Sunday, January 29, 2012

Rotten Apples

There is nothing so annoying as an Apple fanboi/grrl. Especially when they are probably just some shill hired by Apple to search The Interwebz and post pro-Apple comments to blogs that have said something less than complimentary about their gizmos.

No kidding. I've received a few critical comments about the Occupation post which is no more than I expected (and a response is forthcoming) but reactions to the substance of the post are nothing in comparison to the inundation of my inbox by helpful Apple defenders trying to show me the errors of my way.

Jesus, you freaks, give it a fucking break, will ya?

New flash - the article wasn't about you or Steve Jobs or Apple, except as cultural types or patterns of industrial production.

The hinge of the article is Chris Bowers' post from back in 2008 trying to convert a political process - a way of determining the distribution of social and political goods - into a triumph of culture - down with poor working class whites, up with the "creative class" - and the resultant confusion of political success with cultural expression.

To the degree that the self-identified creative class loves owning electronic gadgets produced under inhumane conditions and delivered with an outrageous retail markup and to the degree they can't stop shopping at a grocery store chain they want to think of as in line with their liberal, green, organic life-style, but is owned and operated by a radical right-winger who takes their money and spends it on conservative political causes, that is the degree to which this cultural class works against its political self-interest.

Responses that try to convince me that Apple isn't as bad a corporate citizen as [Microsoft/Oracle/Google/IBM/Exxon/Walmart/you name it] or that if I would only TRY Apple, I, too, would understand its magical appeal [Sorry, the aesthetic is completely Space:1999 and my user experience of these products is meh] or you feel so sorry for me being such a hater, and so forth are wasted on me.

I am not interested in your products as such. If someone else likes them, that's fine by me. I don't care. My focus is on why the left in the US continues to suck so badly in the political arena, and the kinds of cultural biases that Apple products appeal to are part of this analysis.

I'm just thinking differently about this than you are.

Anglachel

2 comments:

Palomino said...

"[T]o the degree [that the self-identified creative class] can't stop shopping at a grocery store chain they want to think of as in line with their liberal, green, organic life-style, but is owned and operated by a radical right-winger who takes their money and spends it on conservative political causes, that is the degree to which this cultural class works against its political self-interest."

Heh. But all they want to know is "What's the matter with Kansas?"?

Bob Harrison said...

I despise Apple and make no secret of it on my blog but I haven't received any attention from them, nor do I want any. But it does point who's who in the blogging world, eh? (I look up to see Spocko from my low perch.)