Cultural in the United States
Compare and contrast what Morris Berman, Frank Capra, and David Fincher present as the flaws in our culture's pursuit of material self-interest.
Morris Berman, Frank Capra, and David Fincher present the society in postmodern consumer where the masculine identity is lost: the gray-collar male personnel and the satisfaction socially created by the society focused in materialism. Technology is the baseline for Berman's argument. The argument goes well-known to Neil Postman, and McLuhan Marshal it is not normal, not only does it change the way we connect with the rest of the world, but it also gets our brains wired (Berman 21). A normal brain of a person who has been print raised differs with a big margin from that of a person who, most of his time is corrupted by the internet.
However, the significance of the internet is making a reduction to our understanding ability to problems that are complex and interchange with connections of space to people who are connected to the net. By this act, the society is left less happy if not more. Berman argues that human interactions have been replaced by television, which has reduced the activities of the brain in a problematic manner. Sleep is the only active activity remaining for our brain: this increases our levels of loneliness. To the society where we have countable friends, we do not have those who we are so much into and can confide. In such a society, there is no time for people to interact with their neighbors because of the rewired brains making them less connected with others around them (Berman 73).
Berman, Capra, and Fincher's arguments share many interests and minimal differences; even though it is all about one factor, I still get curious that the circumstances of material receive a very short exposure in all the books. All the three have provided a brief discussion about the state economics of slaves and discussion of the moment of intellectual that dated from 60s to 90s. This was exactly where environmentalism had its origin and its limited growth was put in to consideration. This issue is briefly looked into and given the treatment of an ideas history than its main objective of exposing material realities. The American power peak can be noted as a coincidence with the high point of oil production done in the United States. It is also safe to say that the sudden and rapid growth of the American pathologies is a coincidence with the crisis of oil that had its debut in the 70s up to the early 80s (Frank, 22).
External growth would have been smooth when there was the availability of cheap energy. However, it turns sour when the growth downfalls on the hustlers instead of engaging in constructive things, they turn against each other. In some segments of Berman's argument, he has discussed the issue about capitalism of environmental critique. This to my perspective is secondary. Later on, he proceeds with a section that will only anger the sanest readers: hustling ethos' critique discussion that never had a chance: the life system of the Southern. The Southern culture had its dark side like slavery. Unlike Capra and Fincher, Berman admits to this and gets more interest to buy the idea of a life that intentionally lived to offer grace to others, pleasing them, and having time for recreation. This agrarian tradition where persons were strongly connected with the community and family and being each other's keeper before being responsible for themselves is the only one of its kind that enabled traditional hustling critique, but to some extent it availed an alternative (Berman, 48).
In Berman, Capra and Fincher's endings, they have not offered any hope for the United States. The titles directly states that America has failed or is a failure. Time for running is...
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