One of my greatest pleasures in life at present is going walking with my elder son. No, I'm not partaking in favouritism: the younger just doesn't see the point of walking when he's got a bike and so misses out on the conversations the elder and I have enjoyed of late.
The pattern of our conversations during these walks has become fairly consistent. He raises an issue of concern to him, asks my opinion on it, and we chew over the issue until the dog decides it's time to go home. Themes range from school, to the latest Percy Jackson film (which I enjoyed much more than I expected) to last night's subject of cars.
Now no boy is, I suspect, wholly unfamiliar with cars these days: that's the Clarkson effect. You can't be 12 and not watch Top Gear, as I now appreciate. But it wasn't cars per se we were disussing, it was what cars communicate about us that was the theme for our walk. It was partly fuelled by a day in North Norfolk. This is not called the Gold Coast for nothing: Chelse by Sea is another name. And it shows. Range Rovers and massive Audis that have clearly always stayed on the tarmacced side of a hedge abound - invariably without tow bars which are the native Norfolk justification for a car with more than 2 litres of engine. What was the point of them was our theme that developed as we walked.
So I introduced the ideas of Thjorsen Veblen on conspicuous consumption. And we noted that so far the Murphy family Citroen Berlingo has never yet failed to deliver us wherever we want to go, at speed limits if we wish, or go across any unmade road or field we have chosen to venture on (and sometimes we do). So why the 3 litre engines, the heated leather seats that are themselves motor driven in all directions, the aggressive Audi 'face' on its cars, and the giant, if pristine, wheels on so many of these cars?
We did, of course, discuss advertising. I explained my view, developed in The Courageous State, that there is no other industry solely dedicated to the creation of unhappiness, but that advertising is. And we considered happiness and unhappiness, and why having the 2012 model of anything supposedly leaves you inferior to the owner of the 2013 version, and how this impacted on his own consumption choices.
In all this I hope I left room for him to make up his own mind, as he has to do. But the pleasure comes from simply seeing him look at ideas so far taken for granted in new ways that pose as many questions as answers, with those then being tested in debate. There's little more exciting than that.
And we saw some hares. That was good too. And the dog ignored them, completely.
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A nice blog to read, Richard, so thanks for that. You’ll be on to hegemony in no time 🙂
Disclaimer: I have to admit to being an Audi owner, but only of a “baby” one (A1).
Now there’s an idea: hegemony that it, not Audi A1s!
Nothing wrong with Audi’s in themselves Ivan, especially the smaller ones like the A1. I agree the 4×4 ones are daft, but I suppose Audi are responding to market demand. In the unlikely event that I change my car the A1 is one of the few cars I’d consider (assuming I could afford a 2nd hand one.) However, I’m content with another of the VAG group’s products, my 11 year old Skoda which is cheap to run, highly reliable, and of a superb build quality.
As the recent BBC2 programs on Germany have shown, the Germans seem to manage capitalism a great deal better than we do. The contrast with their long term, more inclusive approach to our finance dominated, exploitative one is depressing.
I ran an Octavia for a long time – really good car
Lovely, lovely post; thank you.
Of course, purchasing an expensive car contributes a lot in VAT to the state, so I could say you are avoiding tax by not buying a new car :-p
But if you did ypu’d show yopu have as much understanding of tax avouidance as Mark Littlewood
I have similar conversations with my son who is twelve and live in an area where there is great wealth and rural poverty cheek by jowl. I’m sometimes a little too forceful in my views. Clarkson, of course, has been a representative of the neo-liberal, greed is good fraternity, using public school boy put down humour to ridicule any ‘concerned’ attitudes. Of course you can’t expect a twelve year old to discern this as most adults don’t manage it but he’s old enough to be encouraged to dig under the surface of advertising – the rest, as you say, will be up to him. parenting is a hard job, I get it wrong a lot but it’s a great challenge. It’s a great shame that the education system doesn’t put more emphasis on elucidating the labyrinthine nature of money and its manipulation -I’ve heard the the Steiner schools do something on this as part of their curriculum. Thanks for this post Richard.
Values are usually caught as much as taught. It how we do ‘it’ as much as, or more than, what we say.
I thought that line “there is no other industry solely dedicated to the creation of unhappiness” was v true, in fact profound.
Maybe I’m lucky but my boys have never shown the slightest interest in ‘Top Gear’, perhaps because we live quite inner-city so flash cars aren’t that common except when the police are pursuing a drug dealer out of Balsall Heath, in which case they whizz past pretty quick.
The elder one mainly watches MOTD & Cricket on 5 & (to my horror) re-runs of Glastonbury. The younger loves the American answer to “You’ve been framed” which is presented by Mr T & just consists of people falling over or running into things repeated ad nauseam. In fairness, it is pretty funny.
You’ve been framed drives me mad
But I have to agree it’s pretty innocent slap stick
I failed to pass on a strong sporting gene – or maybe their mother did. I watch MOTD sometimes – they never do!
You are lucky to able to have such conversations with your son- it’s great that he has questions. Mine does not bother, he thinks I am too old to know anything.
Thjorsen Veblen? I thought he was a Viking pirate, obviously your conversations
are on a higher plane than ours.
We have the same trouble with show off vehicles in Southsea, which are completely unsuitable for our roads, and fulfill no purpose whatsoever apart from a (misguided) sense of status I suppose.
I note the Citreon, do you have conversations about the decline of the British
owned (note, owned) Car Industry? And whether the purchase of a foreign car denies jobs to British Workers (aka Gordon Brown)?
Enjoy the conversations while you can, children grow up so quickly.
If I wanted to buy British it would have a Japanese badge – and a tax loophole attached
Ad-Junked
Selling dreams, selling schemes,
Selling creams for your face and your stomach
Cars, computers, insurance, blue jeans and desserts
Shares, holidays, property, alcohol and soap
With a little bit of glamour they’re peddling hope.
Trading on worry, you’re never just fine.
If all’s hunky dory, they’d be wasting their time.
Advertisng
Just what you really don’t need
Appealing to insecurity, greed,
A need for one upmanship
Or a cheap fatty fee
Advertising
Where would we be without it?
by Linda Kaucher
Thanks
Thanks Richard, nice post.
I think all parents (like myself) should spend time talking to their kids and if it can be done whilst enjoying nature then even better. We can’t shield them from the exploitative nature of the capitalist system, but we can affect their reaction to it. Unfortunately Gove doesn’t want teachers to teach kids to think for themselves only to be consumers not citizens.
On the subject of Audis, I’d say they are the ultimate badge of arrogance. Though I can understand someone putting themselves into massive debt to buy a car of their dreams, but I can’t get my head round why people buy personalised plates which seem to serve no purpose other than to massage the already-inflated ego of the owner.