning to her that they want.” . . . not only can Logos have meaning, and not only can that meeting be manufactured– it can be manufactured by consumers. Ultimately, a cultural symbol that catches on is almost never simply imposed, but rather is created and then tacitly agreed upon by those who choose to accept its meaning, wherever that meaning may have originated. That’s what Hello Kitty is: a cultural symbol. And a successful brand.

(Walker, pages 15 to 19). This idea of an empty and projectable logo also seems to describe Sarah Palin. Many conservatives loved Palin before they knew anything substantial about her. Granted, they knew Palin could read a teleprompter and rev up a crowd of conservatives, but what did they know about Palin’s character, her knowledge base and her ability to govern? They knew nothing about those critically important issues early on, but that didn’t stop them from making wild claims that Sarah Palin would make a great Vice-President. Now that freely available information shows that Palin is actually an ill-informed, spiteful, secretive woman deeply entrenched in cronyism, many conservatives love her all the more.

Those who, in the absence of substantiating evidence, believe that Sarah Palin has what it takes to be Vice-President are projecting. They are defining Palin rather than taking the time to learn who Palin really is.

Even though Sarah Palin actually has a mouth, her big trained pageant smile, combined with the serious office she seeks, leaves us with a wide range of interpretations of who she is. Is she your girlfriend, your mother, a small town mayor, a Vice-President, an attack dog, a flirt, a hyper-moral woman, a neo-conservative, a maverick, a super-mom, a neglectful mother, a quick-study or someone who is proudly ignorant?  Palin offers a lot of real estate to you as material for your personal projection as to who she is.  And, vague as all of this is, this is as coherent as it gets–this is who she is, at least for those of us who are allergic to facts.

Hello Sarah.

Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood recently revamped its website.  One of the new features includes a fact sheet that provides the following information regarding modern marketing aimed at children (with citations to primary sources):

• Marketing directly to children is a factor in the childhood obesity epidemic.
• Marketing also encourages eating disorders, precocious sexuality, youth violence and family stress and contributes to children’s diminished capability to play creatively.
• As young children are developing their gender identities, they are flooded with ads for products promoting sexualized stereotypes. There are 40,000 Disney Princess items on the market today.
• This generation of children is the most brand-conscious ever. Teens between 13 and 17 have 145 conversations about brands per week, about twice as many as adults.
• Children ages 2-11 see more than 25,000 advertisements a year on TV alone, a figure that does not include product placement. They are also targeted with advertising on the Internet, cell phones, mp3 players, video games, school buses, and in school.
• Almost every major media program for children has a line of licensed merchandise including food, toys, clothing, and accessories.
• Until the age of about 8 children do not understand advertising’s persuasive intent.

I’ve often written about these issues before (see the list of posts here).  The problem is not the enormous amount of money corporations are spending on their commercials.  Rather, it’s about the effect of those commercials on young minds.  In my opinion, modern advertising directed toward children is part of the thorough education the children are receiving in the need to be hyper-acquisitive. Through these incessant messages about the need to buy, modern American children learn that A) they “need” many things they don’t need; B) children who have expensive toys are socially superior to those that don’t; C) “playing” is about having single-purpose toys that stifle creativity; D) they need expensive toys to be happy; E) having the right toy is more important than developing meaningful friendships; F) being sexy in a shallow and glitzy way is important even at a young age.

Truly, children would be much better off to never view any commercial advertising.  There is absolutely nothing good that comes of it, and there are many potential dangers.

It is also my belief that the amount and intensity of these advertising messages are an important part of what is turning children into acquisitive adults with limited creativity.  I suspect that the education that Americans have been getting from advertisers is driving the perceived need of so many Americans to buy things they can’t afford (the average American family now saves a NEGATIVE one percent of its income each year).  I also wonder whether this commercial-driven “need to acquire” is responsible for people buying so much that they work too many hours at high stress jobs, thereby failing to tend to the things that they constantly claim are the “most important” things in their lives (children, marriage, and community-building).

In June, I had the opportunity to interview Josh Golin of CCFC about these issues.  It was a lively interview and Josh is a terrific spokesperson for these viewpoints.  If you haven’t seen this interview yet, I highly recommend it.

For previous DI posts regarding advertising, consumerism and over-acquisitiveness, see the extensive list at the bottom of this post.

It is often hard to be a person on the planet Earth. It can be scary, overwhelming, fraught with obstacles, and most of all, inescapably lonely. We are, after all, alone in our minds, our bodies, and our selves. I think most all of the stuff we do as people - creating, building, loving, consuming and communicating is meant, at the most basic level, to help us forget or at least put a band aid on the ache of that loneliness.

That is one reason we band together in tribes of similarity and often poke fun (or worse) at those who are other. Race, nationality, politics, religion, non religion, gay, straight, gender, geography. We work so hard to escape the singularity and loneliness of existence by being a part of something bigger. Today this country is as divided as I ever thought I’d see it. After 2000, 2001, and then 2004 I didn’t think it could get worse, but it feels like it is. Do you remember the horror, the rage, the fear? I think back on it a lot these days. I saw grown men on all sides of the political spectrum weep and rage. I watched people of all flavors do both beautiful and horrible things. Just like now.

I am as sad as I am hopeful. We are faced with terrific challenges today. Yet we cling so tightly to the myths that separate us instead of reaching for the meanings that could unite us. I, like everyone, often take refuge in the ability to reach out to those who think as I think, or who recognize me as part of their team. “Lifelines in the midst of the madness”, I say to myself, so thankful I have the opportunity. It might be friends, family, colleagues, or acquaintances I meet online, might be a chance encounter and conversation that makes my day. These days we have tools to help us seek out other people like us, whatever us might mean. It can be easy to find someone to answer our need to not be alone, our need to be understood.

One danger is that all this connectivity within easy reach can reinforce the tribes of sameness we cling to so tightly. It often makes us more rigid instead of less, and less tolerant instead of more. I think we need so much to belong, to understand and be understood, to find connection and meaning that takes away the ache of loneliness, that in our searching and our finding we forget that everyone else is doing it too. Thus ,those who are not part of our tribe become less human. It reduces us, collectively, as people, and it is dangerous.

It is so common, and it scares me. I’m trying to fight it within myself, trying to see the humanity within the folks that frighten and enrage me. Its not easy. I have to leave the comfort zone of my tribe, and work to see something that humanizes the other. It is hard to fight the “us vs. them” mentality that seems so central to any discussion today. It becomes easier when one practices seeing it as an artificial divide, a human construction.

That practice requires fearlessness. If one accepts the premise that what divides us is not a given, but our own creation forged from our own fears and vulnerabilities, then so are the group identities that give us comfort and meaning. Thus, we find our selves truly alone, which is the uncomfortable position that contributed to the mess in the first place. Hopefully, though, the practice and effort will yield a healthier and more realistic perspective, and most importantly, the ability to reach out with compassion and strength, instead of lashing out and manufacturing distance from fear.

Are you out there, can you hear this,
Jimmy Olsen, Johnny Memphis
I was out here listening all the time,
And though the static walls surround me
You were out there, and you found me,
I was out here listening all the time

……Are You Out There, Dar Williams

The world seems to have gone mad. Not really of course, but it there are times it feels that way, what with the financial meltdown, an incredibly bizarre VP choice, and the finality of no more WAMU commercials, ever.  Crazy times. Scary times.  Periodically I look out my window to see if the Mississippi has reversed course like it did in 1812 from an earthquake here in Missouri. Some real activity on the New Madrid fault would be the icing on the cake, especially after waking up to a bed shaking appetizer earlier this year.

All this stuff happening out in the world fits so well with my own business related lessons. In the wee hours of sleepless mornings I sometimes agonize about that fact that, in essence, I gamble for a living. All my careful research, preparations, and process only serve to remind me of all the things I do not control. I may have the ideal candidate, perfectly prepped, and poised to solve real problems at a receptive client. After a lovefest interview and an out of this world offer, my candidate might get an even more out of this world offer and turn my client down, or end up having faked an MBA, or lose the job because the client discovers his ultra-kinky porn site complete with rubber sheets, war paint and golden showers. In perfect situations I am not in control, and I so rarely have the best situations to manage.

It is a great for me to earn a living at the same time as it is crazy making. Every day I come face to face with the fact that no matter how hard I work, or how good I am at what I do, life happens and I am not in charge, even though I want to pretend I am.

Life happens. Sometimes good stuff, sometimes terrible stuff. Walls fall down. We don’t decide what will happen to us, to strangers on the street, or to those for whom we care. We can only control our reactions, and that control is often as much an illusion as any other. I can try to be mindful of how I react to the person that cuts me off in traffic, but, more often than not, my determination to look with eyes of compassion is forgotten when the big truck almost runs me off the road. I’m working on that, but I have a long way to go.

I think wrestling with expectations and illusions of control on a personal and business level have helped me keep some perspective about the direction the world is going, economically, politically, and socially. I can only do what I can do, and mostly that is keeping my head on straight when things go pear shaped. Seeing and accepting circumstances as they really are instead of how I think they ought to be is the only way to have forward motion in an uncertain world. Focusing on that helps me to remember that while I am most certainly not in charge, I do have choices, even when the walls are falling down around me.

For the past few years, moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt has successfully injected a huge does of psychology into the study of morality. Along the way, he has gone a long way toward bridging the “is” with the “ought,” a chasm that many philosophers have insisted to be unbridgeable.  Haidt explores these moral-psychological issues in highly readable form in his 2006 book, The Happiness Hypothesis:  Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. Here’s a photo of my personal well-worn copy of Haidt’s book:

Based on his experiments, Haidt has been extraordinarily successful in describing the moral differences distinguishing conservatives and liberals.  Which group is more moral?  That isn’t the right question, according to Haidt.  Both of these groups sincerely strive to be “moral.”  Conservatives and liberals differ in the way they characterize morality because they base their differing moral senses on different measures. Based on Haidt’s research, there are the five separate measures (I think of them as tectonic plates) that underlie all moral systems.  Conservative morality substantially draws on all five of these five measures:

- harm/care
- fairness/reciprocity
- ingroup/loyalty
- authority/respect, and
- purity/sanctity

For liberals, however, the moral domain consists primarily (or only) of the first two of these five measures (harm/care and fairness/reciprocity).  For liberals, the other three measures (I’ll call them “conservative measures”) tend to fly under the liberal radar.  In fact, many liberals scoff at claims that the conservative measures (ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity) have anything at all to do with morality.  To avoid a potential misunderstanding, remember that many conservatives also find the first two measures on the list to be important. Conservatives don’t limit their senses of morality to these first two measures, however.  Many conservatives thus feel strongly about issues regarding fairness and they feel compelled to help the poor and unfortunate members of society.  These impulses aren’t the full story for conservatives, though, and these first two measures are often overruled by the three “conservative measures.” For more detail on the five measures, see this previous DI post on Haidt.

Liberals thus downplay the three “conservative measures” and argue that when a government treats its citizens well and fairly, the government has fully done its job.  For liberals, the three conservative moral-measures are, at most, matters of personal prerogative.  For liberals, it’s certainly not the government’s job to tell us “My country, right or wrong.”  For liberals, it’s absurd for the government to expect us to respect authority figures we find severely lacking.  For liberals, government should focus on equal rights, not the personal disgust felt by many heterosexuals, when considering the issue of gay marriage.

Here’s the problem:  the three conservative moral measures often work for conservatives.   Why do they work for conservatives?  It’s not clear.  It’s a trillion dollar question.  If you can figure it out, let us know.

Conservative measures don’t compel all of us, of course, but they seem like life and death considerations to many conservatives.  The bottom line is that the three “conservative moral measures can be incredibly powerful influences on many people.  The conservative measures underlie the emotions that are triggered when conservatives see waving flags and threats of “terror.”  Use of certain types of triggers (such as “orange alerts” invocations of “God”) allow Machiavellian political operatives to play conservatives like puppets.  The documentary “War Made Easy” demonstrates the unrelenting (and potentially destructive) power of these “conservative” moral measures.

In his September 9, 2008 article at Edge.org, “What Makes People Vote Republican?”, Haidt hits the bulls-eye when he explains why Democrats are so often seem so confounded in the face of Republican moralizing.  In his article at Edge, Haidt has persuasively explained how it is that so many conservatives embrace God-fearing flag-waving, even when those preachy flag-wavers are unabashed liars. Consider what Haidt proposes as the “first rule of politics”:

This is the first rule of moral psychology: feelings come first and tilt the mental playing field on which reasons and arguments compete. If people want to reach a conclusion, they can usually find a way to do so. The Democrats have historically failed to grasp this rule, choosing uninspiring and aloof candidates who thought that policy arguments were forms of persuasion.

In short, morality bubbles up from below for most people.  Morality is a gut-level phenomenon.  Morality does not originate in the form of top-down intellectual activity, contrary to what philosophers have often suggested. Haidt’s writings thus line up well with those of Antonio Damasio, who demonstrated through experiments involving people with damage to the pre-frontal cortex that there is no such thing as rationality in the absence of the guiding influence of emotions.

If Democrats are going to prevail, then, they can’t simply explain things to the People, they can’t simply stand up to reason with the People.  Instead, Democrats need to tap into the right emotions with their political positions.  They need to set aside serious time to better understand those conservative moral tectonic plates.  Only if they take this bottom-up approach will good things follow.

As Haidt makes clear, preaching about a “fair” society and a society that “cares” are not enough.  These two moral measures, in the absence of the other three, make for a thin, non-compelling moral soup for most conservatives.  Conservatives don’t want soup, they want a thick stew!

Conservatives don’t believe that the job is done when government makes sure that citizens have fair doses of resources and then sends them out to have a good life with no strings attached.  For conservatives, this seems like a big amoral (or immoral) party-time or, as Haidt, puts it, a shopping spree.

How does Haidt, a “moral psychologist” define morality?:

Morality is any system of interlocking values, practices, institutions, and psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible.

Notice how Haidt’s definition focuses on the function of a moral system rather than any particular repertoire of activities (e.g., “Don’t have gay sex!) or any particular way of intellectualizing conduct (“For the sake of justice, let’s enact a new program to fairly distribute resources to the poor.”).  Notice, too, how both conservative morality and progressive forms of morality easily fit into Haidt’s definition.

In what way do conservative politicians excel?   They know that “morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.” For conservatives, morality is far more than a voluntary social contract. (more…)

As I’ve indicated before, I live about 4 1/2 miles from the office where I work as an attorney.  Because I cycle about 14 mph on average, I am about 20 minutes away from work by bicycle.  That’s only ten minutes more than it takes to drive.  Riding a bike instead of driving offers many other types of benefits too. Cycling to work is thus my routine, but it sometimes offers a good anecdote.

Yesterday morning, while cycling to work, I came to a stop at a red traffic light next to a tall man who was also riding a bicycle. He was decked out in fancy bike riding clothes (a distinct contrast from my standard uniform–inexpensive cotton t-shirt and shorts).

I said, “Hey.”

He nodded in acknowledgment.

When the traffic light turned green, he took off, peddling hard to the next traffic light one block away. I peddled at a steady pace, almost reaching him again because he stopped because that light was red.  Just as I approached that light, though, it turned green and he took off again, pedaling hard.

The same thing happened at the next intersection.  Because he was peddling hard, he got to that third intersection faster than I did but, again, the light was red for him. By the time I arrived that traffic light had turned green, and the man quickly accelerated toward the fourth intersection.  It too was red when he got there, but it also turned green as I approached.

The man on the bike turned left at that fourth intersection, while I road straight through.  Right after I crossed that intersection, the man–who had stopped after making his left turn–called to me across the intersection. He yelled, “Hey!”

I paused and yelled back at him, across the intersection, “What’s up?”

“I am twice as old as you!”

I was puzzled, wondering whether I heard him correctly.  I responded, “What makes you say that?”

He proudly replied, “I’m 57 years old!”

“But I’m 52,” I said.

He looked perplexed, and said “Whu . . .?  Ohhh . . .”  Then he rode on without saying anything else.

All I can figure is that this man thought I was younger than I am.  More interestingly, he thought we were somehow competing. Apparently, he was working hard to race me to the next stoplight, whereas I was simply peddling to work.  I think he was proud because he thought that he was in much better shape than a much younger cyclist.

This story serves as an allegory for me.  How often are other people intensely competing with us while we are simply living our lives, oblivious to this “competition”?  I suspect that this happens all the time. Most of the time, this competition occurs sub-consciously.

For me, Exhibit A regarding this competition is the rampant consumerism in America, where people constantly strive to keep up with others, or stay ahead of each other.  Exhibit A-1 is the American love affair with the automobile–it’s amazing how much money people will spend in order to get a machine that merely allows you to get from Point A to Point B.  Consumer purchases are easy to spot forms of competition, but there are many others.   Darwin would remind us of competition for mates, as well as all of the resources on which human animals rely (shelter, food).

I must confess–quite often, when my bicycle is stopped at a red light alongside cars, and then that light turns green, I often peddle hard to beat the cars across the intersection.  It’s surprisingly easy to do and it gives me a strange sense of satisfaction.  I hear the roar of the engines of the motor vehicles and I think of the gas I’m saving by not driving.   It’s harmless competition, of course.  Just like the competition enjoyed by that 57-year old man who was trying to beat that much younger cyclist.

Did I remember to mention that that man thought I was much younger than I actually am?

When you see writing this good, you should share it. This article by Thomas Frank, “How Conservative Greed and Corruption Destroyed American Politics,” perfectly captures my frustrations and fears regarding the corruption that abounds in Washington DC. Here’s a small excerpt of the article, which was published by Salon.com:

The truth is as obvious as a slab of sirloin and yet so obscured by decades of pettifoggery that we find it almost impossible to apprehend clearly. The truth slaps your face in every hotel lobby in town, but we still don’t get the message.

It is just this: Fantastic misgovernment of the kind we have seen is not an accident, nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, all that follows: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we’ve come to expect from Washington.

How bad is the damage?

Its leaders laugh off the idea of the public interest as airy-fairy nonsense; they caution against bringing top-notch talent into government service; they declare war on public workers. They have made a cult of outsourcing and privatizing, they have wrecked established federal operations because they disagree with them, and they have deliberately piled up an Everest of debt in order to force the government into crisis. The ruination they have wrought has been thorough; it has been a professional job. Repairing it will require years of political action.

Really, it will be worth your while to go read every word of Thomas Frank’s article.

MSNBC has recently reported on the prosperity gospel of Televangelist Kenneth Copeland, which appears to be benefiting mostly—Kenneth Copeland and his relatives.

Kenneth Copeland, 71, is a pioneer of the prosperity gospel, which teaches that believers are destined to flourish spiritually, physically and financially — and share the wealth with others.

His ministry’s 1,500-acre campus outside Fort Worth is testament to his success. It includes a church, private airstrip, a hangar for the ministry’s aircraft and a $6 million, church-owned mansion.

I shake my head when I read these corporate media reports about these upstart religions. That’s because many long-established religions also allow their leaders to live in wanton opulence. Consider, for instance, the Catholic Church (in which I was raised). When is the last time the Pope or any of the Cardinals or Bishops missed a meal because they couldn’t afford it? Although I know of frugal (and morally admirable) priests and nuns, I have yet to hear of any high-ranking Catholic clergyman who had to scrape by. If you doubt this, check out the opulent living quarters of your local Cardinal or Arch-Bishop.

It’s also pathetic to watch the mainstream media attacking newly-established religions for preaching the prosperity gospel. You can almost hear the sneering and snarling when the big media outlets report that preachers like Copeland (or, another example, Joel Osteen) teaches that there’s nothing wrong with being rich or enjoying a life of conspicuous consumption.

It’s a rare religion, though, that has ever ejected any member for being rich or for consuming conspicuously. It doesn’t matter that Edward or Susan or Walter has five vacation homes or a private jet or pays 27 times more to eat at fancy restaurants than most people pay for food. Here’s what being rich does for members of organized religions: they get more deference and more respect than lower earning members of the church. Never are they scolded from the pulpit. I beg you—if anyone reading this knows of any rich person being asked by any mainstream church to stop living so lavishly, let me know.  I assume that it occasionally happens in tiny or fringe sects, but not in Big Church USA.  For instance, do you think the Catholic Church has ever told any of the Kennedys that they should sell their lavish property at Martha’s Vineyard or that they should otherwise cut down on their conspicuous consumption? Their whirlwind vacations or their fancy cars or their fancy jewelry?  Churches are utterly obeisant to rich people.

Here’s the real-life gospel every Sunday: “No matter what we say up here, it’s OK for you to keep the vast majority of your money and to blow it on any luxury you care to dream up.”

Mainstream certainly preach the gospel that “Blessed are the poor,” but they actually push their members to act on it. I’ve yet to see it. Therefore, why does the mainstream media pounce on churches that allow its leaders and members to flaunt their wealth?  Jealousy?  Schadenfreude? For rich people (and for many poor), church is for Sundays only.

Most churches founded by organized religions are country clubs with steeples. They are happy to accept most anyone who walks into the door, especially if that person has some resources he or she might donate to the church. In return, wealthy members of mainstream churches have grown accustomed to a substantial return benefit. Never will a church leader suggest that those wealthy members need to actually change anything about their lifestyle unless it involves something about family planning or sex for pleasure.

It’s less likely that a mainstream church will scold a member for conspicuous consumption than it would be for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

I’m sure that the people who run the corporation that operates Libby Lu stores would object to my title for this post. Too bad. What else could you say about a store that slaps unnecessary makeup and shallow-minded accessories on little girls so that they can feel like their appearance is acceptable?

I learned about Club Libby Lu from a mother who stated that she left her daughter off at a birthday party for the girl’s friend; the party was being held at club Libby Lu. When the mom came back two hours later, the girls were holding a “fashion show” at which most of them “looked like whores.” The woman was aghast and suggested she never would’ve left her daughter at this store had she known that this was what they were going to do.

I happened to be at a big mall today (the St. Louis Galleria), assisting my wife to replace her broken cell phone. While walking through the mall, I noticed a “Libby Lu.” I was carrying my camera with me and I decided to take a closer look.

I couldn’t help but notice that the store was rather crowded with young girls (aged 7 through 11) along with their mostly obese parents. The girls were crowded around two areas where they would be receiving makeup, new hairstyles and glitzy accessories. Many of the employees wore pink wings. It all seemed bizarre to me. The entire store seemed equally strange to my nine-year-old daughter, who didn’t want to have anything to do with the place. I begged her to go into the store with me, however, so I wouldn’t look like a pedophile.

Above, you can see the types of stations where the girls are made “pretty,” to the relief of their parents. Step one is to get a decent hairdo. Here are some of the hair styles that are offered to the young girls.

As you can see, the young girls can go to the “Spa.” But, remember, “To ensure proper pampering, you must call to make an appointment for a Libby Lu party” where you can get a “Libby Du.”

But why go alone? Club Libby Lu specializes in arranging parties for your daughter and her friends, all for a cost of only $40 per child. That’s what I was told by an extra-peppy employee of Libby Lu. The store presents itself as a “resort.”

Why would your young daughter do any of this? In the lingo of Club Libby Lu, you do it “2BU!” You do it because you are not sufficiently attractive if you don’t spend lots of money at Libby Lu.

Why else do you do it? According to Libby Lu, you do it to “Go on tour with your friends at Club Libby Lu.” Or you “shop till you drop at our goodie shop” (for only $25). Another good reason to spend a lot of money at Club Libby Lu is that the Jonas Brothers have arrived. I hope those pre-teenaged Jonas Brothers brought lots of condoms, in case they successfully sweep your pre-teenaged daughter off to some high-rolling nightclub, and then who knows what, given that the aim is to make your young daughter look something like this:

In case my sarcasm is going over anyone’s head, see what I really think about corporations that try to make their money by over-sexualizing young girls. I have little tolerance for corporations that make their money by convincing little girls and their parents that they aren’t pretty enough. Libby Lu works much harder than most of these corporations to convince young girls and their parents that there isn’t enough time to grow up as a child.

You can buy a casket at Costco. I don’t really have any comment about this fact.  I was simply surprised to see that you could buy a discount coffin (and other discount accessories for the dead).  For less than $1,000, you can get the “In God’s Care Casket.” Not bad, considering that the average price of a casket is $2,000.

I can just imagine someone heading out the door right now, saying “I’m heading off to Costco to buy a casket!  They got some great deals out there on funeral accessories.”

I’m not in the market for a casket, mind you.  And when I do die, I’d like to be cremated and scattered to the winds.  Maybe by then, Costco will have a drive-thru cremation service.

Those who are truly interested in community-building (rather than striving to enhance their own status through resource-exhausting displays of material wealth) might want to take note of two ways city folks play in water.

This idea occurred to me while walking through Tower Grove Park in St. Louis last week. Dozens of children splashed in a modest shallow pool fed by a fountain. As you can see from this (expandable) photo, the children were being closely watched by their parents. It was a communal celebration on a warm night. No one was there to display his or her financial assets. This sort of community-building occurs in many cities every day.

Sometimes a municipality builds a big pool rather than a small pool and fountain, with the same result (as seen below, a photo of the Maplewood, Missouri municipal swimming pool. Anyone can join for a relatively modest fee.

This is a photo of my seven-year old daughter going down a water slide into a municipal pool. You might be thinking, “What kind of parent are you to allow your daughter to share a swimming spot with strangers?” What kind, indeed! The same kind that knows that strangers can get along. We can even share beaches!

As shown in the above photos, people of modest means can actually enjoy playing in water quite well when they share. And they can share and they do share, just as they did decades ago while I was growing up in a middle-class neighborhood. In fact, almost no one had their own pool (other than inflatable pools for infants). Swimming was always done as a community only a few decades ago. And (believe it or not), government was competent at running swimming pools (and libraries and fire departments). The bottom line is that people shared swimming spots and yet the world did not fall apart. And because people shared, there wasn’t as much wasting of natural resources (the water, the chemicals, the electricity to run the filters, the pool companies using fuel to drive out to do maintenance, and even the energy used to heat these pools in October).

Compare the park fountain at the top of this post to the following photo I took two days ago while flying over Boston suburbs. Many of these houses have their own swimming pools (none of them being used on this hot day while this photo was taken). Based on their decisions to build their own pools, none of these people were interested in sharing swimming spots. “Come on over,” I can hear them saying to their private friends. “We have our own pool. No strangers are allowed.”

I’m seeing it everywhere these days: resource-wasting displays of wealth that have been acquired in an attempt to elevate social status. In these days of more expensive oil (though it’s still cheap), SUV’s will undoubtedly once again become an item of special status for the rich, as the middle-class decides that it can’t keep up with the rich. They won’t be able to afford the oil.

As cheap oil disappears, we’re going to put most of those middle-class pretenders back in their place in many ways. So much of what they thought they “needed,” including those pools in their own back yards, will disappear. At that point, luxury items like unnecessarily large vehicles and unnecessarily private swimming pools will once again come to be displays of real status, real power and real wealth. The rich can once again breathe easy that they will once again come to look rich.

I wrote about complacency once before. I focused on the complacency of most Americans in the face of the energy crisis that is clearly upon us. We have no assurance that gasoline won’t double or triple in price over the next five or 10 years, throwing our economy into a massive depression. With stakes like these, you would think that prolific energy wasters like us would immediately jump on our energy consumption problem by enacting a national conservation plan to cut our petroleum use in half. This could be accomplished by modifying our wasteful energy usage in dozens of ways. For instance, we really could carpool. We could build up our mass transit systems and encourage their use. We could walk and bike more. We could make our homes much more energy-efficient. Instead of building new homes in existing farm fields, we could renovate homes that already exist. While we’re at it, we could cut our use of all other forms of energy in half too. For instance, the technology already exists to make zero-carbon footprint buildings.

Others have written extensively regarding many methods by which we could reduce energy use. Due to the widely accepted law of supply and demand, cutting our use of energy would also have the effect of lowering the price of energy (relative to whatever it would have been had we not taken such measures), thereby diminishing the financial damage from our perennial trade deficits and budget deficits.

My concern is that so many people (including many people I know personally) are absolutely complacent about the need to change the way we produce and use energy. I keep hearing people say that “they will make our gasoline out of corn” or “we have plenty of coal” as though some unspecified “corn plan” would produce net energy without causing people to starve or some fantasy “coal plan” could be a foolproof substitute for petroleum, without somehow contributing massive amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

People are finally buying more energy-efficient cars, but that is only in response to the spiking costs of gasoline. It’s like we need to be kicked in the shin in order to get our attention. Many mainstream news articles discuss that this price jump of gasoline occurred “suddenly,” as though it was impossible to see that high gasoline prices were in our future. We still don’t get it, though. For example, many news articles are currently talking about the high price of gas as though gas will continue to be five dollars per gallon five years from now, as though we’ve hit a stable plateau.

As I suggested in my prior post about complacency, I sense that there’s a rampant attitude that most of the big things in life are not under our control. Rather, they simply “happen.” According to many people, the “free market” decides what will be available for sale and at what price it will be sold. Similarly, “God” makes decisions about disasters and diseases such as heart attacks and lung cancer (even though people cause many of their own problems through climate change in lifestyle at choices). The people who are big believers in the free market and a sentient God see humans as powerless children who simply react to situations. We act like there’s nothing we can do to root corporate corruption out of our national political system.

From so many people, I hear this solution: “They” will come up with something to solve our energy problems, our medical problems, our food production problems, our natural resource supply issues and our pollution problems, as though these problems don’t start with each and every one of us. As though we are not responsible for what “they” need to do. As though we don’t make the messes that “they” need to clean up.

I have no doubt that we could cut our energy usage in half. We could substantially reduce our risks of certain diseases by changing our lifestyles. We could eat foods that are friendlier to the planet, such that the average item of food would not actually need to travel 1000 miles or more to our plates. We could start making difficult decisions that would ensure sustainable supplies of water well into the future, at least for many communities (Las Vegas might not be in the plans). By using much less of everything we consume we could substantially cut the amount of toxic waste we generate. When “we” live more responsibly, “they” have less work to do to save us.

Admittedly, some bad things do seem to just happen to us. On the other hand, many of our biggest problems are caused by us. Therefore, to act complacently as a general rule is a huge cop-out virtually guaranteeing disaster. The real solution is to force ourselves to follow the chain of production through our use of our products and resources so that we can see that our local actions often have tangible national and global consequences. We are incapable of assessing these big problems to the extent that we allow ourselves to overlook problems that have solutions that would be expensive or inconvenient to us.

Sacrifice is a dirty word these days. No politician wants to tell the citizens that we will need to give up some of our wasteful ways. The same thing goes for the many “greenwashing” articles out there. For instance, I read several “green” magazines, including Plenty; they are extremely light on the need for self-sacrifice. (more…)

What’s with white people?  If you’d like to know, check out this Salon interview of Christian Lander, creator of Stuff White People Like.

Here’s an example of Lander’s sharp sword: “The presence of an improper apostrophe on a menu can ruin an otherwise delicious meal for a white person.”  As you can probably already tell, when Lander uses the term “White People,” he’s actually referring to a specific sub-category of “white people,” namely,”left-wing, upper-middle-class.”

At his blog, Lander weighs in on quite a few consumerist tendencies of “white people.”  Here’s his riff on bottled water:

It’s all about ranking. It’s essentially a contest. It used to be that bottled water was a status symbol. You drink Evian, or you drink Fiji, or what is the most expensive water.

But advanced-level white people, the higher-ranking white people, realized that they were creating a lot of waste, and so they switched over to the Nalgene bottle. That also reminded them of going camping. So then they could take a stance of superiority over the people who were drinking bottled water. And then, that whole story came out about Nalgenes leaching I don’t know what the exact toxin is [Bisphenol A]. So then super-advanced white people went even further and got those metal Sigg bottles, and now you have this really solid hierarchy and ranking of white people of commercial bottled water, Nalgene bottle and either the glass or metal, twist-top bottles.

[This example fits well with many of the consumerist critiques on this site].

Bottom line, if you want to keep up with “White People,” you now know where to go.

In 1964, Rudolph Dreikurs wrote a child psychology book that is still considered a classic by child psychologist: Children: the Challenge. Dreikurs argued that using punishments to change behavior is inefficient.

No amount of punishment will bring about lasting submission. Confused and bewildered parents mistakenly hope that punishment will eventually bring results, without realizing that they are actually getting nowhere with their methods or, at best, they gain only temporary results from punishment. When the same punishment has to be repeated again and again, it should be obvious that it does not work. The use of punishment only helps the child to develop greater power of resistance in defiance.

Dreikurs argued that the authoritative idea of using punishment needs to be replaced with a sense of mutual respect and cooperation. Children need real leadership. “A good leader inspires and stimulates his followers into action that suits the situation.” It is important to arrange the learning situation such that a child learns “without a show of power, for power insights rebellion and defeats the purpose of child-raising.”

Dreikurs also cautions parents about using rewards:

The system of rewarding children for good behavior is as detrimental to their outlook as a system of punishment. The same lack of respect is shown. We “reward” our inferiors for favors or for good deeds. In a system of mutual respect among equals, a job is done because it needs doing, and the satisfaction, for the harmony of two people doing a job together…. satisfaction comes from a sense of contribution and participation-a sense actually denied to our children in our present system of rewarding them with material things. And our mistaken efforts to win cooperation through rewards, we are actually denying our children the basic satisfactions of living.

Since neither reward nor punishment is effective, what does Dreikurs suggest? He suggests using an approach he terms “natural consequences.”

Natural consequences” represent the pressure of reality without any specific action by parents and are always effective … What would be the natural consequence of forgetting one’s lunch? One would go hungry…. the idea of letting a child go hungry is horrifying to many parents. Actually, it is unpleasant to be hungry. But one missed lunch now and then is not going to cause bodily harm, and the discomfort may be effective in stimulating [the child] to remember to take his lunch with him…. we do not have the right to assume the responsibilities of her children, nor do we have the right to take the consequences of their acts. These belong to them.

I agree with Dreikurs. As a parent, I have become tuned to the existence of many styles of parenting. I have come to learn that rewards and punishments do not create responsible children. Instead, they create extended co-dependencies.

As I read Dreikurs book, I was reminded that our government constantly tries to regulate behavior through the inefficient methods of rewards and punishments, resulting in the same problems that result in a household that utilizes these approaches.

Our government has also evolved to do something far more insidious: hiding natural consequences from the citizens. Take Iraq, as one example. We don’t see caskets of our soldiers. We don’t see the mayhem still occurring in Iraq. The United States government and the corporate media work hard to protect us from these terrible images. This lack of information means that the citizens are protected from knowing the “natural consequences” of funding military action in Iraq.

We have been protected from knowing hundreds of other important things, as well, including government spying and government doctoring of scientific reports. The government, aided by an over-consolidated corporate media work hard to pump out lots of news and ads that hypnotize us to believe that the best way to be happy is to buy expensive things we don’t need. We are encouraged to over-consume, over-spend and over-trust the government. If you don’t believe me, pick up any episode of your daily “news”-paper or watch any episode of your local “news.” As a result of the lack of good information, we are now facing multiple terrifying economic, energy and environmental crises. We have been protected from the natural consequences and, therefore, we don’t know enough to change our ways. (more…)

On June 7, 2008, I had the opportunity to discuss the commercialization of American children with Josh Golin, the Associate Director of Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood.

Josh’s two-part interview was sponsored by—no one. Isn’t this total lack of commercial sponsorship a pleasant change of pace?

People who warn about the commercialization of our children sound quaint or even shrill to most other Americans. After all, how could it possibly be a bad thing to buy lots and lots of things for our children, to “spoil” them?

As Josh indicates in this interview, there is now scientific data substantiating that buying children more things is harming them. More stuff (and the anticipation of yet more stuff) leads to a warped set of attitudes and priorities, as well as obesity and attention disorders.

I enjoy talking with Josh because he makes his case clearly and enthusiastically. You can see this for yourself by clicking on the two videos of his interview. What CCFC offers in place of a chokingly endless stream of products is common sense: children can thrive without owning the toys hawked by merchandisers. Instead of more toys, children need more creative play and more time developing real life relationships with other children and adults in their communities.

Part I - Interview of Josh Golin

We all know that American middle class children don’t need most of possessions they have (they are a lot like their parents in this regard). Because there is a limited number of hours in a child’s life, giving children more of what they don’t need leaves them with less time and energy for the sorts of things they do need, such as physical fitness, healthy relationships and creative play.

As you can see from the topics I raised in this two-part interview, marketers have done such a superb job of characterizing wants as needs that parents (and their kids) are now doing the dirty work of marketing unnecessary products and services to you and your child. Those who don’t yet have children might doubt this claim. From personal experience, though, I can attest that it is almost impossible to spend significant time with another parent without someone earnestly suggesting that a child “needs” to purchase something that is unnecessary.

Part II - Interview of Josh Golin

It would be a rare day when you spot an anti-commercialism discussion like these on television, even on PBS (where commercials appear in the form of “sponsorship announcements”). Why not? Because acknowledging the toxic environment caused by the rampant marketing aimed at children would destroy the advertising revenue on which most “children’s” shows depend.

For more on the damage excessive advertising does to children, take a look at this image-laden trailer from the Media Education Foundation video, Consuming Kids:

(more…)

Who is best prepared to deal with a severe economic depression?

Based on the work of educator and author Ruby Payne, the best survivors in difficult economic times might be those who are in the lowest economic class, those in “generational poverty.” Payne has spent her career studying the mindsets of economic classes and studying the best methods for crossing socioeconomic lines in education, work, and for social change. Her best known work is A Framework for Understanding Poverty (1998).

To understand Payne, it is important to understand her distinction between generational poverty and situational poverty.

Generational poverty [as opposed to situational poverty] is defined as two or more generations living in poverty. People in generational poverty exhibit certain ingrained patterns of behavior. These patterns are the result of having experienced the effects of poverty over time. The behaviors are part of their culture. For this reason, even though these individuals tend to have a much lower level of educational attainment, they do tend to have better coping and life skills than those in situational poverty.

The above is from a college outline produced by Kerri McCormack.

According to Payne, there are, indeed, class distinctions here in America and there is much more to these class distinctions than the amount of money the people possessed. We are each driven by a set of “hidden rules” that drive us along like psychological tectonic plates.

Hidden rules are the unspoken cues that dictate behavior. But these hidden rules apply to much more than just behaviors and actions. They are part of the culture of each socioeconomic class. These hidden rules are the basis for how individuals make decisions. For example, in the middle class, the driving forces for decision-making are work and achievement. In the wealthy class, decisions are based upon social, financial, and political connections. In generational poverty, survival, relationships, and entertainment are the forces that determine decisions.

What are some specific “hidden rules”? Payne has identified many of them (and this list is, again, from the McCormack Outline). They sound stereotypical, but they also ring true to me.

Food – Quantity vs. quality
Wealthy – The presentation of the food, making it aesthetically appealing, is what is important
Middle Class – The quality of the food is what is important
Generational Poverty – It is about quantity; having enough is what matters

Fighting – How conflicts are resolved
Wealthy – Done through social exclusion and lawyers
Middle Class – Done verbally; issues are discussed
Generational Poverty – Done physically with fists and bodies

The World – How individuals see themselves in the world
Wealthy – Part of the international / global world
Middle Class – National; staying within the continent
Generational Poverty – Local; rarely leaving the state or even the county

Possessions – What is important to own
Wealthy – One-of-a-kind objects, legacies, and pedigrees
Middle Class – Material items (cars, electronic gadgets, clothes, etc.)
Generational Poverty – People and relationships

Love and Acceptance – What determines love and acceptance
Wealthy – Whether the individual is connected and has social standing
Middle Class –Achievements and success
Generational Poverty –Whether the individual is liked

The images this list triggers for me are startling (and humorous). Imagine, during a severe depression, the class of people who have previously coped by drawing on their social prestige and constantly relying on their cell phones and wealth to get others to work for them. Compare the people with such a “wealthy” mindset with those who have had to fend for themselves for their entire lifetimes. There will be a steep learning curve only for the former.

The question, again, is who is best prepared to survive a severe and extended economic hardship? I’m writing this post to point out the irony. When a depression hits hard, those of us who are middle or upper class might find it worth our while to study the coping skills of those who have already proved themselves by surviving generational poverty.

It’s not that the middle and upper classes have nothing to contribute during desperate times. According to Payne’s theory, people of moderate or extreme wealth would be best placed to make long range changes regarding extended economic depression because they aren’t fatalistic (those in generational poverty tend to be fatalistic) and they tend to see beyond the immediate present (those in generational poverty have difficulty doing this).

More and more Americans are foregoing vacations, according to this statistics-laden article in Slate.com:

Each passing year, more Americans view something that used to be an entitlement—paid time off—as an increasingly unaffordable or unavailable luxury. If John McCain and Barack Obama are serious about wooing working-class voters, they would be smart to pay attention to the lack of paid time off and the huge stresses this has placed on many workers and their families.

There are several factors at work here. To begin with, technology has helped iron downtime out of the economy. Many Americans are struggling to cope with job creep—the phenomenon of work quietly grabbing more and more of our leisure time. We are forever receiving co-worker or client messages on our BlackBerrys, or responding to work e-mails on our home computers on weekends, or lugging our laptops on vacation. . .

A common complaint is that it’s not worth going on vacation for more than two or three days because, with work piling up and hundreds of e-mails waiting to be opened, it is so maddeningly difficult to catch up after returning.

The title to this post is a teaser, of course. After a certain point, having more stuff does not make people happier.

In his new book, Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and a Durable Future (2007), Bill McKibben asks why having more stuff usually doesn’t make us happier. He considers several reasons.

You could argue, for instance, that we’ve simply began to run out of useful or fun new things-that despite vast numbers of patents, there’s not much we can buy that really runs much chance of making us happier. Those who fly frequently (a good slice of the most affluent) will be familiar, for example, with the ubiquitous SkyMall catalog …

If satiation isn’t what has cast a pall over our satisfaction, then perhaps the pall is the effect of all that economic buildup: if growth has filled the field behind your house with mega-mansions and you can see the horizon anymore, maybe that loss cancels out the effect of the flat screen TV. Or maybe the pall is cast by the fact that more of us have had to sit work more hours to afford all that new stuff. Or perhaps were worried about keeping thieves from taking our stuff-or, more likely, wondering how we’ll be able to hold on to it as an increasingly insecure old age looms. Most of all, perhaps the very act of acquiring so much stuff has turned us evermore into individuals and ever less and to members of a community, isolating us in a way that runs contrary to our most basic instincts.

For the moment, however, the why is less important than the simple fact. We’re richer, but were not happier.

In fact, the more we study the question, the less important affluence seems to be to human happiness. In one open-ended British questionnaire, people were asked about the factors that make up “quality of life.” They named everything from “family and home life” to “equality and justice,” and when the results were tallied up, 71% of the answers were non-materialistic. The best predictor of happiness was health, followed by factors like being married. Income seems not to matter at all in France, Holland or England…

[Pages 37-38]

At Alternet, Tana Ganeva reports on Gigi Durham’s new book, concerning the corporate media’s sexual objectification of girls. Durham characterizes the overall problem as the “The Lolita Effect,” which is the media’s sexual objectification of young girls. Here’s an excerpt:

In 2006, the retail chain Tesco launched the Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit, a play set designed to help young girls “unleash the sex kitten inside.”

Perturbed parents, voicing concern that their 5-year-olds might be too young to engage in sex work, lobbied to have the product pulled. Tesco removed the play set from the toy section but kept it on the market.

As M. Gigi Durham points out in The Lolita Effect: Th