Tuesday, November 15, 2005

To Quote Maddox:

"If these words were people I would support Genocide"

Not content for Metro-izing our sexuality now people are metro-izing spirituality

most of your answers are yes, then count yourself among the growing numbers of metrospirituals—the kinder, gentler post-Yuppies who want to treat the earth and native cultures with respect, connect with their inner source and inspiration, test their bodies and expand their minds with ancient physical practices—and do it all with serious style.


These words all bother me when strung togther in a sentance. So let me pick some of the wonderful aspects of "Metro-izing something that is just a bunch of hippie yuppy garbage"

Jim Twitchell from U of F leads us off.

The sensations of luxury mirror the sensations of epiphany—the ability to give the consumer the sensation that I’ve come to the end of the line, I’m saved, I’m there, I don’t have to wrestle any more." The metrospiritual takes luxury-buying to a new level--reaching outward for connection to the planet and to each other.


You see he is leading off by saying "Luxury and consumerism replace religion" but the author of this belief net article doesn't get the joke... but I do and I find it very funny

Some Marketing shlub moves on with the next line of unintended Irony
"There’s lots of desire to be spiritual and have more meaning than a commercial, purely secular lifestyle provides. And there’s a smorgasbord of product offerings that have gradations of spirituality woven into them."


"Product offerings" and personal favorite "Gradations of spirituality" so you see again we are saying the vapid yuppies and vapid neo-hippie douches instead of trying to be spiritual look for products to be spiritual. They don't want a god that is just in some building they want god that has lots of offerings for life.

They want amway god.

Whole foods ( which is putting smaller actual useful health food stores out of buisness) shows the borgian influence of boomerisms on the "lifestyle" of metro-toolism

Metrospiritual companies that practice what they preach believe that popular, profitable products and social responsibility are not mutually exclusive propositions. Whole Foods, an emblematically metrospiritual company, is in the midst of a massive expansion of its $3.9 billion business. Not surprisingly, the Whole Foods web site echoes the now-familiar mantra, "We believe in a virtuous circle entwining the food chain, human beings and Mother Earth: each is reliant upon the others through a beautiful and delicate symbiosis."


Why buy your health food product at a special health food section of a regular grocery store when you can buy it at our store and pay more. But we promise to pet mother earth and call her george.

You don't see these tree hugging douches actually growing vegitables at home.. nor does the beliefnet quiz talk about that in where you get your fresh produce ( which shows how much this "lifestyle" is superficial because growing your own food and hunting your own food IMHO is the most spiritual way to get food)

but the Belief net author now goes in and embraces the vapidity of the lifestyle he is talking about himself....

One of the first things to catch the eye is a waist-high white Buddha-like sculpture. Not knowing quite what it was, I asked a sales associate, who didn’t immediately know the answer, but was extremely pleasant about it. We consulted a book on Buddhas, and when that didn’t help, asked another associate, who proclaimed it Ganesh, the elephant god, being held by his mother. Whether or not this is ultimately right, does it matter? It’s Indian, it’s expensive, and a lot of people have believed in it for a very long time, probably with very good reason.


#1) It is from India-thus superior to western spirituality-
#2) it is -expensive-
#3) people have believed in it a long time.

And in a store that sells these items to vapid people trying to embrace a spiritual system that is so hip and foriegn the first guy didn't know....

but again more irony abounds

" With all the new folks flocking to his studio every year, isn’t there a danger that the ancient practice will get diluted by commercialism, killed by its own popularity? .....What is unsaid here is that yoga can be awfully expensive (a 30-class pack at Jivamukti is $345, not to mention the $50 yoga mat and $70 Nuala yoga T-shirt, designed by metrospiritual supermodel Christy Turlington), so in order to get that healing you need a fair bit of disposable income.


oR ... I dunno you can just use a cheap mat a regular tee shirt not designed by a super moder - and we all know that supermodels are the saints of our new spiritual age-

You know how normal non vapid rich people do yoga

nder the sweeping banner of exquisite and forward-thinking good taste, reign supreme. Gorgeous Reichenbach tea sets jostle for space with retro aprons and folkloric Christmas ornaments, all on perfectly distressed grey-green driftwood cabinets. As their web site puts it, "Never satisfied with the familiar, our buyers and designers are on a tireless quest for those simple objects that bring beauty to our daily rituals, deepen our experiences, and to put it simply—make life inspiring."


Translation "I want something that looks less waspy... to show how sensative I am."

Ya see.. again... I might be crazy here but decorating your house with things that look good and are reasonably priced might be better because you are being frugal and reserving income to do positive works. Your not trying to show off how hip and uber-elite you are.

and it ends with such a cop out

And what is fantasy but a funny kind of hope? In a time of political uncertainty, natural disasters, and terrorist threats, maybe what metrospirituals are really doing is holding out the hope that, through their personal practices and purchases, they are making the world a safer, more friendly, benevolent place. And who’s to say they’re not?


In other words " I hate consumerism but I want to make MY consumerism superior"

Utter bunk

and how did I score... why just a slight shot ( 13 point) above the low end tier of "metro-hippie-douche-ality"

10 - 18
You may lead a spiritual life, but your interests are more 1969 than 2005. You prefer an earthy lifestyle to the city chic way of life that metrospirituals follow. Metrospiritual values like preserving the earth and using natural or organic products are probably important to you, but you're more conservative about the way you reveal these values.


I consider anything that is food to be organic. And I consider anything not made in a lab natural.

That is not what dirty neo-hippies do

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