McDonaldized?
It's a real thing guys. I'm not even kidding.
In Sociology today I learnt that McDonaldization is an actual term where it talks about how culture takes on the characteristics of a fast food restaurant. McDonald's being the success and cultural icon that it is, was obviously powerful enough to be used as term to describe this comparison.
A fast food restaurant has four qualities to them: efficiency (well it's fast food of course), calculability (how many people are they going to calorically destroy today?), predictability (we don't predict our burgers to have a different taste every time we buy one, do we?) and control (employees are similarly uniformed, marketing strategies are relatively similar in all locations, those kind of stuff)
We can be efficient; but never really delivering things that have quality. We're victims of calculability; in which we measure our objectives by quantity and by how many of them we can tap on, or in other words, in which we blur the lines between quantity and quality. We're accustomed to predictability; to me I see this as us expecting and assuming things to always be the same, we never really like change even though we know we should accept it. And we're all subjected to some form of control; we're always influenced by something or someone and we're always following rules, norms and standards.
I found this really cool, the whole concept of comparing an eagle's eye perspective of our social structure to something so...simple. If you don't know about it, you should check it out and Google McDonaldization - it's pretty interesting.
Anyway.
I was just thinking, and observing, and I've noticed how sad people get sometimes. It seems to be something that's such a common ground among so many people that we see and encounter every other day. I'm not talking about anything clinical such as depression or anything more or less like it because I understand that it's not a term that should be thrown around to describe trivial purposes.
I mean a feeling that I can only describe as being down? mildly lonely? messy? It's a feeling that I don't think anyone can really put a name to or get a concrete grasp of. It just creeps in at the most random of moments and it leaves this almost dull aching in your brain?
It's funny how some or maybe even all would understand what I'm talking about. I wonder what it really is? Is it our heads telling us that we need to improve? Is it something thats just a result of the fictional standards we set for ourselves? Is it something we should attend to? Or is it something we should ignore?
Is it good?
Or is it bad?
I think it's necessary, to be rather honest. I don't see how the idea of being happy and perfectly fine all the time is actually healthy. I don't know, I think it's good for internal conflict once in a while. It's like a spring cleaning for yourself - where you reevaluate and throw out the trash.
But I don't believe in letting these little intruders to control you. It's easier said than done, as much as I try to laugh myself out of it with stupid jokes and being weird and shit like that, it's always kinda just there at the back of your head. But hey, forget it. The rest of you is stronger than that one dark corner in the room. You're real, you're alive and you have all the power to do things about your feelings - to drown them out, to sort them out. We make those feelings, what makes you think we can't take them away?
Just be happy with the privileges in your life and give those doubts a big "fuck you" sometimes.
Show yourself that you own you.
It's a real thing guys. I'm not even kidding.
In Sociology today I learnt that McDonaldization is an actual term where it talks about how culture takes on the characteristics of a fast food restaurant. McDonald's being the success and cultural icon that it is, was obviously powerful enough to be used as term to describe this comparison.
A fast food restaurant has four qualities to them: efficiency (well it's fast food of course), calculability (how many people are they going to calorically destroy today?), predictability (we don't predict our burgers to have a different taste every time we buy one, do we?) and control (employees are similarly uniformed, marketing strategies are relatively similar in all locations, those kind of stuff)
We can be efficient; but never really delivering things that have quality. We're victims of calculability; in which we measure our objectives by quantity and by how many of them we can tap on, or in other words, in which we blur the lines between quantity and quality. We're accustomed to predictability; to me I see this as us expecting and assuming things to always be the same, we never really like change even though we know we should accept it. And we're all subjected to some form of control; we're always influenced by something or someone and we're always following rules, norms and standards.
I found this really cool, the whole concept of comparing an eagle's eye perspective of our social structure to something so...simple. If you don't know about it, you should check it out and Google McDonaldization - it's pretty interesting.
Anyway.
I was just thinking, and observing, and I've noticed how sad people get sometimes. It seems to be something that's such a common ground among so many people that we see and encounter every other day. I'm not talking about anything clinical such as depression or anything more or less like it because I understand that it's not a term that should be thrown around to describe trivial purposes.
I mean a feeling that I can only describe as being down? mildly lonely? messy? It's a feeling that I don't think anyone can really put a name to or get a concrete grasp of. It just creeps in at the most random of moments and it leaves this almost dull aching in your brain?
It's funny how some or maybe even all would understand what I'm talking about. I wonder what it really is? Is it our heads telling us that we need to improve? Is it something thats just a result of the fictional standards we set for ourselves? Is it something we should attend to? Or is it something we should ignore?
Is it good?
Or is it bad?
I think it's necessary, to be rather honest. I don't see how the idea of being happy and perfectly fine all the time is actually healthy. I don't know, I think it's good for internal conflict once in a while. It's like a spring cleaning for yourself - where you reevaluate and throw out the trash.
But I don't believe in letting these little intruders to control you. It's easier said than done, as much as I try to laugh myself out of it with stupid jokes and being weird and shit like that, it's always kinda just there at the back of your head. But hey, forget it. The rest of you is stronger than that one dark corner in the room. You're real, you're alive and you have all the power to do things about your feelings - to drown them out, to sort them out. We make those feelings, what makes you think we can't take them away?
Just be happy with the privileges in your life and give those doubts a big "fuck you" sometimes.
Show yourself that you own you.
