trivialisation

I am reproducing an extract of an article i found. Something to ponder about.

When we ask the question: what type of socio-economic system would fill the bill in this moral atmosphere, the answer becomes inescapable:
Capitalism.

It was Marx who first saw that exploitation was a systemic
requirement of capitalism; that market forces had to be fuelled by the
acquisitiveness that took advantage of others. His theory was that the
owner of the means of production was compelled to plough back into his
business establishment a large part of the surplus value secured by
his enterprise if he was to stay in the game, rather than share it
with his workers. And so he believed that as capitalism succeeded, the
rich had to get richer and the poor poorer. We know today that, though
this slogan is demagogically repeated, it is not true of advanced
capitalist countries; e.g., it is falsified in Sweden and other
Scandinavian countries by steeply graded taxes; in much of the rest of
the world by trickle down. Even if the rich became richer and the
distance between rich and poor increased, the poor might not be poorer
but gradually grow richer. So I find it plausible to believe that
despite the exploitation inherent in capitalism, ordinary poverty
(lack of food, shelter and basic health care) may be globally
eliminated in course of time. But if capitalism need not generate or
perpetuate poverty, whence its exploitative character? It remains true
that it is a system based on avarice (euphemistically referred to as
‘free competition’, but one the seven deadly sins of medieval ethics),
though accepted as part of our current culture, would be seen as
culpable by traditionalists. But how is it exploitative? Here I shall point to one ethical feature of capitalism that has received little
explicit recognition: the trivialization of human life that is an
inevitable consequence of capitalist production.

            What is a trivial life, and why is it an unavoidable
outcome of contemporary capitalism? Some everyday examples of trivial
activities and of non-trivial activities may help to make the
distinction vivid. Time spent on TV entertainment or on commercialized
spectator-sports or beauty contests, a concern with gourmet meals at
professionally rated restaurants, the choosing of one’s wardrobe on
the basis of advertised brands, an anxiety to acquire the latest model
car or stylish furniture or designer houses, an active interest in
cosmetics, deodorants or unguents, choosing one’s profession mainly on
the basis of remuneration- these are all plainly trivial. By contrast,
playing with or instructing a child, tending a garden or an animal,
engaging in a community project or acquiring a linguistic or technical
skill, doing artistic or scientific work, farming or fishing or
repairing an artifact, are all non-trivial activities. It is the
difference between reading a book to kill time and reading to extend
one’s understanding or sensibilities, or that of having promiscuous
love-affairs and starting and fostering a marriage. The difference is
that between Bentham’s trivial happiness (pleasure) and Aristotle’s
fulfilling happiness (eudaimonia –flourishing, well-being). Ethics is
the theory of the good life, and a good life cannot be a trivial or
paltry one.

            This topic has not received systematic philosophical
analysis. As a condition it could characterize persons or cultures,
and has the curious ability to destroy either painlessly. Wars,
famines, conflicts also destroy persons and countries but do so with
so much distress that they cannot be ignored. By contrast
trivialization whittles away the worth of a culture, emasculating it
while its human components live a life of chocolates, pop music and
literary distraction. When intelligent and learned persons embrace a
life of trivia it is called ‘decadence’, and has been given
considerable literary attention though it is a relatively minor
phenomenon. When the man-in-the-street lives a correspondingly trivial
life it is called ‘vulgarity’, and has had some sociological scrutiny.
Neither form of triviality has received the explicit philosophical
examination it deserves, though some philosophers (like Wittgenstein)
have been disturbed by its prevalence in the great people and
institutions of their time. This is a phenomenon that calls for
full-scale analysis as it takes many shapes each with its own
characteristic injury to our nature. In general it diminishes us by
turning us inwards, concerned with our own satisfactions instead of
engaging creatively with the common good.

            Why is triviality a consequence of capitalism? Because
capitalism must grow if it is to stay alive, and this depends on the
creation of wants. A normal person will satisfy his basic needs first,
and then turn to matters that he values, such as the development of
friendships or the creation of beauty or the understanding of nature.
But these things are non-competitive and so of no use to capitalism
that needs us to want things that only it can provide – and at a
price. And so it creates wants that are artificial, and are begotten
by propaganda (advertising) that appeals to what is the least human or
rational in our nature – our sensory satisfactions. You will notice
that most of the trivial activities mentioned above are generated by
commercial advertising; who would buy and use deodorants or want
branded garments or admire tail-finned cars unless the TV or the
magazines persuaded us that they enhanced our well-being? Thus does
capitalism flourish while we are diminished.

                    The rhetoric of advertising subdues our critical
faculties so that we function as zombies in relation to the concocted
enthusiasms of our time, the trivialized victims of an unethical
system. Here I return to MacIntyre who sees Trotsky and St. Benedict
as possible saviours in the dark times (shining India!) enveloping us.
Here I return to MacIntyre who sees Trotsky and St. Benedict
as possible saviours in the dark times (shining India!) enveloping us.
We can discard Trotsky as irrelevant to our non-Marxist political
times. But Benedict lived in desperate times, the Dark Ages of early
medievalism. Our times are very different but just as dark. Benedict
couldn’t change his period, and obviously we have no chance against
the market forces – not even today when they are in some disarray.
What Benedict targeted were the monasteries of his day that he
transformed into counter-culture groups and so, ultimately, saved
European civilization. We have our own forms of counter-culture in
ashrams and sangams, and there may be hope in other sorts of communes,
even in some pretty crazy ones. My hope is that someone in our
educational institutions or seminaries may one day pluck up the
courage to turn his back on the business world, and experiment with
genuine research, scholarship and reflection, and a life-style that is
eudaimonistic.