Alienation in the Post Cold War Era
Chapter 8
The Market Personality Today:
The Further Transformation of Human Beings Into Things
(page 6)

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The deep fear of being different from the majority, even if they are emotionally sick, is expressed by this ancient Sufi tale.

Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded, would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.

Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.

On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water.

When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.

At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.[7]

By the middle of the twentieth century, humans’ identification with their exchange value in the marketplace had come to dominate all layers of society, and in particular the middle and upper classes. The economic boom of the 1950s and 60s helped to fortify this. People’s sense of self-worth and ability to succeed in the materialistic world depended on their ability to sell their package personality to the right people. The laws that governed the stock market dominated people’s underlying emotional life as well, that is, their stress, anxiety, and drive to get ahead of others. The rewards were, of course, more material comfort.

To succeed and to be accepted socially, the market personality must put on a façade that is dictated by the conventions of conformity as set by the market at the time. Failure to conform causes tremendous anxiety, which we see in the so-called neurotic personality.

This is expressed clearly in many popular movies and books. Take, for example, Woody Allen’s movie “Play It Again, Sam” (1972). Woody Allen, in the person of “Allan,” the main character, aptly expresses the failure of the sensitive-neurotic person to become the perfect successful package (personified by the figure of Humphrey Bogart). Allan’s conflicts are the typical conflicts of people in our society who fail to achieve transcendence and unity with others on the basis of being themselves. In the movie Allan is overly anxious and makes a fool out of himself when he tries to attract women. He fails to do and say the right things that men are supposed to say and do in order to convey the image of self-confidence and strong masculinity that will supposedly seduce women. In other words, he fails to embody the conventional commodity of a strong-romantic man. In desperation, he enlists the aid of the apparition of Humphrey Bogart, who coaches him and gives him advice in his delicate moments with women, when his anxiety begins to overtake him.

Bogart is the ultimate achievement in the romantic market. He knows when to be soft and when to be tough, what to say when the woman begins to sip from her glass of wine, and when it is time to put his arms around her and kiss her. But Allan’s internal conflicts are too strong. His insecurities and anxiety prevent him from playing the perfect romantic commodity of Bogart. Finally, toward the end of the movie, he begins to realize that he cannot be someone else, but that he has to be himself.

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[7]When the Waters Were Changed, from Idries Shah, Tales of the Dervishes, page 21 (E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York 1970).