Wow! for every place I visit to be exactly the same as everywhere else is exactly what I wanted and not even slightly depressing at all. I can’t think of a better reason to visit a new place than the excitement of knowing it’s identical to the place I just left.
Of all the possible places to have an uber-conscious experience that manifests itself in our extended perception of the worth of both Man & Earth, I can’t imagine an environ much worse than in the confines of the barbequed pork rind section of a 7-11.
I agree. I remember when I was living in London and looking around at the underground station and thinking to myself, “Wow, this is so much different than the US. Why, if we were in the States, there would be giant, side-by-side advertising posters on the walls for me to stare at while waiting for my train.”
And then I was walking around Piccadilly Circus and saying to people, “You know, if we were in the states, they’d probably have giant, garish, neon signs blasting advertising at me from the rooftops. Thank God I’m in Europe where there is less advertising.” And as I was walking, I distinctly recall looking at the pristine red buses rolling by and saying, “Wow, back home in DC, that bus would have advertising on the side. Man, this completely non-materialistic European city is such a breath of fresh air.”
Not much to add, since I love where I live… not too many tacky chain stores/restaurants, beautiful scenery, clean air, the ocean, etc.
But when I read the OP, the first thing I thought of was this Matrix quote:
When the civilised world seems to be closing in around you, you need to get back to nature. Recharge your batteries or reset your civilization filters or whatever. Go hiking in a state forest. Go camping for the weekend. Waking up on a cool fall morning with the sounds of nature all around you, dew covering everything you can see and there isn’t another person for 50 miles around you is a very peaceful and relaxing feeling. Until a bird flies overhead and shits in your coffee and then you realize that life sucks and that you are going to die eventually anyway.
Sadly, no, but maybe by the end of the year. Meantime, here’s a link to a few of the photos of Lewis Baltz, who mines a similar vein (and who, frankly, is a much better artist than I am).
In other words, in London you had to be looking at transit advertising and freaking Piccadilly Circus to get bombarded with an amount of materialistic commercialism comparable to what you get from pretty much every square foot of the average American urban/business space. (And London is pretty ad-happy itself compared to some other European cities.)
Mind you, I’m not advocating zero commercial advertising or denying that it plays an important role in every modern economy. And in reasonable doses, it can also be aesthetically interesting, human and fun. (And yeah, I like Lewis Baltz photos too.)
But there’s a spectrum of what you can do with urban/business spaces in a prosperous modern economy. You can have commercial buildings that are handsomer or uglier, public spaces that are more heavily or less heavily commercialized, consumerist messages that are more moderate or more loud and insistent.
American social space comes down squarely on the extreme ugly/commercialized/loud end of that spectrum. And sometimes that gets pretty hard to take.
Uh, no, I’m not. I’m saying that big cities are all pretty much the same when it comes to advertising. With the possible exception of NYC. For instance, DC has about the same amount of advertising as London, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, etc. I’ve never been, but I suspect it’s about the same as in Rome or Berline, too. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it has much less than London.
Err…so can I.
In the good old US of A.
I never said you couldn’t. But in most of the US, it’s more difficult than it is here.
Geezus, you guys act like every square inch of the United States is paved over and you can’t hardly walk without running into a 7-11 or Walgreens. You must not get out much. Jump in you car and drive a couple hours.
Ever fly in an airplace cross country and look out the window? Lots and lots of open space out there. Lots and lots of trees, lots and lots of wilderness. Lots and lots of mountains, deserts, plains. And then a few blobs of civilization along coasts and city centers.
How can you complain about a metro area being “too metro”?
Go buy some land out in the middle of nowhere Nevada, Iowa, Alabama, Vermont, Texas and then tell me how much you like living without electricity, running water, phone lines, etc.
Nobody’s complaining about metro areas being “too metro”. We’re complaining about them being too ugly. If you’re simply willing to assume that “metro = ugly”, and that the only way to avoid ugly surroundings is to drive (:rolleyes: ) 100+ miles out into the countryside, well, that’s a symptom of the problem right there.
No, not really. Not by your original definition of “within a couple hours,” anyway. The US has a staggering amount of undeveloped wilderness, compared with most European nations.
Anyway, I’ve been to London and Barcelona, Los Angeles and Amsterdam, and more than few other major cities in between. They don’t all look identical, but I can’t say as I’ve ever seen a major metropolitan area that wasn’t heavily commercialized. Maybe I’ve just been going to the wrong cities.
I never tire of reading anti capitalist rants from people spending $30+ a month on internet access for their $500+ computer.
Who’s complaining about capitalism? What we’re objecting to is ugly capitalism.
Well, obviously we must either accept things 100% the way they are as being just and good. Otherwise we are pinko fags. No room for improvement here! No sir! Go back to sleep.
You don’t gotta be a dick about it.
Sure we do—this is the Pit, after all. 
Um, is that a joke? You’re buying tobacco, and complaining about food products that are bad for you?
I think that you miss the point. The bad for you food is not the issue here. What is at issue is that I have discovered that if I really pay attention to the environment, created by us, that I am passing through that it is base, tacky and distasteful in the extreme.
It is funny, because as I was writing the OP I debated glossing over the actual purchase that I was making because I was worried that it would become a focus for folks and detract from the actual point that I was making. How nice to see pessimism proved right again.
Look. I am not dissing capitalism. All that I am saying is that we seem to have created an environment for ourselves that is pretty damn ugly. I just think that we can do better
p.s. this is not a joke Pit thread, because that is a no-no.