So, I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I saw Fight Club on a cable descrambler so many years ago. Continuing this preface, I’d like to point out that I’m a Cultural Studies student and a fan of Chogyam Trungpa, the Tibetan who founded Naropa and argued for a secular practice based on Tibetan Buddhism. These three things (Fight Club, Buddhism, and Cultural Studies) are relevant and related.
Linguists have argued in the last century that there is no natural connection between a word and its meaning. As in, a tree may have just as well been called an egg; there is nothing inherent in the word egg or our conception of the idea of a tree to preclude calling a tree an egg. Building on this, Cultural studies continues this nearly ad absurdum (depending on your tolerance for impenetrable language). Cultural Theorists see the meanings behind words as fluid and ever-changing. A sports team name like Raider likely didn’t have the connotation of a private equity robber baron enacting a hostile take over (okay, maybe for some this image isn’t immediate), that image is new. As connotations (images associated with a word) change, they slowly alter the denotation of a word (what it immediately means to a casual reader). Over time, these words begin to carry a lot of baggage, layers of meaning influencing one another and influencing the signified meaning of a word.
Buddhists, like Cultural Theorists, also believe that we create our own world within our heads (in the same way most Christians can’t explain any theory of the nature of the Trinity, many Buddhists may well have no idea what I’m talking about). The Ego, as a part of us, acts to instill its agenda of preserving the image of ourselves that acts as the basis of the ego’s own definition. This mental Frankenstein’s monster runs amok within us, limiting our options, telling us things are impossible, and generally making it impossible to see the truth. The Ego actually super-imposes a self-serving version of reality. The truth is that this image of ourselves, the view of reality we have (mediated through the ego), and our understanding of the very nature of reality are all mental images and models that we have created. There is no way to not experience reality through these illusory filters; ergo life is an illusion. Buddhism as a structuralist argument.
So, credit. Credit is a fictional construction designed to rate customers so that the lending agencies may minimize their losses and make big money. Insidiously, this disease has infected larger and larger segments of society, creating a situation in which most individuals cannot do the most basic of things without it. The system is so entrenched that people who may be morally opposed could get a bank card and still ride on the system, debiting their bank accounts instead of carrying an owed balance. The credit card companies (Visa, not the bank itself) still make money on this, but one should note this is an infrastructure use fee, not a function of the lending industry itself. For this system, the credit lenders have created a point system, without asking us if we want anything to do with this, and started rating us. To avoid the overwhelming creepiness of a group of lenders placing odds on us in a private system of shit-talking and speculation, advertising images perpetuated by the industry wash over us arguing that credit cards are part of the great american life we deserve. My sister’s husband, having been an american citizen for some time, only felt “like an American” after receiving his first credit card in the mail. We know identity to be a subjective reality.
The specter of bad credit is one of these illusory fictions. All the negative associations of bad credit are created by the institutional framework that maintains these ratings. If a bunch of drunken thugs said that you fit the profile of someone bad for business (like a narc), your attitude would be very different than your attitude may be about three data pilfering and amassing agencies located thousands of miles away from you. Yet oddly, you choose to believe in what these agencies say about you, as if it is some measure of moral fiber. These agencies that started talking about you behind your back while you were busy working. I’m not trying to say that bad credit ratings are a good thing. I’m trying to say that fundamentally, underneath the illusions of bourgeoise life, they just are. They are a construction used to measure a subjective, fleeting, ephemeral concept. You choose whether or not to accept any of the meanings attached to those numbers or words.
No, my credit is fine.
Illusory, but fine.
Next time, there will be pics and anger, I promise.
