Erik Drews
SOS ComAlt
Seminar week 8
Word count: 282
Triggering passages:
“In this shameless advertisement the two figures stand on different kinds of ground, marking the economic exchange across national borders: the uncle sam figure stands tall and straight on green grassy land, while the other side is dry and barren, scattered with dying Chinese men, one with his limbs twisted in impossible positions. American “aid” is nakedly figured with as intertwined with commercial interests: in order to cure the famine, the Chinese must concede in the “fame in” Paragon Dried Beef. Food here becomes a tool of imperial conquest, as the conqueror can both exploit the foreign body and congratulate himself on his humanitarianism.” (Tompkins 2012, 168)
From Marx in Capital:
“As the taste of the porridge does not tell you who grew the oats, no more does this simple process tell you of itself what are the social conditions under which it is taking place, whether under the slave-owner’s brutal lash, or the anxious eye of the capitalist, whether Cincinnatus carries it on in tilling his modest farm or a savage in killing wild animals with stones.” The trade cards fill in this anonymous blank- but they fill it in with fantasy. In creating these fantasies about both the situation in which the commodities are used and the process by which the commodities are produced, they constantly mitigate the harshness of capitalism while extending its reach into the domestic space.” (Tompkins 2012, 168)
“The merchants who dealt in produce were not the robber barons of the grain exchanges. They were more likely to be newly arrived immigrants, struggling to build a family bussiness.” (Newman 2013, 128)
News media content: The Cobalt Pipeline: Tracing the path from deadly cobalt mines in Congo to consumers’ phones and laptops
I found this first passage triggering because it made me feel uneasy due to the offensive tone of the advertisement in which it is describing. The advertisement being discussed encourages the question of whether capitalism is employed as a means of extinguishing foreign cultural practices in America while simultaneously attempting to replace them with a new fabricated “American” cultural practice riddled with undertones of commodification, competition and ignorance. Even more disturbing is the way in which the culture of the other is presented in an offensive, stigmatic manner while the American figure (uncle Sam in this case) is taking credit for his humanitarianism simultaneously. When the immigrant arrives in the United States, the cultural practices of their homelands are no less relevant. However, social pressures do exist in which they may be encouraged to adopt a new Anglo-American culture, one that encourages separation via competition, and materialism via commodification. These themes present within Anglo-American culture are dependent on the anonymity that is unveiled by Marx in the following passage. Anonymity allows for fantasy to step in where accountability is not present. The concept of this anonymity is overwhelmingly problematic and quite reflective of the current climate of economics in the United States today. For instance, the electronics industry, with the mining of conflict minerals for use in lithium ion batteries, or the textile industry with child labor and unsafe working conditions. The free market in some ways allows people to vote so to speak on the type of industrial production they wish to perpetuate, (such as the option of buying organic food versus conventional food) however this inherent anonymity is divisive in preventing consumers from understanding the reality of their monetary contributions.
Citations:
This is where your smartphone battery begins. (n.d.). Retrieved March 06, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/
Newman, K. (2014). Secret financial life of food: from commodities markets to supermarkets. New york: Columbia University Press.
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