Friday, April 24, 2009

i gather) is the transcript of a TV advert for "Hefty" bin-bags -
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Actress 1) If I had a man like Hefty…
Actress 2) If I had a man like Hefty…
Actress 3) He'd always be coming up with new ways to impress me
Female Voice) Introducing Hefty The Gripper. The first kitchen bag with the stretch and grip top so it hugs the can and won't slip

Actress 3) oh, and he'd know how to hold on tight
Actress 1) …then he won't cave under pressure
Female Voice) Nothing is made like the gripper. It stretches, grips, and stays put so it can take it like a man.

Actress 3) and when I'm done with him…
Actress 1) (shown dropping a bag of trash into a garbage can)
Actress 3) Ciao baby
Actress 2) Bye-bye!
Actress 1) So long!

Female Voice) The Gripper – new from Hefty. The strong dependable type.

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I think that it's.... horrible. (O.o) really. Morally obnoxious, plain and simple.

I think it also exemplifies the whole 'disposable' society mentality....

So many people nowadays expect (or at least aim) to live in a way where they just throw away anything they don't want, with no guilt, repercussion or responsibility involved.... just maximum convenience for them.

:-P I guess that some people revel in applying such a superficial mindset to relationships too, hoo boy... I wish that I was cool like those people.... Gee, I guess that I'd better hurry up and get me some of those cool hefty bin bags, huh ?

Especially since I'm female, so am clearly the exclusive target audience for the advert.... which also doesn't manage to come across as being blatantly sexist, at all.

Because of the violence in our societies, women can be very afraid to dump men, so being able to do so as easily as throwing out the trash, without worrying about repercussions is seen as empowering.

OTOH we do live in a society where ultimately if a person just suddenly dumps you with no explanation, you're expected to just not even care, to the extent you instead are filled with moral outrage and want some kind of explanation at least, you're considered a stalker.

Ultimately with so many people stuck together instead of living in tribes of a hundred or so people, what people do is instead of trying to work on relationships, they just bounce around from person to person and when they aren't quite happy with someone, why bother talking about differences at all? Just say, "this isn't working out, bye."

If that isn't considered an adequate reason, if the other person wants more explanation than that, then they're a stalker. And they need to just piss off, there's millions of people, what the hell's their problem? Just go away. Geez, what a pyscho.

...so it's potential violence (anger, hate, etc... stalking) on one side and indifference on the other. And with millions of people living together, there's nothing for it but that indifference must be considered OK, as it would be so very difficult to not be indifferent to most people when there's so many of them. While of course violence, anger, hate isn't considered OK for obvious reasons.

But speaking unpractically, speaking philosophically, indifference is actually worse then hate, anger, etc. In that hate is ALWAYS a reaction to indifference. Or at least a reaction to the perception of indifference.

Which isn't to say that hate, anger, etc is a good thing. It definitely isn't. But generally I try to respect it more then indifference. I try to understand that it arose from the perception of injustice thanks to indifference on some person's part.

But the social norms of our society go the opposite way. Indifference is basically OK while expressions of anger are very seriously looked down upon.

Looking at the planet as a whole, indifference is the real problem. Millions of animals are killed daily not from hate but from indifference. The destruction of the environment is a matter of indifference. Ultimately the suffering of billions in poverty is the result of indifference.

...the idea of having an actual society though means not being indifferent to those around you. It means you don't just dump a man like you're throwing out the trash. The commercial, while 'empowering' women, is ultimately praising an anti-society social norm. A social norm which destroys the idea of people having meaningful connections to each other in a society.

In India they have arranged marriages. This is seen as horrible to people in the west. But there is a beautiful thing in it. It is similar to the guy from a commune I met who says the members were married just at random. Again, sounds horrible (and the two examples: India and the commune) are of course quite different in some ways, but both show the ideal where people are Openminded. And thus open to discussing differences and seeing where they may be wrong and ought to change in certain ways, see how some of their actions maybe are causing harm. And furthermore Openminded in the sense of being able to see the good, the beauty in one another. And thus being able to love anyone.

This openmindedness, suggests that if something isn't working in a relationship, you should talk about it.

But when you've got tons of people thrown together, people will instead learn to be closeminded. And from a closeminded point of view, there's no reason at all to discuss differences as it's accepted that people don't change. Thus no point in pointing them out. This closemindedness comes about in a number of ways. One way is simply by using force to get people to do what you want them to. They learn that being 'wrong' equals pain, thus they try to avoid ever changing their minds.

Another way is just simply with tons of people around you, there's no need to work things out with people. Just drop them and find some other ones that are more identical to you.

For our society to work we have to learn to not be indifferent to one another despite the fact that there's so many of us. We have to learn that despite the fact that hate, anger and violence certainly aren't solutions, they aren't the real problem. The problem is indifference.