Ramble about The Authenticity Hoax and Mysticism

After reading the Authenticity Hoax I thought a bit more about globalization.  If your frame of reference is limited geographically, like many people in the past, then if you start trading with another country is that a cause for concern?  No it is about trade, people staying present and working and trading.  Interesting that there is a class that is transnational, a group of people whose business interests take them across borders.  Well I guess when I think of that class I think of people that make enough money from international trade to be able to fly transnational whenever they want, for business or otherwise.

I’m sure, and I’m not being sarcastic here, that well-to-do people still have ties to local areas.  Is that right?  Think of people that do not travel far in their lives, aboriginals in rainforests, etc.  Seems like they cultivate a greater appreciation for everything local.  I think in our world the modern economy is mapped over everything, sort of a veil.  Never mind those that fly overseas for fun.  The people that are geographically trapped in an area, poorer people, still relate to the local world through the medium of the automobile.  And chain stores, suburbs, etc.  Potter’s foil is James Howard Kunstler: I refer and recommend you to his work. 

But Potter argues that people in local situations (authentic situations) want to get to live like we do.  They want out because the dysfunctional ways we live in the west are still much safer and pleasant than their conditions.  And this must be qualified by saying that they have no choice.  Sure, initially people in other countries would prefer to live in their own ways.  And perhaps we should leave them alone.  But the market won’t have it and everyone gets to live connected to everyone else.

So are we (I am) right in criticizing the rich?  I agree with Potter that how we live becomes difficult to rate on any objective scale.  The idyllic past was more often than not rife with violence.  Crappy jobs.  After reading the Authenticity Hoax I did think differently.  I do approach Kunstler’s work a little differently.  Not to be a relativist but the simpler/local/sustainable way of life espoused by Kunstler is just one of many ways to live a life.

            But just because that’s the way it is doesn’t mean it has to be that way.  There is still the aesthetic critique.  I am annoyed by a culture of overweights driving everywhere they need to go.  Maybe I’m just a jerk but I think that things would be different if . . . There I go prescribing something for everyone.  If I just don’t like it that can be reason enough.  Convincing people using (that bastard!) arguments was Potter’s game.  Got me to think differently.  But still his thought was out of touch with any mystical understanding of the world.  Just belief is the currency of the mystical in this sense so sorry arguments.  I’ll try and build foundations with that.  It would still be cool to be mystical and fly anywhere whenever.