Poverty Shaming, Ostentation, Class Hate, Brecht

I admit I don't have these thoughts all the time, only a fraction of the time I am on here actually, but something like these ideas are always in the background, pestering. I feel very silly having done this now. Below is a chorus of voices. I have turned the issue, as I imagine it, into a sort of Brechtian play, where ideologies are given avatars and replied to by the play's other protagonists. I have added exclamation points everywhere because that's just how it was in the Weimar Republic, everyone exclaimed. I thought people could join in with their own parts or give the parts to people on here (without being nasty) who fit the roles. New lines and speech marks indicate different characters, but where this needs emphasising I have indicated it.

Chorus, sung: "If you don't li-i-ke it, you don't have to look-at-it!"
"Greed is good! Didn't you hear the Iron Lady?"
"But ostentation isn't just about how high you are, it is about how high over others you are!"
"Anyway, it isn't greed, I just happen to appreciate well designed and independently produced bicycles [another voice interjects "kitchens!"] and can afford to pay the asking price!"
Someone sings: "I can jus-ti-fy the ex-peeeense"
"Yes it is greed, it 100% is greed! Just because you are not a glutton and your life is a picture of tasteful self-restraint, doesn't mean this is not a question of greed. If I can admit my envy you can admit your greediness."
"No one is making you feel ashamed."
Another voice "Yes but sometimes you can't help it. It is a shame to scrounge, to worry, to depend; poverty is relative to the cost of participation. Not having enough is depressing, humiliating. If others feel it too, should we not care for them and try to keep away hurtful material or sentiments if we say that those others belong here and are welcome?" Some people nod, some bluster with incredulity.
Another quieter voice: "I binge eat mincers to compensate myself for having mismatching tyres and my social isolation, then I have to go on a [singng, voices join in] 'eeeeepic riiiiiide' to burn off the calories!
"If, that is, my bike is actually working."
A hollow-cheeked ghostly female character sounds out from the rear of the stage. "Class war is death by a thousand cuts!" There is a moment's quiet.
Centrist dad in Ciele running hat: "Brecht was a communist, like Stalin, a psychopath who killed millions in a genocidal, man-made famine. Communism is discredited, you are a disgrace to good sense and the moral order."
"Wasn't there, as is often the case today, the problem -- as you indeed state -- that he was a psychopath?"
Another voice: "Shut up"
A reedy voice comes from a mole-like man standing in the curtain, stage left "There's an 'Overheard at the Bar of the London Fixed Gear and Single Speed Golf Club' thread where the others come together to shame those ostentatious ones!"
"But doesn't that indicate that this is all about shame? And if that is intrinsic to the nature of the place, is that not something bad that should be dealt with?"

The characters, in spot light, break the fourth wall and turn to the audience, the stalls also now brightly lit up ( by the screens of all the Apples). Their combined stare implicitly demands an answer to this last question. The actors hold this stare in a freeze until the lights go out.

Could that 4th wall be given a disambiguating 'u'?

thanks fixed!

I like this.

Fancy!

Brandishing an expensive education perhaps...?

:P

it was free at the time I took it. tbh I looked Brecht up to make sure I had remembered rightly. no one taught me to spell or punctuate, that's ongoing.

Centrist dad in Ciele running hat !

Getting towards the actual point, as a free will sceptic I'm inclined to say the only thing to be ashamed of is shame itself...

Otoh, western society is rather blind to the staggering opulence afforded by subsidised fossil fuel consumption, and perhaps we should feel unending guilt over our complicity with this systemic domination of the global south and the rampant exploitation and poisoning of the biosphere, huh

Centrist Dad are playing in october for charity
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/centrist-dad-live-tickets-870912902937
these ones don't wear ciele hats

Nailed it.

Be kind to yourself and to others, treat yourself if you can, don’t be ashamed, no one is better than you and you are not better than anyone else. Then you die. Fin.

I was raised to always remember to invite an online community of anonymous acquaintances to share in your imagined angst over which luxury good to buy in manner carefully curated to highlight your wealth, taste and above all, humility.

Nice although most people really don’t care what anyone else has possessions or perceived wealth wise.
A lot of people think they have the best taste or moral standards but we’re all puppets to some degree .

zing!

All too high brow for me. Can we at least add in a fart or a knob gag?

Did you have to look up who Brecht was too.

raises hand

Never heard of him either

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Actually would the seven states of Le Coq be enough of a high brow knob cag?

@Rich_G & @johnnettles2 to make you feel better I know a few theatre techniques as I went out with someone at Rose Bruford school (famous theatre school in south east London). They talked about theatre techniques and I was the pleb that kept asking what's that and they talk down to me quite a lot. So I tried to read up so I could at least join in the conversation.

More of this stuff please. The tru labour types that infest cyclo Kultur need some reeducation (probably in a camp somewhere to learn real class consciousness or alternatively death). Beatings will be administered to those failing to distinguish between "dominant" and "secondary" contradictions.

Don't get this thread. I seem to be trapped in an endless loop of signification.
However, I do spend a lot of time thinking about which quality consumer goods I would like to possess. Am I in?

You misunderstand. We are all in. There is no opting out. By virtue of being here and walking through life, you are part of it. We are all complicit in this club without doors.

That is an incredibly long winded and complicated way of saying you would like some Knipex pliers.

Can someone get chat gpt to summarise this thread and tell me what I should be thinking please?

I think you can just copy paste the link and ask it directly.