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| T h e C e n t e r f o r S t r a t e g i c a n d I n t e r n a t i o n a l S t u d i e s | ||
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In this issue . . . EDITORIALS
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Global Trends: A Glimpse Ahead - Albert Borgmann |
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Society in the Postmodern Era Excerpt:
Why did we like the Marlboro Man in spite of ourselves? He had character. He wore the imprint of his world and his work on his face and clothing. He was tanned not because he'd been to a tanning salon but because he'd endured the sun of the plains and the high country. His face was heavily lined. He squinted, not from staring at a computer screen too long, worrying over derivatives, but because he moved in the cloudless outdoors of the prairie. He wore faded jeans, not at Tommy Hilfiger's dictate but because jeans were the toughest pants around and they showed the wear and tear of his riding and roping. He wore a sheepskin jacket, not because it was cool but because it was bitter cold in January and his neighbor ran sheep and sold their skins. He wore a slicker, not because it made him look tall and imposing but because it was the only way to keep reasonably dry on a horse in a rainstorm. And at Christmas time, the Marlboro Man didn't go to the corner lot for a manicured Scotch pine at $10 a foot. No, he rode into the hills behind the home place, looked for a young, handsome Douglas fir, cut it, roped it to his saddle horn, and slowly dragged it home in the falling winter light. What so impressed us about the Marlboro Man was not the mere fact that his world was inscribed on his appearance. That is true of the homeless as well. It was the kind of reality that impressed us as it left its imprint on him -- the vastness of the plains, the ruggedness of the mountains, the violence of the weather, the orneriness of cattle, and the grace of his horse. Our affection for the Marlboro Man was troubled, however, by doubts. It was hard to ignore the ubiquitous cigarette or to separate the rancher's wholesomeness from his addiction, hard to forget that his purpose was to get us (or keep us) addicted too. It was hard seeing that Marlboro country was actually a cemetery. And it was disconcerting to learn that those rugged clothes were available to all from the mail-order Marlboro store whose address was given on the very advertisement. Most unsettling, perhaps, were the rumors that many a Marlboro man was an actor who didn't know a cinch from a stirrup. The corruption of the best is worst, the Romans said. At the heart of what we would like to believe is genuine and wholesome we find fakery and exploitation. We might think that the world of ranching is still out there and can be captured in its purity and vigor by writers, photographers, or documentary filmmakers, and to be sure, such recordings and celebrations can be done. But melancholy shadows such accounts, and closer reflection reveals that the reality that underlies ranching life is brittle, fractured, and falling apart. The economic base of ranching is thin and crumbling. The price of beef and a reasonable return on labor and investments are beyond the diligence and prudence of ranchers. Prices are determined by faraway forces such as beef production in South America and Australia, exchange rates, the welfare of Asian economies, and the preferences of consumers. Beyond ranching, other industries we have considered basic, in which men wrest resources from nature -- mining, logging, agriculture -- are losing their fundamental status as well. . . . Download the full article, available in Adobe Acrobat [.pdf] format.
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The Washington Quarterly |
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