Hee has made some interesting points on her blog post about “How Capitalism gets a grasp on you” and I can't wait for her update.

I've got some thoughts about this topic which is quite important for people in our age group.

1. Idealism becoming realism

It's quite easy for young people to have strong beliefs and ideals. After all, it’s much easier to maintain these ideals for someone who has not yet seen the complications of life, earning a living and having responsibility for others. This puts things in perspective. When you live in a self-centered world, which you do as a young person, you have not yet experienced the complexity of human society. While you subconsciously know that the world out there is extremely complex you tend to simplify and apply theoretical models (models are always simplifications) it to make it less scary. I remember how smug I was when I was a teenager. You don’t believe what your parents want to tell you and come up with models of how things work while constantly looking for evidence which confirms your view. Once you are forced to seriously rethink your ideas, which can happen at different stages (university, first real love, work), you realise that the world isn’t black or white but gray – a very unattractive colour for a young person who just wants to be interesting and unique and needs some reference points to hold on to.

2. Capitalism and being busy

I’m not sure if working and being tired afterwards is a capitalist thing. I think it’s just a fact of life. People are just like bees or ants. The whole point of your existence is to make life better for society by contributing to a bigger project (bee hive, family, company, nation, humankind). That is very exhausting but rewarding (for me at least). That’s why people like to talk about how busy they are. It means they are making a valuable contribution. But since everyone just says that all the time nowadays I have stopped believing it. I am personally not that busy.

3. Ideals and Capitalism

What you say about the rat race and losing your ideals is still something worrisome. I don’t think that growing up and understanding responsibility is an excuse for letting go of your ideals. It all becomes problematic when people think that just because they’ve made their contribution (i.e. earned their money) they can now lean back and switch off their brains.

This makes people lose their empathy. There is this funny idea that people deserve to get pampered, indulge and spend their “hard earned money” the way they want. I’m not sure if this is Marx’ theory but this whole idea of deserved apathy (the disconnect created by money between how you consume and where it comes from) is a big problem.

And I don’t think it makes people happy either. London is one of the best places to watch the rat race and this delusional idea to be able to buy happiness by following the standard path to bliss (job, house, marriage, kids). Many people who arrive here feel very self-conscious because it’s all so urban and rich – and they are not. And that’s when you’re all set to enter the rat race yourself:
You don’t do what feels right (no empathy) and is right (apathy) but what you’re told is right (what the others do).

One of my least favourite status updates of these people on facebook is “just left the office :(“ posted at 9pm, which to me sounds like “It all seems so pointless but the clock says that I can’t be that useless.”


Can everyone please listen to themselves do things that feel right and stop doing things that feel wrong and get you down?