“In a world where
one’s ability to consume and the objects acquired determine one’s worth, there
can be no respect for the poor.” bell hooks makes this assertion in her book Where we stand: Class Matters. The issue
of respect for the poor is central to her argument that “Today, poverty is both
gendered and racialized. It is impossible to truly understand class in the
United States today without understanding the politics of race and gender.”
Understanding has always been central to respect. And perhaps one of the
reasons why there is so little respect for the poor in this country, is due to
a general lack of understanding. The United States has traditionally been
thought of as a nation without class, due to the American metanarrative of
rugged individualism, exceptionalism, and poverty to penthouse trajectories.
Yet a close
examination of the lives of individuals and collectives will reveal what the
United States promises for all is actually produced for few. As Americans we
value exceptional people, we value those who excel in talent and treasure, so
we tend to focus our collective attention on the exceptions rather than the
rules. The economic rules in American society have been crafted and are
enforced in a way that hinders rather than helps a majority of American
citizens transcend their class. One of the major rules of capitalism as it is
manifested in the U.S. is that of consumerism, or the idea that people exist
merely as a means of buying and selling goods. This consumer mindset reduces
humanity to a system of exchange wherein entertainment and advertising empires
are empowered to separate people from their money, enslaving them in debt for
material objects they do not need and may not want, until the seed of want is
planted in them, and then cultivated and harvested by profiting media and
material plantations.
The harvest is
always greater than the seed, and today American continues to reap an ever
widening gap between the rich and poor. Consider bell hook’s assertion that
this idea of class is further complicated by issues of race and gender. The
media which serves the profit plantation owners’ purposes continue to promote
messages of what is expected of minorities and women in our society. Women are
taught how to behave, what to think, and what to wear in relation to men, and to each other. Specifically targeting men ages 18 to 34, and
because we tend to emulate the images we most often see, the media not only
creates the need but answers that need with a host of material goods with the
promise that those who buy these products will ultimately satisfy their desires
to be healthy, wealthy, sexy and wise. In this system women become both the
purveyors and products, serving the prurient interest of mass populations.
Minorities fare no better. The media serves as both mirrors and missionaries of
specific ideological stereotypes that are crafted to teach minority groups what
to buy and how to behave. For example black young men would be convinced that
the only two options for success in our society are by way of entertainment or
sports, if the media were the only tutors, and for many, sadly, this is the
case.
A popular tool of
marketing has long been the story that is crafted around a certain product to
make it the aspiration of consumers, for instance it is common to find many
movies and cartoons centered on characters that started as toys. These stories
exist for reason: to sell the toy. For adults the marketing and media campaigns
may become more sophisticated, but the purpose is still the same, sell the toy. This is especially tragic
when these messages informed by economic systems structured in ways to keep
people, genders and ethnicities, in their place become a part of the endless
cycle of perpetuated poverty. As bell hooks observes, “Fantasizing about a life
of affluence stymies many poor people. Underprivileged folks often imagine that
the acquisition of a material object will change the quality of their lives.
And when it does not, they despair.”
Idolatry it seems
is not an archaic notion. Modern idols are no longer the relics of ancient
religion, but rather the creations of modern media priests who intercede on
behalf of corporations to enslave the masses. These idols make all the same promises
of ancient religions, wealth, love, security, happiness, and like those ancient
idols they fail to deliver on these promises. Forcing people to continue
searching for the satisfaction they desire at the altar of yet another manufactured
and mass produced idol. Theologian John Calvin has written that “The human
heart is an idol factory”, bell hooks is a modern prophet testifying to this
truth. And until we understand this truth, respect for the poor, respect for
one another, and respect for ourselves will continue to be eroded by the
elements of corporate and consumer avarice.
