Part II

So I have been thinking of the previous post entitled part I, and have hashed it out at great length with a band member of the notorious band The Black Squeeze ( if you are in Austin, find out if they are playing...usually at Trophy's. You should only go if you like hearing good music...if you like Kenny Chesney, rascal flatts, or insert crappy rock band on radio here, then you shouldn't go, it would be lost on you. )

Anyway, so this need to have social acceptance is the same for everyone. It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from...it is there. What hasn't always been there, at least not to the point it exists today, is a willingness to forego more "basic" needs to some extreme in order to attain this need. It is evident everywhere, and seemingly not confined to the social perameters of socioeconomic status like so many other things. Certainly it seems more prevalent amongst a lower SES, but not confined to it. I have reached the conclusion that it is mainly the fault of mass media....television, newspapers, magazines. People feel compelled to have the latest and most fashionable ( coincedentally, usually not cheap) phone, or television, handbag, jeans, shoes, car, house and so on and so on. But the bigger question is, why and how did people start to get this way. Once again, I think over time, people have been programmed to think this way, and most don't even realize it.

If you consider the goods and services industry before the large and exponential expansion of mass media, people didn't seem to be this way...as much. There has always been the existence of the "rich" or "aristocratic"...but that historically never had much emphasis on the way the average person lived. Before the rise of mass media, large in part, jeans were jeans, shoes were shoes, handbags and handbag. Slowly, people began to believe that if they didn't have the best and newest things, they were not as apt in the social heirarchy as someone who did. Virtues were eroded in lieu of materialism. The weakest people were the first to crack, whether this weakness is from circumstance, social setting or whatever it may be, these people started to believe what they were being fed, and just new if they didnt' have the newest cell phone, they couldn't sit at the cool kids lunch table. Slowly, others began to follow suit over time. Eventually, the newest and best products became a neccessity and not a luxury. Therefore, it is acceptable to buy an new iphone in favor of some more responsible application of your money, because you "have to have it", just as you do food, shelter, and water.

The unanswered question , is why do people have this innate desire to feel accepted? I am sure that some could argue that it is part of the evolutionary process, which I don't buy. They would point out that "animals are the same way, they are social creatures." I can't argue with that, this is true. However, the argument in the animals case could much more strongly be linked to evolution than people's. Most ( some animals are very solitary, which weakens this argument further) animals are social creatures, they rely on social connections as a very basic necessity for survival "strength in numbers" and the like...this I agree with. So the argument may go, "well, certainly humans at one time were living like this as well. They formed social networks as a means to survive...look at earlier civilizations and cultures." This I also agree with, but in keeping with the concept of evolution, my take is this. Humans have reached a point where survival is perfectly attainable and even easy without any form of social acceptance into any group. You don't have to be "accepted" to go to the store an buy food, buy fuel for your home or car, get a job, hold down a job, buy clothes, buy a house, ect., ect. You can be perfectly self sufficient even to the point of great comfort without having any social acceptance. This being the case, that if evolutionary instinct is where this need comes from, the need should be getting much weaker instead of much stronger.

All that to say, in the words of someone much smarter than me ... " If you really don't want people to accomplish anything, then get them talking about things like sociology and economics."

And on that note, that is all I have to say about this discussion, also because it is hard to type so much.