Talk about unbridled assumptions and stereotypes! Kay comes off sounding like Naomi Klein, Maude Barlow and/or David Suzuki."unbridled materialism"
"...auto-dependant, air-conditioned, eight-lane suburban lifestyle made possible by cheap oil has created a nightmare not only for our environment..."
"Modern suburban developments have no sidewalks ...
too busy navigating that other creature of cheap oil: the local megamall ...""...red-meat conservatives cruising around with right-wing bumper stickers affixed to the back of their eight-cylinder pick-up trucks..."
Peter Foster picks up on this in his column about Hollywood’s most recent spate of movies featuring unbridled anti-corporatism, concluding with:What "unbridled materialism"? Would that be Jonathan Kay’s or everyone else’s?
What "nightmare ... for our environment"? More likely a "nightmare" for our economy.
There are "no sidewalks"? Almost every new suburban development I’m familiar with, including my own, has sidewalks.
"red-meat conservatives ... eight cylinder pick-up trucks"? Where I come from there are more eight cylinder pick-up truck drivers voting NDP than for any other party.
One is ... presumably not meant to take any of these entertainments too seriously. Still, with the editorial pages of both the Post and the Globe yesterday featuring condemnations of "unfettered capitalism," "unbridled materialism" and "neo-liberal fundamentalism" perhaps nobody should take casual but persistent condemnation of the market’s most prominent actors too lightly.
If the world is facing a clear and present danger, it is that eco-hysteria and anti-corporate sentiment will lead the political class to impose the kind of draconian, wealth-destroying policies that they hypocritically preach but know will be destructive.
Yes I find it very interesting considering that what we currently have could hardly be called capitalism. Most industries in Canada are over regulated and overtaxed. Competition in many areas is discouraged or banned. Government is already 50% of the economy. Hardly what Anne Rand had in mind. However they never seem to get enough so another sin had to be invented and this one applies to us all. The sin of consumption.
ReplyDeleteI agree, little nitpick...its Ayn Rand...read "Atlas Shrugged" cover to cover in three days, changed my life.
ReplyDeleteHank Reardon
Yup. What we need, starting in high school, is Ayn Rand in the curriculum as mandatory reading. Instead what we get, at least in BC, is "social justice" studies and other assorted crap and nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThings are going from bad to disastrous.
As for the "sin of consumption" the eco-hysterics and "social justice" crowd never seem able or willing to see the link between consumption, production and JOBS and standard of living.