From what I could see, there are no other posts for this month so I may be in the wrong place. Nonetheless, after reading the first assigned chapter of Fast Food Nation, Behind the Counter, a particular question arose for me to which I could not conclude a specific answer.
The first section of the chapter describes a phenomenon that occured in Colorado Springs, CO, in which a massive amount of people from southern California left there homes for the "beautiful, simple" country side. There exodus caused Colorado Springs to enter a systematic, machine-like era of mass development, through which identical neighborhood developments sprawled out of the cities at a remarkable pace. They are all the same, and they all have fast food joints strategically literred throughout to supply the Californicated area with its impulsive needs.
However, my question is, who takes the blame for this mess of dull humanity? Obviously, we don't like that the fast food industry is there to supply these people with garbage for food, that one is easy. But would this have happened if these people had not moved there? Are in fact they, we, the ones responsible for demanding this outrageous supply in our current capitolist society?
The home-builders also seem to get a bad rap. Yet I feel it is unclear where the problem truly comes from. Surely, I cannot expect the leaders of large development companies to employ armies of architects to design fun unique homes at pace with construction. As a result, I blame the buyers for sucking all the fun out of one region (South, CA) and deciding to use their amassed wealth to suck the life out of another (CO). They aren't to blame from an ethical standpoint, yet I see them (ALL OF US) as the problem. I guess we are too lazy to build and enjoy our own homes even when we are fully capable. Then again, maybe our economic system makes it too difficult for even the upper middle class to enjoy such luxury. We submit to these automated benefits to no end, mostly because we watch people who are payed to act like they enjoy them to no end on television everyday.
06 October 2007
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