Our Dear Little Death Culture 6

I wasn't sure whether to write about competitiveness or violence.  Why not both?  One stop shopping.  Save a little time.  Yes competitiveness, being competitive, team sports, the job market, getting any little thing accomplished when there are hundreds and thousands of others scrabbling to have exactly what you have or what you want.

This is where global capitalism has brought us to.  Not really high tech toys in every fanny pack, and not really a high standard of living for everyone.  This ruthless unfettered and vicious competitiveness that has unleashed itself like a horde of furies knows no mercy and takes no prisoners.  In many major cities throughout North America, especially here in Vancouver, housing costs have been pushed out of reach to everyone but the most wealthy.  Everyone wants to live here, especially wealthy foreigners with bags full of money they have come here to launder.  This is beginning to change, however with the new foreign home-buyers' tax but still, almost no one can afford to live here now unless they are prepared to live with debt for the rest of their lives.

Capitalism is a form of violence.  It leaves people out.  Natural selection.  We have swallowed the bait and now we are choking on it.  Our vilest, most rapacious tendencies have been declared to be virtues and now everyone must be competitive and must out-compete everyone else or perish.  This means that all the gifts, the undiscovered potential, the raw beauty of those who are not strong enough to compete must perish, be extirpated.

This land was taken by violence by ruthless industrialists who fattened themselves on foreign Chinese and other Asian labour.  We can boast all we want now about diversity.  But really, regardless their ethnicity, it is the winner that takes all.  The one with the most money.  Equality is still our strong suit, but it really helps if you also have a good bank balance and an investment portfolio.

Saying no to greed and its twin ugly children, violence and competitiveness, does not necessarily have to be a death sentence.  We struggle together, we rise together and together we conquer.  We just need to get our noses out of our smart phones long enough to understand that we are not alone in this war.