Travis Meinolf
Is there any more valid standard by which to judge a system of social organization than the general level of satisfaction it enables? By this yardstick, current conditions are intolerable!! I propose a different way. I can’t deny the legitimacy of certain satisfactions to be gained from modern market capitalism. One’s physical experience of a sweatshop-made garment or product can remain positive and fulfilling, even when one is mindful of the hypocrisy and structural global violence embodied by these commodities. Mass-produced objects can also be contextualized in a way that turns them into unique personal statements. The contradictory nature of these experiences remains for the most part unacknowledged, vaguely unsettling, and though there exists within this paradigm an easily consumed world of comfort and distraction for some, for many more the reality is harder to ignore.