History of Thrifty

If you want to study the history of thriftiness (and the lack thereof), check out "Saving Yourself," an article by Daniel Akst that appears in the Wilson Quarterly. One of the key figures in Akst's article is Thorstein Veblen:

Thorstein Veblen, the peripatetic Norwegian-American economist (he died in 1929, shortly before the great crash that might have brought him grim satisfaction), is best known today for his theory of conspicuous consumption, which argued that a lot of spending is just a wasteful attempt to impress. In effect, Veblen explained consumerism in terms of status and display, bringing evolutionary ideas to bear on economics and consumer behavior to powerful effect. Reading Veblen is a little like reading Freud or Darwin, albeit on a smaller scale: Do so and you’ll never look at the world in quite the same way again. As you might imagine, the iconoclastic Veblen took a dim view of all the conspicuous consumption around him, regarding it as a species of giant potlatch in which competitive waste had run amok. You might call Veblen’s the voice of thrift, and it is still heard today from leftist intellectuals who, from their tenured pulpits and Arts and Crafts homes, reliably denounce the spending of others. The truth is that nobody listens to these people, except to submit to their periodic floggings as a kind of penance for sins we have no intention of ceasing.
Where are we now? Akst points out some good news:
Conspicuous consumption, like tobacco, has fallen into social disrepute, a change that removes some of the pressure felt by many families to keep up with the Joneses (who may well have been foreclosed by now).
Akst ends his article with lots of avuncular advice on surviving our current and future materialist downsizing. A lifetime thrifty person, Akst is not pessimistic: "Thrift is far from the worst thing we can have thrust upon us."

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Womens Rights in the 21st Century

I found a fascinating post on one of the blogs I regularly read: Weekend Diversion: An Amazing Group of Women. It is mostly about the Asgarda women of the Ukraine, a small group of (mostly young) women working for the rights of women in an environment plagued with sex trafficking and other abuses of women, Eastern Europe. There is also a video of Loudon Wainwright singing "Daughter". Well worth clicking over to hear the song and see pictures of essentially a modern tribe of Amazons. Meanwhile, I wondered if the United States is the only nation in which there are so many groups of women actively protesting against rights for women. Like Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, who worked diligently to persuade women to vote against the Equal Rights Amendment, and continue to agitate to prevent any laws from passing that explicitly give women protections already enjoyed by men. Pro Life groups are also essentially anti-women's rights, and largely manned by women. It is basically a matter of whether the government or a women may legally decide who or what may live within her body and what may be expelled. Men already have this protection, granted by their reproductively deficient bodies allowing them to claim any foreign internal organism as a hostile alien.

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Excuse me . . . my mortality is showing: meditations on life and death

Have you ever wondered why so many Americans wear clothing when it's warm outside? Are they really covering up for sexual propriety—because of shame? Or could it be that they are wearing clothes to cover up their animal-ness-- their mortality? I'm intrigued by this issue, as you can tell from my previous writings, including my posts about "terror management theory," and nipples. This issue came to mind again recently when I found a website that allows you to completely undress people. The site has nothing to do with sex, I can assure you, but it has a powerful set of images that raise interesting questions about human nakedness. To get the full experience, go to the website and select an image of a fully clothed person. These are absolutely ordinary looking people, as you will see. Then click on the images of any of these men or women and watch their clothes disappear. If you are like me, when their clothing disappears, this will not cause you to any think sexual thoughts. If you are like me, you will find yourself thinking that these people looked more "attractive" with their clothes on. For me, the effect is dramatic and immediate, and it reminded me of a comment by Sigmund Freud (I wasn't able to dig out the quote), something to the effect that we are constantly and intensely attracted to the idea of sex (duh!), but that sex organs themselves often look rather strange to our eyes--sex organs are not necessarily sexy. I think the same thing can be said for our entire bodies. Nakedness isn’t the same thing as sexuality or else nudist colonies would tend to be orgies (which, from what I’ve read, they are not). Rather, sexual feelings are triggered by the way we use our bodies. We do many things that are sexual, and most of these things take some effort. Simply being naked is not an effective way to be sexy. In America, people constantly confound nudity with sexuality. I admit that the media presents us with many ravishing image of sexy naked people, but the sexiness of such images is not due to the mere nakedness. There’s always a lot more going on than mere nakedness. Consider also, that when people actually mate, they often bring the lights down low, further hiding their bodies. Then why do Westerners cover up with clothing to be "proper"? I suspect that anxiety about death (not so much anxiety about sex) contributes to our widespread practice of hiding those naturally furry parts of our bodies—those parts associated with critically "animal" functions relating to reproduction and excretion of body wastes. [More . . .]

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Traditional Marriage

We often hear religious conservatives arguing that we need to preserve "traditional marriage." What do they mean by "traditional marriage"? At Daylight Atheism, Ebonmuse delves into the details of one conservative version of "marriage," and it's not about "1950s, smiling-wife-and-picket-fence families." It is not a partnership of equals. In fact, it appears to be a relationship based on power, where abuse of that power has no ill-consequences for the abuser.

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The ACORN hypocrisy

Over the past few weeks, videotapes have been trickling out that purport to show ACORN employees offered tax advice to those seeking to engage in child prostitution or other salacious activities. Having viewed the tapes, it's obvious that they have been edited extensively, and that alone should make one wonder what the original tapes may show. Further, Media Matters has a lengthy critique of the credibility of the conservative activists and the manufactured news story that they have created, including failing to report that in at least one instance police were called and the filmmakers were removed from the premises after inquiring about underage prostitution. But really, whether ACORN employees did or did not do everything they are accused of is a side issue. The Huffington Post yesterday pointed out that the legislative zeal to cut off funding for ACORN may have created an even bigger problem: it may eliminate the entire military-industrial complex. You see, the legislation prohibits federal funding or promotion of organizations that, among other things, "has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency". The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) maintains a database of companies holding federal contracts that also have "histories of misconduct such as fraud" that would ostensibly bar them from receiving any further governmental funding under the "Defund ACORN Act". Top violators include Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grummond, Raytheon, KBR (former Halliburton subsidiary).... and a staggering number of other large corporations doing business with the federal government. House Republican leader John Boehner released a statement congratulating house Republicans for all they "have done to hold ACORN accountable for its abuse of taxpayer dollars and the public trust.” One wonders whether he will hold these other corporations to the same standard that they require of ACORN? After all, the scale of the violations by the weapons industry dwarfs anything ACORN is accused of. For fiscal year 2007, Lockheed Martin had federal contracts valued at $34.2 billion (with a b) dollars, and the cost of their misconduct since 1995 is valued at $577.2 million. ACORN has only received $53 million in federal funds since 1994, and none of the allegations show any actual harm was done to the government. In other words, Lockeed Martin has committed fraud to the tune of over 10 times the total amount of federal funding ACORN has received.

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