Three Cultural Artifact Recommendations

I am going to make a couple of cultural recommendations for this week. One of the things that has fascinated me over the past 20 years has been what I believe is a lack of a unique “United States” cultural movement. Corporations have been providing us great television shows and films regarding superheroes and the streaming services have changed the game with film like presentations in their television series. Despite the tremendous amount of shows to consume, there is still a small fraction that are truly exceptional. The music industry has brought us a lot of talent but much of it feels artificially created or the artist exists to represent a specific genre. The comic book industry is consolidated, and the best stories have either all been converted or about to become their own film franchises. But the real problem is that a purely identifiable cultural movement that feels truly “American” has failed to materialize. Everything we enjoy is owned by one of the gigantic corporate conglomerates with a few exceptions like A24 films which has made some totally unique horror films over the past few years. Our corporations have taken control of our culture and the products they create are made for everyone. This means that the business model is for mostly unoffensive, ‘vanilla’ entertainment that discuss important political, cultural, and social issues in a simplistic manner.

There is a feeling among cultural analysts that our youth have no real purpose in their life. With languages dying every day, jobs being consolidated into fewer and fewer positions and record global unemployment, the continued consolidation of this world into a globalist type of government run by multinational corporations has accelerated during this COVID-19 pandemic. On the streets of the United States, you can see this in action with two opposing groups representing old ideologies which have already failed (Socialism and Nationalism) wherever they were instituted battling for the future of the country in our nation’s biggest cities. It maybe time to recognize that this country is going through a radical cultural, political, and social change and the end result is unknowable. Let us hope that this insanity ends before a civil war begins.

Here are three wonderful pieces of culture that I highly recommend. The first is an analysis of whether we have reached the end of the ‘liberalism’ period of human history where another political or cultural ideology will dominate (Global Corporate Governance?). Examples can be seen with the elections of people like Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Boris Johnson, and Narendra Modi in India who are openly rejecting the globalists and pushing their respective countries back into a protectionist form of nationalism. Is this the beginning of a new movement or the same old ideas?

What we are experiencing right now on our streets is the consequence of this lack of purpose or identity in many young people’s lives. When this happens, violent protest movements are soon to follow. Can this country survive this search for identity?

Finally, I have been researching my own philosophies since these riots and street protests began. I came across a book from the 19th Century called The Ego and Its Own. It was a form of individualist anarchist thought along the lines of libertarianism that promotes the idea that everyone acts and participates in society based around their own self-interest. It is a fascinating idea and I intend to dive deeper into this subject in the near future. Max Stirner also earns points because Karl Marx despised him. Just like today, the socialists and the libertarians just do not get along. Until next week!