I was a latecomer to the game of bourgeois self-fashioning with an altogether different frame of reference, which frankly wasn't bourgeois at all. Precisely, I didn't grow up to believe that the purpose of my life was to compete on a market by using my image, skills and energy as currency to be traded for status and personal possessions.
My grasp of circumstances relating to exchange-based culture has always been through guesswork. Performing guesswork is very tiring to me, since working constantly with the ideas of exchange is not deeply ingrained. When I switch off from an exchange-based mentality and just become completely myself, I run into trouble with those who think I'm trying to imply something about their exchange value. It's impossible, of course, for me to know what I'm meant to have implied when I just lapse into being myself. The bare truth of it is that I engage with others for reasons apart from their exchange value. Or, I engage with them through a sense of obligation to try to conform to bourgeois mores, even though I don't understand enough and can only comply with normal bourgeois behavior through a mighty effort. The effort I expend to comply with conceptions of my exchange value in relation to others is always wasted. I don't believe in the game myself, and this is bound to show. Then when I mellow out, people think I am attacking their identities although nothing could have been further from my mind.
It's been a long time since I believed I had to make a reputation that would assure me status and market value. That's a bourgeois value I'd picked up, which has shown itself to make little sense. Successful marketers know that having capital and then an effective business plan is fundamental to success. Identity and image are the products of wisely directed capital, and do not exist without it. Those who wish to play the bourgeois game of life, but lack the monetary worth to do so, are deeply cynical about identity and image, mostly because their own images and identity have been successfully refuted so often. There should be a lesson in that, perhaps, in that those with financial backing seem to be able to do what those without it cannot seem to do -- which is to develop an identity into which others want to invest capital.
Many subscribe to the dream of being attractive to wandering capital and that's why situations can seem to have a sub-text, defining every individual's value. Perhaps switching off, to the extent of not allocating a value to others in one's vicinity, can seem like the worst insult of all. Still, I've never had the ability to be able to fully switch on to bourgeois evaluations. The time I can focus on anything in this odd way is limited.
The allocation of moral worth in bourgeois society is also very foreign to me. I have reasons to like or dislike someone, to view them with respect or otherwise, apart from any evaluation of their moral worth. The ability to remain "in character" -- by which is meant the ability to retain a bourgeois character mask -- is the fact most defining of a bourgeois individual's moral worth. Quite some while ago, Prime Minister Julia Gillard was caught out in a bourgeois error when it became clear that she was cooperating with the advice of an image consultant, in order to appear more professional and polished. The opposition party then raised the question of whether there was a fake Julia and a real Julia.
The Prime Minister's error was not in getting an image consultant but in acknowledging she had one. Her honesty as to what went into the production of the bourgeois self was her fundamental mistake. Her espousal of her knowledge as to how bourgeois society constructs identity led directly to the accusation that she was deceiving others.
Bourgeois society punishes guileless honesty, but rewards adoption of identities so long as this process is seamless. Adaptability with plenty of seams -- my kind -- does not get liked at all. I give away too many secrets when I act according to my nature.
My grasp of circumstances relating to exchange-based culture has always been through guesswork. Performing guesswork is very tiring to me, since working constantly with the ideas of exchange is not deeply ingrained. When I switch off from an exchange-based mentality and just become completely myself, I run into trouble with those who think I'm trying to imply something about their exchange value. It's impossible, of course, for me to know what I'm meant to have implied when I just lapse into being myself. The bare truth of it is that I engage with others for reasons apart from their exchange value. Or, I engage with them through a sense of obligation to try to conform to bourgeois mores, even though I don't understand enough and can only comply with normal bourgeois behavior through a mighty effort. The effort I expend to comply with conceptions of my exchange value in relation to others is always wasted. I don't believe in the game myself, and this is bound to show. Then when I mellow out, people think I am attacking their identities although nothing could have been further from my mind.
It's been a long time since I believed I had to make a reputation that would assure me status and market value. That's a bourgeois value I'd picked up, which has shown itself to make little sense. Successful marketers know that having capital and then an effective business plan is fundamental to success. Identity and image are the products of wisely directed capital, and do not exist without it. Those who wish to play the bourgeois game of life, but lack the monetary worth to do so, are deeply cynical about identity and image, mostly because their own images and identity have been successfully refuted so often. There should be a lesson in that, perhaps, in that those with financial backing seem to be able to do what those without it cannot seem to do -- which is to develop an identity into which others want to invest capital.
Many subscribe to the dream of being attractive to wandering capital and that's why situations can seem to have a sub-text, defining every individual's value. Perhaps switching off, to the extent of not allocating a value to others in one's vicinity, can seem like the worst insult of all. Still, I've never had the ability to be able to fully switch on to bourgeois evaluations. The time I can focus on anything in this odd way is limited.
The allocation of moral worth in bourgeois society is also very foreign to me. I have reasons to like or dislike someone, to view them with respect or otherwise, apart from any evaluation of their moral worth. The ability to remain "in character" -- by which is meant the ability to retain a bourgeois character mask -- is the fact most defining of a bourgeois individual's moral worth. Quite some while ago, Prime Minister Julia Gillard was caught out in a bourgeois error when it became clear that she was cooperating with the advice of an image consultant, in order to appear more professional and polished. The opposition party then raised the question of whether there was a fake Julia and a real Julia.
The Prime Minister's error was not in getting an image consultant but in acknowledging she had one. Her honesty as to what went into the production of the bourgeois self was her fundamental mistake. Her espousal of her knowledge as to how bourgeois society constructs identity led directly to the accusation that she was deceiving others.
Bourgeois society punishes guileless honesty, but rewards adoption of identities so long as this process is seamless. Adaptability with plenty of seams -- my kind -- does not get liked at all. I give away too many secrets when I act according to my nature.
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