We love money...and narcissism!

There really wasn't anything worth talking about in sports news today (A-Rod wants 40 Mil per and part ownership?), and I'd like to at least stick to that for a while - but there was a commercial during the Yankees game that caught my attention. It was a commercail for Sloman's Shield - some kind of home security system - where there are three guys in a truck who are obviously intending on robbing this particular house for some reason when they realize that there's a great security system and that they cannot rob that house; whence (ya damn right I said whence) one of the outlaws says that 'next door doesn't have a Sloman's - back up'. A wonderful contribution to classic democratic narcissism (for a better explanation read Plato's Republic). American culture is somewhat epicureanized and extroadinarily narcissized (yea, I make my own words) by the institutions of capitalism and democracy; essentially, without going into too much detail because I'm tired, these foundations of our society are conducive to narcissism and lack of worth for one's humanity because of the calue placed on the external world and things in it. It seems to be just more of what I was saying yesterday, in a different form; Don't rob me or hurt me, but it's perfectly allright to rob and hurt my neighbor, it's their own job to worry about that. Practically, no i shouldn't have to watch my neighbors back every other second, nor should I not secure my own home in order to protect him; and I don't believe this is Sloman's intention, either. The problem here is more of a subconscious one; the lack of regard for that phantom neighbor is appaling, they clearly disregard his humanity, while playing up the humanity of the individual with the Sloman's (not to say that one is more human with a security system), who is meant to be the viewers house; you are more human and more worth protecting while you're neighbor - any other person - is not worth the same. This is just one thing in a long list of constant cultural reinforcements being made in every commercial thing you see. Which is almost everything now-a-days. These commercial assumptions feed the mind reassurance that others humanity is lesser than ones own and ignorable, only by being conscious of these things can we overcome them in our minds.

On another note in this new mighty dog movie's commercial I just saw some kid is talking to mighty dog and mighty dog says hey you never see dogs fighting over money - hey! money (and in turn power and greed) not being essential to forms of life often thought to be less intelligent and ignorable for that reason, now still unimportant to a dog that is just as intelligent as a human - and the kid reverts to the argument that people don't sniff each other's asses. Just another re-affirmation of the importance of fiscal pursuits in ones life - "Hey man money isn't that important, get over yourselves, use your mind, use your body, do something as real as you can" "Hey dog, as a far less evolved and far less mentally capable being, stop acting on instinct; you're proposal is so ludicrous that I won't even entertain it with a real response". Just pounded it into our heads. Make us complacent. People don't know what they're doing to the minds of others and what they're doing to the entire conception of humanity in America, if there is even one left...