Last Night I went to the “Foire Saint Jean”, a fun fair, here in my french hometown Strasbourg. So last night, I was observing everything, the people, the food the attractions and the prizes you could probably win. Please read the following knowing that I don’t judge anybody for their situation in life. I just try to analyze objectively.
90% of the people their were belonging to the inferior social classes, the class that Marx describes as proletarian. They were workers, sales assistants, cashiers. Their bodys were marked by heavy physical work. They had bought their clothes in the next discounter, were wearing sweat pants, jerseys of Paris Saint Germain, Leggings and Jeggings and all the -ings in the world. But they were wearing also Addidas and Nike-Sneakers.
The half of them had an immigration background, let’s say first, second or third generation immigrants in France. They weren’t white, western european, they spoke different languages and were wearing religious symbols like the headscarf. Possibly 10% of the people on the fun fair were white, western european french people of the upper middle class. Of course I have to admit that it is really hard to tell one’s social class by just one glance and I could have made an error with my observation. But still, let’s say, these people were the populus, the popular masses of the society.
Whats the lesson of this observation?
The society and the governement lead poor people to believe that they can win things they will possibly never be able to buy.
But the most shocking deduction ist this:
Half of the people I saw there, and all of them belonged to the inferior social classes, were obese, and it started already from the youngest children. This is basicelly due to mass consumption of sugar. Sugar makes happy, but you can also get addicted to it. Governement and industry give the popular masses tons of sugar, of this disgusting ill-making substance. A family that has not enough money to go to a tea house or café to buy non-industrial cake of good quality, will rather spent 5 Euros for Churros and a coke.
The Worst is, that the sugar industry is making profit out of those people who have never known a different way of life, who are unhappy because poor or nearly, because they live in ghettos. In addition to this, the governement is doing everything to keep poor people doing menial work still and to keep them down. For this they chose a tried and tested remedy: bread and games. Or should I better say Sugar and Netflix?
We should not forget the fact, that it is also a certain habit, or habitus to say it in the words of Pierre Bourdieu, of this social group. Everybody in their environement is going to the fun fair, everybody eats churros and drinks coke. It’s un unwritten social law. The society made in an unwritten social law. Or did you ever see a upper middle class man with churros in his hands?
Now real remedy would be education and change of habits, accompanied by different politics concerning sugar and industry.
Stay tuned and remember to keep your eyes open, when you walk through this world.
Ciao.