Identity and Reason

AIG has decided to change its name to AIU Holdings Ltd., and this has stuck a strange chord within me. Not too long ago we saw Blackwater change its name to Xe, and now we have another corporate entity changing its name to avoid public backlash. Admittedly, its only fitting that these entities scramble their familiarity to retain competitive leverage, but the question I find myself asking is just how functional is this conceptually? Corporations have legal personhood in our society, meaning their entity is treated as a singule citizen in both cases against them as well as in political representation, so even in viewing it in terms of fairness against the common I have a hard time reconciling the weight of this. I mean, when a felon changes their name after getting out of prison we don't drop all charges against them, levying to accept his or her sincerity in change as greater on account of it. For me, this goes beyond an assault on corporate personhood into a realm where we stand back and look at exactly what the fuck we've created.

I can't say that I'm a person who damns corporations outright, but there is a certain degree of responsibility they should be held to. Its just upsetting to see that they can manipulate public perceptions so easily, and while I'm sure its going to cost them millions of dollars to accomplish this shift there's something that just doesn't meld well within me. It's come to a point in our society where our identities are under assault in such a drastic sense, and I can't say its any one party to blame; its just something that's apparent and unhealthy. There are options offered to those financially capable and influential enough to forget their misgivings, but those same escapes aren't afforded to the many. We find ourselves under constant bombardment from advertisers trying to crux our personal value and identity, and yet the symptoms of this are largely left in silence. People in America are dissident and depressed, malcontented and inconsolable. Are we really supposed to believe that this isn't a reaction to the assault on our senses at a nearly nonstop pace?

I'd say this is the ugly reflection of my previous point, being that capitalism spawns complacency; the idea that this same complacency is an intense and uneccessary gaze into our personhood. I'm in no way vouching for the idea when I present it, but could it be that we're simply too mollycoddled and too comfortable for our minds to be able to rest comfortably against our primitive convictions? I think something like this is mostly sensationalized, but there's also an aspect that interests me within it.

I was recently reading an article which talked about transhuman architecture, or an architectural approach which kept things difficult and uncomfortable for the dweller, much like a natural environment. Some of the threat of the actual wild was left out (i.e. predators), but the idea of an environment in which the inhabitant is constantly forced to think constructively about how to accomplish tasks is an interesting one. Would someone actually benefit from being in an adversarial situation like this or is it all just fanfare? Maybe the question I should be asking is this: How do we regain our right to self manifestation and personhood in a society where almost everything is force-fed to us and nothing is safe from the touch of the marketplace.

I'd like to look back at another subject I've referenced here, that of John Dos Passos and the U.S.A. trilogy. As I said when addressing it, the point of these books was to question the aim of this country as a realm of self creation above all in a world that was structured and oppressive against the uncommon. Should we consider ourselves less free than the characters presented in these novels as a result of the omniscient presence of corporate needs, or are they largely indifferent? I'm inclined to say they aren't, but its also hard to judge against a point in the past where modernism was so prevalent and beliefs held a harsher conviction than they do now. Conversely, I don't think people felt as compromised or assaulted as we do now, which is a testament against a financial world which constantly wants our attention. Its a hard point to lobby.

What I'm trying to say here is exactly how many exceptions are we willing to let corporate America afford? They have personhood, but they also have our personhood, and the cycle seems broken. I'm willing to confess that the problem is in part due to the (currently) lacking conversational ability to bring about change coupled with a moral dilemma which can be pinned to no one particular party besides the practice, but that doesn't mean the rules of the game shouldn't be changed to protect our contentment. In simplest terms, being told that our desire for material goods should never be substantiated doesn't really seem like a healthy way to go about living, and while the economic influx has been beneficial in some senses, its a practice that's far from perfectly honed. I'm not sure the voice against these practices has evolved into anything which can offer a shift or compromise which is at all satisfactory, but the voice is there. People are upset and complacent, and how are we supposed to break this practice without breaking the market which offers us prosperity and health?