HOW GLOBALIZED CAPITALISM MAKES US BEHAVE
We can't prevent mass tourism from presenting only what brings in cash or Paris's historical museum (for example) rendering homage to elites and leaving out rebels. But we might recognize those aims — and don't.
Or notice what should seem to make no sense: long, wide, straight streets that lead to voids that are much to vast for traffic; a panel about soldiers executing officers by firing squad with no explanation; a salon at the heart of a monument considered the apex of high culture decorated by an orgy.
Because what surrounds us discourages figuring out? Take ads, especially those that hover over great cities or cover huge walls, and do much more than promote a brand.
Richard Nahem, Eye Prefer Paris, 2020
Union Square in southern Manhattan, 2025 / Elisabeth Rawson
They promote irrationality...
 |
| At the Châtelet crossroad in central Paris, June 2022 |
They don't give a reason for buying.
And isolation...
 |
At the top of the Hotel Lutetia in Paris's elegant 7th district, 2015. |
The figures occasionally have a partner and once in a while a few friends, but usually they are alone.
In a void that implies the absence of everything else.
 |
At the place d'Italie mall in Paris's 13th district, October 2024 |
Ethnic origins are irrelevant when all are incited to consume.
Parisian tourism and the elite-centered view of the past are themselves are evolving:
The 19th-century Opéra
For other ways in which the past is being camouflaged or deleted, please click back.
Psychologists show that all aspects of cults combine to reinforce them as anthropologists do for primal societies. The same is true
generally — click back for how almost every aspect of life in Old Regime France buttressed the nobility.
But few historians say so, connect events with the basic economy or see the prominence of a few individuals due to the actions of masses of people ("Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon") because viewing the past is one of the innumerable ways of maintaining control. It comes about spontaneously. Like the humble who insulted each other with "Your father was a valet!," historians rarely realize that they are reinforcing a system of which many do not approve.
# # #
Old Regime acceptance of hierarchy changed as the economy did ("What gave you all that wealth? You took the trouble to be born..."). Is that happening now?
Take a huge panel on a métro wall that since 2024 recalls the victorious combat for the eight-hour day:
The métro station is part of the extension of the métro line that connects Orly international airport in the south with the stadium in working-class Saint-Denis in the north. It was built for the 2024 Olympics. Thousands of soccer fans pass it at every game.
Dark colors express that fight...
Bright ones celebrate a victory that improves lives now.
It was commissioned by the Socialist government of working-class Saint-Denis, which perhaps has woken up from its sleep, and coincides with the multiplication of protests. Take three, chosen arbitrarily, that took place over the weekend of November 29-30, 2025:
Activists attend the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, in Rome, Saturday, November 29, 2025 (Cecilia Fabiano/ La Presse via AP / zoom
Pro-Palestine demonstrations in Paris, London, Geneva, Lisbon, Dublin, Rome...
 |
Status Coup News, Saturday, November 29, 2025 / zoom |
Al Jazeera, Sunday November 30, 2025 / zoom
In Manilla, demands that the President resign because of graft.
Underlying all is resistance to the globalized capitalism that destroys an entire society to build beach-front properties for billionaires in Gaza, takes corruption to unimagined levels, blows away the most deeply held beliefs and most important social ties:
 |
| Harald Wolff |
The demonstrations are step toward worldwide resistance.
# # #
Understanding how so many aspects of society,
tourism and the view of the past included,
combine to blind us helps that fight.
 |
| Harald Wolff |
It is why these blooks were written.
* * *
If you find their ideas useful
pass them on.
No comments:
Post a Comment