PROMETHEAN ANTAGONIST

"…2002, the retail industry in this country spent $13.5 billion telling us what to buy, and we must have been listening, because in 2003 we spent nearly $8 trillion on all kinds of crap. That's right trillion. How insane is that? … We buy almost twice as much crap as our nearest competitor, Japan [we also have more than twice the population of Japan so that’s hardly a profound statement]. We spend more on ourselves than the entire gross national product of any nation in the world."

-- Morgan Spurlock, quoted in an essay at Tech Central Station (which I recommend reading in its entirety).

Surprise; it turns out that the creator of Super Size Me is, like Michael Moore, just another garden variety anti-capitalist (e.g. socialist) with the usual gripe regarding other people’s successful lifestyles and purchasing choices. Of course, what our citizens choose to buy is “crap” in his eyes, and I suppose what he consumes is bare necessity (mere subsistence – a socialist favorite). It never occurs to such chip-on-the-shoulder Jacobin jerks that the creation, trade, and use of all that “crap” (which would include tickets to the Opera, books, and purchases of Super Size Me DVD’s) is one of the reasons why the average person’s life in the U.S. and Japan is a historical marvel worth appreciating.

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GINZA

…Walking down streets lined with the ever so fashionable and chic – Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Armani, etc., I eventually, about 10 minutes into my walk, saw the infamous golden arches (after having passed several ramen shops, sushi restaurants, and exclusive Italian and French restaurants). Tucked away on a side street, another villain, Starbucks. Indeed, American imperialism was alive and well in Ginza (Tokyo, Japan).

My reason for being in Tokyo even found elements of cultural (technical) hegemony. I was having laser eye surgery and the latest equipment being used was an innovation of an American company. The doctor in the eye clinic made a point of proudly telling me of his training at the Harvard Medical School.

So now, for a week’s pay, I have near perfect vision, courtesy of the “greed” of some corporation making high-tech medical equipment; if only a team of government bureaucrats had thought of it instead (where’s Fidel Castro when you need him?).

There it all was, on the streets of Ginza; the oppressive triad of multinational corporations, technical advancement, and the use of English, which I spoke a portion of the time. There were mocha lattes being served on some side street to willing buyers who failed to have the good socialist sense to shun the pleasant indulgence of trendy environments with friendly service.

Night or day, the Ginza district of Tokyo is impressive (actually Ginza is just one urban marvel in greater Tokyo), a cacophony of lights and pristine shop windows containing some of the most creative contemporary commercial art I've seen in a long time -- far better in design and aesthetic impact then some of the crap (to use Morgan Spurlock’s word) that the non-commercial art elite tells us to digest (occasionally financed with tax dollars). The architecture and general design scheme around me was something I’d call postmodern sci-fi. The future had finally arrived and capitalism’s mark was something that would have made Ayn Rand proud. I couldn't help but contrast the beauty, life, and dynamism around me with the stale and oppressive conformity and drab ugliness of an anti-capitalist ambience (“art” by bureau decree).

The free people who walked around me were not obedient clones to an ideology “for a better world,” they were manifestations of a better world – bourgeoisie materialism taken to its limits. (Sorry to leftists out there, but bourgeois materialism is not an ideology. Simply wanting a nicer necktie or handbag isn't quite the same as philosopher kings’ polemics to advance their own control over the direction of society).

To be sure, there were probably more than a few rich people around (oh no!), but the street’s crowds were neither comprised of obvious hierarchy nor bland conformity. Colorful diversity of fashion and lifestyle indicated to me that we in the developed / capitalist world, have become closer than ever to a social ideal that could be truly called democratic. One couldn’t guess if those who walked around me were either rich or poor or in between, for all had clearly risen above the pathetic state of drab subsistence that socialism would ultimately wish to confine us all to.

It was/is both tragic and ironic that not far away in the northern half of the Korean peninsula there are people who have been dragged to levels lower than subsistence merely because an ideology is so strongly opposed to the prosperity, success, achievement, and diverse human advancement that I could see around me in Ginza (and one could now see in Seoul, South Korea as well).

While walking the streets in Ginza, I realized that the insignificant golden arches and Starbuck’s logos looked just fine along with all the other logos of global commerce (more than a few from France, ironically). No billboards of Che and Castro, no statues to Lenin or Kim Il Sung, no signs proclaiming the “virtue” of sacrifice “for the common good,” just light, action, and a sea of people -- alive in the postmodern sci-fi world of 21st century freedom –- all fine with me.