The Spirit of Capitalism, or: too much information about my personal life

This is a bit of a different view of "the spirit of capitalism" as every time I tried writing about school or work, my writing kept getting infused with Upton Sinclair (as I just saw “Oil and the Jungle” at the Rarig Center last night – which was absolutely fabulous, by the way) and my personal dislike for “normal” jobs. I thought that would be great if I was writing about fighting “the iron cage” instead of being trapped in it, so I nixed that plan and fell upon this – my pathetic personal life. Namely the part of my personal life that involves my friend Annie. However, this runs the risk of sounding like a Dr. Phil show or me psychoanalyzing myself (which would both be lame and totally awkward). So I’m going to try very hard not to do that.

Annie is a history major at UM Morris and nice person (I emphasize she’s nice because, despite anything disparaging I say about her, you the reader should remember that I am biased from knowing her and not without faults myself. Thus it’s a hell of a lot easier for me to point out her downfalls). Annie was my best friend in high school and we bonded over a mutual appreciation for sarcasm, English literature and a sort of solidarity from both being only children. However, now that we’re in college, things are weird, possibly because we both have communication issues (she’s never online the same time I am, I apparently don’t know how to use a cell phone, she won’t really message me first unless it’s really important, and I don’t know how to begin conversations). But then things have gotten really weird.

About two weeks ago, Annie got her first boyfriend, which if I was a nice person, I would have been really happy for her. But instead, I got ridiculously jealous and pissed off. Why? Because I always thought I’d be dating before her, as she was never interested in high school and she didn’t really seem comfortable with the idea. Of course, people change but I haven’t really been up to speed on her social life as that’s something she doesn’t really tell me much about anymore. So while my high school friends were celebrating (and one proclaimed the day should be a national holiday in honor of Annie’s success), I sulked on my couch feeling sorry for myself. Some great friend I am.

Of course, there’s a lot of extra baggage going on behind the scene - weird unresolved stuff from high school that I could describe if I wanted to make my life sound like a soap opera, caught in an awkward spat between my roommate Megan and Annie, difficulties in trust with Annie, and general issues with both of us changing in college. But the pissed-off factor I had was fairly excessive. Sure, I was mad that she hadn’t gotten back to me about the global seminar in Scotland we’re going on in May because she’s spending more time with her boyfriend. Yeah, it was kind of irritating that everyone was making a giant deal out of her dating (and it was probably embarrassing to Annie, I would guess). And yes, it was another nudge at the state of my being single and the fear I have that everyone I know will be married with kids and I will be an old crazy cat lady.

And while I still feel like total shit for being this selfish (“She’s your friend goddammit – can’t you feel happy for another human being?” I’ve berated myself at least twenty times while writing this) Weber has given me some consolation that at least there’s some reasoning beyond my own experiences that’s influenced me. He states that capitalism today “educates and selects the economic subjects which it needs through a process of economic survival of the fittest” (page 20) and those who don’t “adapt his manner of life to the conditions of capitalistic successes must go under, or at least cannot rise” (page 34). In this structure, I feel threatened because I’m not coming across as the fittest – I haven’t accomplished as much as Annie, I’m worried I’m not successful, that I haven’t done anything worthwhile. And if I don’t accomplish enough stuff, I’ll fail at life and be miserable. But I have accomplished stuff – I’m in college, I’m happy with my major, I recently got a job. But because everyone else I know (more or less) has these things, then they seem less important. If I do well on a test – so what? As all of my friends from high school are academically successful, there’s this hidden drive to out-do each other. We have to be more academically successful, or successful in other things (like our social lives or outside activities). Thus outside activities and relationships become really heightened in importance. It’s not enough to be on campus – you have to be involved. It’s not enough to have friends or significant others – you have to prove how committed you are to them.

But why do we care about outdoing each other? Why do I care if I Annie is dating or why my friends (and my grandmother) always drill me if there’s “someone special” in my life? “Because people care about each other, duh.” Yes, of course. I do in fact care about my friends, even if what they do happens to piss me off. But people tend to compare themselves to one another and they want to make sure they themselves and other they know are on the “right track.” Weber describes the “valuation of the fulfillment of duty in worldly affairs as the highest form which the moral activity of the individual could assume” (page 40). It is our “duty” to be educated, get a job, raise a family and if individuals deviate from this norm, people begin to worry that they aren’t doing the right thing – and that they might end up being both financially and morally lacking in life. I think I’ve mentioned in a previous blog how my grandmother has already begun to worry that I’m an old maid. Let’s say that I didn’t want to have a family and that I just wanted to be a career woman (not accurate, but for argument’s sake, go with it). My grandmother would flip out – she’d worry that I was loosing a valuable opportunity in my life and (because she’s fairly conservative Christian) she might think I was missing out on God’s plan for me. My friends would be skeptical of my reasoning for this choice – is it because I really don’t want a family or have I just given up trying to plan that way? In their eyes I might be “going under” and risk wasting my life, or that I “cannot rise” by selling myself short and allowing myself to be stuck at a certain point for the rest of my life. I’d be deviating from my duty – to God, to society, to myself and my family.

It’s that worry of deviation that freaks me out and has thus caused me a ridiculous amount of unnecessary stress the past few weeks. Annie was always the one who didn’t want the “norm” and now here she is, running full steam ahead with it, which makes me wonder where that leaves me. If I asked her if she thought it was her duty to have a boyfriend, I’d probably get a really bizarre (and totally warranted) look. People don’t generally think this way (at least not consciously) but it’s there, hovering about. “We are all victims of the West!” my roommate Sarah keeps (semi-jokingly) declaring while talking about Occidentalism. Maybe Occidentalists have a point…