This video is about capitalism and consumerism. Mainly this video is pointed toward the western culture and developed countries like the North American continent and Europe. The Stuff video was made to remind us to think. Think about what we are doing and how it is hurting our planet and our people. It is trying to take us out of our repetitious circle and be aware, conscious of what we consume. It also reminds us of the motivations behind these companies which is money and profits not at all concerned with the consumer or their place of residence.
I related this video to the pharmaceuticals industry and the American people in general. We are using the resources to help our people creating medicines that help one disease and when that disease or problem is gone but a new one is created we have the delirium that we can innovate ourselves out of this problem. We can satisfy our hunger for goods buy buying more using more taking more. The companies that make goods and that make pharmaceuticals are both in the same war. Pharmaceuticals are in the war over resources. Resources of people and stuff industry needs resources form the earth. The stuff companies are leaving physical waste in the lowest most undeveloped countries and the pharmaceutical companies leave the lowest poorest people wasted in a sense that these people are left addicted to pills, without treatment in a very bad state. Shipping our garbage back to where they came from and the people there suffering for it.
This movie represents everything we have learned. It is about stuff and how western civilization really values stuff, however the concepts are mirrored in the biological movement. How is this related to the article? I think that we Americans have changed. We were simple people who used only what we needed. We were very money aware and did not like to waste anything and we did not live the same big lifestyle it seems everyone wants. Now people know everything about what is available. People are educated and part of groups, groups that have similar interests to what products they like and why they like them. It is a similar evolution of biocitizenship. People’s fates are either personal or collectivist. Biocitizenship is individualistic because they need to be aware and in control of their fates and collectivist like HIV/AIDS activists.
Biocitizenship is both a collectivist and individualistic. Rose writes about how people need to be informed, and understand there situations, learning from many sources and think over their outcomes with themselves and their families. “Individualism knowledge, values and the responsibility of the self now implicates both corporal and genetic responsibility (134).” Education is a key part of the modern biocitizen. Education shapes what the biocitizen is. The reason for this is because the availability of information is everywhere. The internet and medical books has done wonders for the patient. People now know much more and can thus receive better more productive treatment. However is the information available online really the best information? Yes there is a bad side of people being informed. The problem is that many companies such as the Lilly drug company can do direct marketing to the public. This is not ideal because it makes these citizens become branded. I mean that people on the internet will see the coolest drug website with really good educational matter and decide that they will only use there product. There is a large amount of coercion on the internet that will woo some customers into them.
On the other side is the person who wants to be part of a group. People who have had the same medical issues would group together and campaign toward a better outcome either political or medical. These groups would provide information about the disease, support others who had the disease and lobby for rights and care for their fellow sick. Biocitizens are different from individualists because they “refuse the status of mere patients” (Rose, 134). There are many examples of this that Rose points out such as AIDS activists, and Huntington disease patients. The idea of activism is slightly different however for the biocitizen today. The difference is that these bioactivists are now making alliances with scientist. With these connections these people such as the Huntington’s disease patients have a real say and hope for their future.
“Today we are required to be flexible, to be in continuous training, life-long learning, to undergo perpetual assessment, continual incitement to buy, constantly to improve oneself, to monitor our health, to manage our risk. And such obligations extend to our genetic susceptibilities (Rose, 154).” The ideas of what people are and need to be aware and responsible for are changing and becoming more biologically based. People even need to be aware of what values there body is worth to them and to others. The complexity in how we see ourselves is changing.
"The Story of Stuff." Web. 14 Mar 2010.
Rose, N. (2006). The Politics of life itself. Princeton university Press.
