Place
While I was with them they had no thought of a world other than their own. They were not ignorant savages; on the contrary, they were the lineal heirs of a very ancient civilization, who found within the framework of their society the personal freedom and self-discipline for which they craved. Now they are being driven out of the desert into towns where the qualities which once gave them mastery are no longer sufficient. Forces as uncontrollable as the droughts which so often killed them in the past have destroyed the economy of their lives. Now it is not death but degradation which faces them.
—Wilfred Thesiger lamenting the modernization of Southern Arabia, from the introduction to his travelogue Arabian Sands.
I'm still thinking about what people really want. A few weeks ago, I engaged some friends in a discussion of the importance of consumer goods, but I think it's time to expand the discussion. I still think that people want 'things,' but there is obviously much more to life, and I think that identifying the roots of people's desires is a crucial part of understanding what life is all about. So, do they want things? Happiness? Power? Money? Status? Love? Respect? Stability? The status quo?
The above quote touches on a bit of these questions, as Thesiger decries the lost enchantment of a place he once loved. Thesiger later resigned himself to the fact that he couldn't hold on to old traditions for tradition's sake, but the changes he witnessed in his life are worth examining. Thesiger, being an explorer, obviously lamented the loss of unexplored frontiers and exoticism, but I imagine that he witnessed casualties more severe and worrisome inflicted by humanity's quest for...whatever it is it thinks it wants.
The benchmark I most often use to defend the Western way of living is life expectancy. Citizens of industrialized nations live longer than those of non-industrialized nations. Democracies tend to take better care of the physical necessities of their people than other kinds of government. Much of our economy is fueled by our fear of death. However, I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't want to live a shorter life in a more beautiful place. Or, if not a beautiful place, a place in which one feels comfortable.
Immediately upon typing the last sentence I prompted myself to root through my roommate's unpacked belongings in search of his copy of The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway.
"You do not understand. This is a clean and pleasant café. It is well lighted. The light is very good and also, now, there are shadows of the leaves."
—From Hemingway's A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
These thoughts of 'place' struck me in an odd way this past Friday night as I sat in the bathroom of the Potbelly's in Chinatown. I had some time to think and look around, and I noticed the textured wallpaper, the antique fixtures, overhead lamp, faucets, rough glass on the door, floor tiling, door handles and so forth. It struck me as odd that the bathroom existed in a way that called attention to its existence. That is to say, it was designed with much more than the bottom line in mind, an anomaly among inexpensive lunch places downtown. The fact is that I didn't really want to be there. I wasn't feeling well and I would have rather been outside, feeling well with my friends. But, I was stuck there and I found myself enjoying it, simply because someone had made it beautiful. There were designs in the wallpaper, a golden light from above, a frame around the mirror...
A girl knocked on the door. The restaurant was closing.
It was raining heavily that night and I shared an umbrella with my friend as we walked through Chinatown to her car, past new restaurants and stores, all of them pumping new life and money into a promising new neighborhood. But I wonder...with all of the added dining and shopping options brought into the city, will any businesses pay as much attention to the details that make places worth visiting? Don't get me wrong. I'm not going to go out of my way to spend more time in Potbelly's bathroom, but there are details -like the shadows of the leaves in the café in Hemingway's story- that can create comfort and peace. I believe that these details need to be addressed as we can afford to pay attention to them. Because otherwise, what are we if we aren't where we'd like to be.
It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada.
—ibid
Jed,
I think we don't inately "know" what we want. The origins of most desires come from a presentation of options. Most comsumer products are sold in such a way. Are sold based on comparison with other makes and models. Chevy or Ford, of course they don't present the other option, or the bus. That idea of choice leads us to desire one or the other. Being raised in a religious context we were presented with several destinies, and our actions or at least thoughts have something to do with our desire to end up in a certain spot. I think for a much of our lives desires are generally a product of being presented options, I think this can be seen in our increased "desire" for consumer goods. before the C.D. was presented as an alternative to vinyl were people thirsting for a new format?
The problem with this is its unfulfilling. If I'm right and the desire is created by the choice its really choice that we desire, and we will therefore find ourselves wanting.
Following this thread I have a new reason why people like to "get away". Your freedom is not for sale when you are out hiking, camping, fishing etc. What I mean is the choices you make become less comercialized, no announcer is selling you to take the next step up the mountain.
I think they had it right "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of hapiness" we tend to congreagate in densly populated democratic societies because life expectancy, the protection/preservation of pursuit is greater, and maybe we just squander our windfall too often. We are free to pursue what we really want, but before we figure out what that is we have to free ourselves to buy a few things. I've never really thought about it this way before, but it makes sense to me.
Ciao
MES
Good Jed. I like a lot of your comments. I, as you know, have argued with you about the imperical value of such benchmark stats as life expectancy as determining factors in economic arguments. I completely agree with your thoughts on the need to balance life expectancy (along with other "facts") with the murkier, more elusive quality of life.
I stated in a pervious comment that the main weakness in economic analysis is the difficulty inherent in quantifying the value of non-pecuniary items such as beauty, happiness, feelings of safety, etc. What results from this difficulty is a world that is evaluated strictly on the basis of cold facts such as GDP and consumer confidence. Although these factors undoubtedly play a distinct role in the enjoyment of our lives they too often embody more importance than they deserve in making decisions in our society. Such an economic analysis ignores many of the things that make life worth living relying instead on cold calculations of "success".
As a side note, I love when Fortune, or some such magazine, comes out with their "quality of life" index of american cities. This is a misguided attempt to quantify the unquantifiable. The magazine uses stats like life expectancy, income, cost of living and particulate pollution in order to numerically determine the best place to live in America. If anyone needs proof that such a process is fraught with error and incalculability please remember that Provo, Utah is consistently in the top 5.
Posted by: Gramps Crenshaw at June 22, 2004 12:45 PMGramps I really liked your comments. Yes beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As much as Wilfred Thesiger enjoys the 'Quality of life' of the Arabian desert, I do not see much for me there. New Zealand is much more attractive for me.
I feel that people in general are trying to make the best of their situation. As we are each reared in differing environments, cultures, etc. We can only decifer what we deem as the best for us from our surroundings and by watching others. The only factor that we can use in determining quality of life in my eyes is education, or availability to obtain education. Education allows us to take advantage of other peoples perceptions to add to our own, thereby allowing us to define more precisely our own idea of quality of life, and how to improve it, regardless of our current goegraphical location.
Mark, I agree that our desires are a synthesis of ideals placed upon us by myriad influences. My pondering is largely fanciful. It is impossible to determine whether people would rather be free or secure. I believe that September 11th has polarized many Americans along those lines, but it's obvious that such a debate will never be resolved. In the meantime, I wonder how freedom, security or beauty affect our decisions.
Regarding people’s desires to "get away:" our consumer society might push people to get away in different ways. You seem to be repulsed by consumerism, running to the hills. Others, the Outback drivers and North Face junkies, are sent into our National Parks on a quest to match the images portrayed in Outdoor magazine and Patagonia catalogs. It goes either way. Some need to be challenged by a foreign environment, it makes them feel more alive (I feel this way, as did John Adams, and Thesiger). Others long to stay in control of their environment. I'm reminded of an African American comedian who was confused by campers who would work 40 hours a week so they could pretend to be homeless on the weekend. Thesiger lamented that the Bedu "[were] being driven out of the desert into towns where the qualities which once gave them mastery are no longer sufficient." If they were like him, they might have enjoyed the challenge, but that's not the problem. The problem is that they didn't have a choice.
Gramps notes that Fortune's misguided attempts to determine quality of life are insufficient, but perhaps the parameters they address are exactly what some people desire. I'm sure we could come up with a quality of life index that would rate Mali somewhere in the top 5 if we heavily weighed average time spent outdoors with one's family.
Finally, I agree that Alex's assertion that education is particularly liberating, but I'll add that such an education is only valuable as far as it empowers the individual to think critically. I believe the pith of this whole discussion has to do with whether people are free to choose where they live or not. I believe that we, as a society, should afford as many options as possible.
I'm in Costa Rica right now. What a place! I wonder why I'd ever leave.
Posted by: Jed at June 22, 2004 05:18 PMJed,
Its not that I'm repulsed by consumerism. I'm a white upper-middle class american male between the age of 18 and 30 with plenty of disposible income. I am the target market, and I am sucessfully marketed too quite often. I just know that its easy for me to get caught up in making consumer choices that often do little more than shrink my wallet and require me to house more stuff. On the other hand the things that result in happiness, that which I feel I desire are general more cost and space efficient. Playing volleyball at a barbeque costs about the same as a new CD, and has the benefits of being outside with friends and family, while a C.D. takes up a few more cubic inches of space at my dwelling place, while promotting anti-social behavior for me personally. One of my main struggles in life is budgeting my consumer desires, not passively accepting that my choices involve only that which is presented to me by madison avenue, but exploring my real options in order to make choices that actually make me happy. That's what "getting away" is for me. Its easy to do without a T.V. radio or internet, but it can be done comfortably in almost any context.
Anyway, just thought I'd clarify my thoughts.
Have fun in Costa Rica. Surf.
I was talking with my dad a month or so ago and you might know more about this than either of us. Are we at a point in our economy that unless consumer debt is a staple "growth" is inhibited?