Facades

So, today in my American Literature class we were discussing article over Mary McCarthy’s The Company She Keeps.  One of the articles discussed the consumerist aspect of the book.  As many literature classes go, especially at the Graduate level we went off on a tangent.  Our professor is also teaching another class where they’re talking about The Wizard of Oz.  She said that while preparing for our class she started thinking about the “Oz” class and made connection.  To paraphrase, she said, “People, especially Americans are really occupied with façade.”    

This got me to thinking about why are we so concerned with façades?  It’d be easy to blame the media.  Magazines, television and the internet constantly bombard us with images of what we should wear, think and own in order to be accepted.  If we have all this stuff then we’re a success.  However, it can’t all fall on the media.  I mean we buy into it don’t we?  We sit and blame the media for making us dislike who we are but we sit in designer coffee shops drinking from our eco-friendly coffee cups because that’s what Bohemian intellectuals are suppose to do.  Even as we’re rallying against façades we buy into them. 

Why do we buy into them?  Because like it or not we want to be accepted.  I’m not saying it’s bad to want to be accepted but it shouldn’t cost you your individuality.  However, before you can really be accepted you have to figure out what you really believe.  Do you drink the coffee because you genuinely like it or is it because everyone else likes it?  Do you really care about the environment or is it just because you’re being pressured?  Once you figure who you are you’ll gain an inner confidence that will cause people to accept you even if you don’t always agree with each other.  Those are the real friendships you want, not the ones where everyone feels the same way.  Personally, I’m a moderate Liberal.  I prefer a local coffee shop to the franchise here in town and I do care about the environment.  My friends accept it just like accept that some of them are conservatives, only drink coffee they brew at home and don’t care to recycle.