Intermission: Community and Society

Question 1

Discuss nihilism

Answer 1

Decades of life under capitalism has created the conditions for broad feelings of Nihilism
Nihilism cannot be addressed by the benefits of social welfare or the freedoms of the market
Community provides a way to address the problems of Nihilism and serves as the foundation for other social justice projects
Globalism and capitalism have continued unabated and have ultimately undermined our capacity to produce transformative change, which has lead to a sense of hopelessness and nihilism
○ Nihilism shows up in the world mostly as a sense of loneliness
§ Ground for the totalitarian ideology
○ Current left wing responses
§ Ethical consumerism
§ Social democracy
§ To an extent - social movements
§ ARE NOT EFFICIENT - need to focus on building community as an antidote to nihilism and totalitarianism

• Nihilism as “an intellectual and political position premised by the rejection of all moral and ethical values grounded in the belief that there is some kind of higher or authority or being”
  ○ Nihilism is a sense of ideology
  ○ Our sense of meaninglessness is helping sustain and maintain the status quo - maintaining our sense that there is no alternative for capitalism
  ○ Used to be religious or god
  ○ Higher authority has now become money or consumerism but we don’t believe that hence nihilism
  ○ Existential poverty or nihilism in the global north which leads directly to the poverty of the global south

Question 2

Discuss consumerism

Answer 2

• Consumerism
  § The ideological process that orients much of life around earning money in order to purchase and make use of goods that are no actually necessary for survival and health
  At the behavioural level
  □ Entails that people purchase items they do not really need
  § Emotional level
  □ Making a purchase feels good due to elaborate system of lifestyle advertising and status symbol reconstruction
  § Cognitive level
  □ Justified as the driving force of economic growth, as evidenced by concerns about indicators of low “consumer confidence”
  § Institutional level
  □ Banks support consumerism through credit card offers and stores support consumerism by extending their hours of operation and redesigning malls as places to spend leisure time

Question 3

Discuss Globalisation

Answer 3

Globalisation and its effects
- Most general definition = the spread of a local practice or product to eh rest of the world
- Second common use of the term = a process and a result of that process
- Friedman (2000) believes that the solution is simply more globalization (for example, better communications systems, better representative democracies, and more transparent financial systems). A fast-growing group of concerned citizens and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world do not agree that the kinks in globalization will simply work themselves out eventually through more globalization
- It is crucial to recognize the deep connection between globalization and the political economic ideology known as neoliberalism
○ “Whatever limitations persist to its practice, neo-liberalism as a set of principles rules undivided across the globe: the most successful ideology in world history”

Question 4

Describe the principles neoliberalism is founded on

Answer 4

• Neoliberalism is grounded on the following principles:
  
  1. That human beings are necessarily atomized, competitive, possessive, and selfish
  2. That society is merely an instrument that every individual can use to satisfy their selfish ends
  3. That social inequality is the natural consequence of individual differences and stems social life-producing dynamic movements
  4. That freedom is always at stake when individuals or institutions try to control or regulate market forces
• Most of these are opposite to CP’s visions and values
• Many of the social problems CP targets have been exacerbated by neoliberal policies

Question 5

Describe capitalism

Answer 5

• There used to be two systems (capitalism and communism) but now its only capitalism
• When there was two (communism and capitalism) we could question the other but now there is no reason for questioning
• No nostalgia for the past and no belief that the future is going to be some kind of utopia
• Being good many not be as easy as it seems (1990s)
  ○ Used to just be able to align themselves with liberal communism or good causes - seen as progressive
  ○ But now being good is more complex and may mean standing up to those who are fighting against communism
• We were collapsing into one world where one ideology is key - humanism
  We cant stand outside of capitalism and critique it - we are still inside of it as there is no other option
• To attend more directly to social justice and to engage in more transformative interventions, CP can better frame the problem of poverty in the context of globalization and capitalism