Lese gerade den Steppenwolf. Nach anfänglichen Schwierigkeiten mit Hermann Hesses Art, Sätze zu schreiben die drei Seiten dauern, gefällt es mir jetzt sehr gut. Das Thema über das hadern mit dem eigenen Platz in der Welt passt gerade gar nicht schlecht zu meinem eigenen Lebensabschnitt.

Außerdem habe ich mir mit meiner Freundin diese Woche “the penguin lessons” Im Kino angeschaut. Nach dem Verlassen des Kinos dachte ich mir noch “hmm der war ganz nett aber ziemlich durchschnittlich…” Aber je länger ich darüber nachdenke umso schlechter hat er mir dann doch gefallen. Eine Reihe austauschbarer Klischees wurden hier aneinander gepappt um einen langatmigen unpersönlichen und oberflächlichen Film zu machen. RogerEbert.com drückt es gut aus: Der Film will gut sein, hat aber Angst davor großartig zu sein.

Not Jewish and I’ve only been to Israel once, so take my anecdotal experiences with the appropriate amount of salt…

So as with any religion, there are a lot of different sects in Judaism. Some are more radical and traditional than others. The most fundamental Jewish communities in Isreal sometimes have a pretty negative outlook on outsiders and foreigners in general and stick to strict fundamental religious principles. So there are stories of them messing with tourists, like throwing rocks at their cars and spitting at them. I didn’t experience anything like that myself, but was warned about it happening in certain areas.

My theory is that the American group wandered into one of those areas and got roughed up a bit.

This is a frequently repeated quote attributed to the late philosopher Frederic Jameson. On its own it doesn’t make a statement about capitalism or what it is at all. (If you wanna know more about Jamesons theories on capitalism you can read about it in his books)

Jameson’s quote points out that people often find it easier to picture possible world ending doomsday scenarios, than it is for them to think about alternatives to living in a capitalist world to try to avoid these scenarios.

You can even test this yourself. Ask people around you about the end of the world and many will point out reasons like climate change, demographic changes, environmental destruction, pollution, world wars, nuclear holocaust, asteroid impacts (shoutout Roland Emmerich) and even biblical scenarios for an eventual end of the world as we know it.

But ask them if they think there are other ways to live, so that those things won’t happen and usually they will just give you a version of “this is just how things are, not much you can do about it” or “the world could be different, but there is no use in trying because this is just a utopia and I have no idea how to change stuff anyways”.

Regarding your last paragraph, imo this kinda misses the point. I agree, there are structures that exist parallel to what most people consider capitalism, but ask people in most self described capitalist societies and they will not really recognise the difference and will just see it as an anomaly at best.

Btw, this is all coming from a European perspective, albeit heavily informed by US media.

Kann man sich da irgendwo beschweren oder muss ich meinen Unmut in die unendlichen Weiten des Internets schreien? Was für eine schwachsinnige Wahl…