I backpacked around Mexico and Central America in 1989. I think I’ve been in culture shock ever since. Since returning to la-la land, that is.
I went to Latin America to see what is going on in the world, and because everyone told me the culture is very friendly and warm. Even being prepared for it, and expecting it, the friendliness and warmth….blew my mind, so to speak…and moved me deeply. I was broken-hearted to leave. I have felt the same every time since then, when it was time to leave.
My eyes were opened by the starkness of contrasts, and even more by the fact that Latin Americans don’t sweep their problems under the rug, as North Americans do. They have the same problems as we do, or many of the same ones – they’re just out in the open, and nobody pretends the problems don’t exist.
(Poverty and corruption, pollution, drug gangs, violence, organized crime – well, thank the good Lord we don’t have THOSE problems here!)
When I came back to North America, first to the US, then Canada, I felt like I was walking into Disney World – or Looking Glass Land. It was surreal. It’s like a giant, endless theme park, run jointly by PT Barnum and Mussolini.
The level of denial here is truly insane. And creepy and disturbing in the extreme. So too are the glaring, in your face, extreme excess, consumerism, materialism, gaudiness, showiness, pretense, all-pervasive advertising and corporatization of virtually everything, alienation, mistrust, repression, loneliness and fear.
It is a sad and lonely, mentally deranged land, we have created here in the, “land of the free” – despite the land being gorgeous, and the people being basically good, and even lovely.
Erich Fromm and the Frankfurt School were right: a repressive Puritanical culture breeds dark psychological and social patterns, just as surely as dark spaces filled with shit grow mushrooms. The answers are both implicit; and have frequently been made explicit, as well.
The problems facing American and Canadian society have recently exploded onto the surface, cracking through the denial like an atomic bomb bursting through thin, melting ice in spring. Now the denial is giving way to finger pointing, shouting and screaming at each other, or worse. But that is unsurprising. Problems do not go away just because you bury your head in the sand, as the Italian saying goes. And when you ignore, deny and suppress something for a long time, it is going to come out, and it is probable that it comes out explosively, or in dark ways. This is the trouble with either psychological or sociological repression – it simply doesn’t work: it is always counter-productive and conducive to bad outcomes. But, while dangerous, this manner of working through problems can be cathartic. Sooner or later calm discourse, maybe will return – and return with a greater honesty and openness. Then we can start to get somewhere.
The frenzy of speed, and the also insane levels of (frequently self-induced) stress, rushing, and manic, frantic norms, also hit me in the face when I returned – hard. Coming “home” to “civilization”, after my first wilderness canoe trip at the age of 18, I felt the same thing: this isn’t right – this is a madhouse, and I do not want to live in this crazed, concrete covered, nature- and sanity-deficient, bauble-obsessed, deranged, modern industrial society fueled by futuristic George Jetson technofantasies, and simple corruption, conformity, materialism, consumerism, escapism, perpetual distraction, and corporate greed.
I have traveled through 20 countries,on four continents, and have loved the people I have met in all of them; and have loved every land and culture, in a number of different ways.
I love all people, everywhere, truly – even the annoying ones; even the dim-witted; even the secular and religious fundamentalists, with their rock wall minds, and their oh-so-assured dogmas and certitudes; even the evil-minded, sociopathic few – who tend to fill the ranks of the ruling elite, and who must be forcefully, but non-violently, dethroned.
But I do have a certain particular fondness for Italians (and Southern Europeans generally, I would presume, if I knew them better) and Latin Americans, I must say. They’re generally relaxed, unhurried, calm, warm, friendly, hospitable, open, inviting, and welcoming. They know how to appreciate the little things that mean the most, like food, friends, family. They try to keep things simple and uncomplicated. They’re passionate, and yet relaxed at the same time – or almost always so. And they tend to be straight-forward.
“Ay, say what you mean, uh? Why not? And feel free to speak with your hands!”
But then, there is something to be said for paranoid, wound up tight, stressed out, frantically rushed, status-driven, hyper-materialist, hyper-consumer, Puritanical, repressed, strung out, alienated North American culture, too.
And as soon as I think of it, I’ll get back to you.
One proud Canuck, most saddened by his country’s current state, signing off.
Thoreau would understand. So did Farley Mowat. They are my kin. And I can ask for no more solace or comfort in difficult times, than that.
JTR,
August 2, 2020
Post-Script:
Americans, Canadians: not to fret – the entire modern world is insane. North America is simply the most insane, at least from what I have seen. The US is running itself into the sewer, and Canada, Britain, Europe, and most of the rest of the world, are racing to keep up with the race to the bottom.
Maybe we had better question our direction?
Remember also, what Thomas Paine said:
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
And Thoreau:
“There is more day yet to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”
See also:
America Has Built A Global Dystopia – Chomsky, Scheer Intelligence
The Morris Berman Interviews – Geopolitics & Empire
T.S. Eliot Recites, “The Hollow Men” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAWaZqDf-VE
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
The Pathology of Normalcy
The Sane Society
Escape From Freedom
Necessary Illusions
Requiem for the American Dream
The Shock Doctrine
The Corporation
The New Rulers of the World
The Pursuit of Loneliness
The Poverty of Affluence
A Short History of Progress
The Iron Heel
1984
Brave New World
Walden
We
This entry was posted on August 2, 2020 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized with tags alienation, corporate culture, culture, isolation, loneliness, mass psychology, philosophy, political philosophy, political theory, psychology, social commentary, social psychology, social theory, sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Writings of J. Todd Ring
Culture Shock – and The Culture of Puritanical Excess
I backpacked around Mexico and Central America in 1989. I think I’ve been in culture shock ever since. Since returning to la-la land, that is.
I went to Latin America to see what is going on in the world, and because everyone told me the culture is very friendly and warm. Even being prepared for it, and expecting it, the friendliness and warmth….blew my mind, so to speak…and moved me deeply. I was broken-hearted to leave. I have felt the same every time since then, when it was time to leave.
My eyes were opened by the starkness of contrasts, and even more by the fact that Latin Americans don’t sweep their problems under the rug, as North Americans do. They have the same problems as we do, or many of the same ones – they’re just out in the open, and nobody pretends the problems don’t exist.
(Poverty and corruption, pollution, drug gangs, violence, organized crime – well, thank the good Lord we don’t have THOSE problems here!)
When I came back to North America, first to the US, then Canada, I felt like I was walking into Disney World – or Looking Glass Land. It was surreal. It’s like a giant, endless theme park, run jointly by PT Barnum and Mussolini.
The level of denial here is truly insane. And creepy and disturbing in the extreme. So too are the glaring, in your face, extreme excess, consumerism, materialism, gaudiness, showiness, pretense, all-pervasive advertising and corporatization of virtually everything, alienation, mistrust, repression, loneliness and fear.
It is a sad and lonely, mentally deranged land, we have created here in the, “land of the free” – despite the land being gorgeous, and the people being basically good, and even lovely.
Erich Fromm and the Frankfurt School were right: a repressive Puritanical culture breeds dark psychological and social patterns, just as surely as dark spaces filled with shit grow mushrooms. The answers are both implicit; and have frequently been made explicit, as well.
The problems facing American and Canadian society have recently exploded onto the surface, cracking through the denial like an atomic bomb bursting through thin, melting ice in spring. Now the denial is giving way to finger pointing, shouting and screaming at each other, or worse. But that is unsurprising. Problems do not go away just because you bury your head in the sand, as the Italian saying goes. And when you ignore, deny and suppress something for a long time, it is going to come out, and it is probable that it comes out explosively, or in dark ways. This is the trouble with either psychological or sociological repression – it simply doesn’t work: it is always counter-productive and conducive to bad outcomes. But, while dangerous, this manner of working through problems can be cathartic. Sooner or later calm discourse, maybe will return – and return with a greater honesty and openness. Then we can start to get somewhere.
The frenzy of speed, and the also insane levels of (frequently self-induced) stress, rushing, and manic, frantic norms, also hit me in the face when I returned – hard. Coming “home” to “civilization”, after my first wilderness canoe trip at the age of 18, I felt the same thing: this isn’t right – this is a madhouse, and I do not want to live in this crazed, concrete covered, nature- and sanity-deficient, bauble-obsessed, deranged, modern industrial society fueled by futuristic George Jetson technofantasies, and simple corruption, conformity, materialism, consumerism, escapism, perpetual distraction, and corporate greed.
I have traveled through 20 countries,on four continents, and have loved the people I have met in all of them; and have loved every land and culture, in a number of different ways.
I love all people, everywhere, truly – even the annoying ones; even the dim-witted; even the secular and religious fundamentalists, with their rock wall minds, and their oh-so-assured dogmas and certitudes; even the evil-minded, sociopathic few – who tend to fill the ranks of the ruling elite, and who must be forcefully, but non-violently, dethroned.
But I do have a certain particular fondness for Italians (and Southern Europeans generally, I would presume, if I knew them better) and Latin Americans, I must say. They’re generally relaxed, unhurried, calm, warm, friendly, hospitable, open, inviting, and welcoming. They know how to appreciate the little things that mean the most, like food, friends, family. They try to keep things simple and uncomplicated. They’re passionate, and yet relaxed at the same time – or almost always so. And they tend to be straight-forward.
“Ay, say what you mean, uh? Why not? And feel free to speak with your hands!”
But then, there is something to be said for paranoid, wound up tight, stressed out, frantically rushed, status-driven, hyper-materialist, hyper-consumer, Puritanical, repressed, strung out, alienated North American culture, too.
And as soon as I think of it, I’ll get back to you.
One proud Canuck, most saddened by his country’s current state, signing off.
Thoreau would understand. So did Farley Mowat. They are my kin. And I can ask for no more solace or comfort in difficult times, than that.
JTR,
August 2, 2020
Post-Script:
Americans, Canadians: not to fret – the entire modern world is insane. North America is simply the most insane, at least from what I have seen. The US is running itself into the sewer, and Canada, Britain, Europe, and most of the rest of the world, are racing to keep up with the race to the bottom.
Maybe we had better question our direction?
Remember also, what Thomas Paine said:
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
And Thoreau:
“There is more day yet to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”
See also:
America Has Built A Global Dystopia – Chomsky, Scheer Intelligence
The Morris Berman Interviews – Geopolitics & Empire
T.S. Eliot Recites, “The Hollow Men” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAWaZqDf-VE
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
The Pathology of Normalcy
The Sane Society
Escape From Freedom
Necessary Illusions
Requiem for the American Dream
The Shock Doctrine
The Corporation
The New Rulers of the World
The Pursuit of Loneliness
The Poverty of Affluence
A Short History of Progress
The Iron Heel
1984
Brave New World
Walden
We
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This entry was posted on August 2, 2020 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized with tags alienation, corporate culture, culture, isolation, loneliness, mass psychology, philosophy, political philosophy, political theory, psychology, social commentary, social psychology, social theory, sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.