The late, great Dr Erich Fromm (above) lambasted the way that in ultra-materialistic capitalist societies we talk of how much human brings are 'worth' in monetary terms.
I wonder what Fromm would have made of this truly disgusting report in the Daily Telegraph on the new world motor racing champion Lewis Hamilton.
Lewis Hamilton will be bigger than David Beckham, says Max Clifford
Lewis Hamilton will very soon be bigger than David Beckham, public relations experts predicted as the racing driver sealed the 2008 Formula One World Championship in Brazil.
He is currently thought to be worth around £15 million, according to Auto Trader's Motoring Rich List - less than half that of fellow British F1 driver Jenson Button.
Mr Clifford said: "He is going to be bigger than David Beckham, because he is only 23 and motor racing is even more lucrative than football.
"If you were to chose a sport from a purely financial point of view, motor racing would have to be number one."
He continued: "Lewis Hamilton is young, he is obviously talented and he is a good looking fellow, so you have a perfect recipe for sponsorship."
Becoming world champion would transform him into a household name in Britain and around the world, he said.
"We don't have many world champions, so the media here will become even more crazy about him that they already are," he said.
"That will just add to his worth."
Many congratulations to Lewis Hamilton on winning the World Championship. But wouldn't it be nice, if instead of talking about how many millions of pounds he is now 'worth', we simply lauded his achievement?
3 comments:
You sweet old-fashioned thing Neil. Yes, indeed it would be nice, but let's face it, in today's world where "follow the money" has become a creed (maybe the only one many people subscribe to) it simply ain't going to happen.
It's not just the Telegraph. It's an endemic part of our late-capitalist society. Everything is understood as monetary or commodity value. I'm not sure whether you were following one of the numerous threads on the Guardian website on prostitution, but it's very telling that many of the liberal extremists cannot differentiated between anything. From buying a bus ticket, to driving a sports car, to having sex; they can only ever understand it as a monetary value.
'The late, great Dr Erich Fromm (above) lambasted the way that in ultra-materialistic capitalist societies we talk of how much human brings are 'worth' in monetary terms.'
Thats pretty obvious. For the last few centuries, economic relations have been slowly replacing human relations. We can even see this where families sell their children.
And the saying goes: ' he knows the price of everything and the value of nothing'.
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