This is by no means a new post from my colleague Jennifer Rice, on the fact (western) people are withdrawing into themselves, and the idea of family that plays together is dismantling, called ‘Brand Humanity: From Processes to People’.
   I make two remarks. The first is: will this swing back any time soon? People are discovering there are strengths to their families, and the eastern nations that are growing rapidly and on target to overtake the west still have the family at the core. As the east gains in influence, we may wish to learn from it. Secondly, if the family is dis­integrat­ing, just as govern­mental services once did in the wave of Reagan­omics and Thatcher­ism, then will corpora­tions take their place? They did for the fictional Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, when she called her WJM-TV colleagues her ‘family’; and that was a 1977 script.
   If so, then some of the fears of science fiction are coming true, with corpora­tions running people—and it won’t work with corporations retaining a profit motive. They already demand our loyalty through loyalty pro­grammes. They expect our love. Some of us identify more with their brands than with our own surnames—we know their origins ahead of our own genealogy.
   We might need an Andrew Niccol movie (like Gattaca and The Truman Show) again to jog our memories. posted by Jack Yan, 5:17 AM  permalink