[MattW]

A book I read a while ago about various philosophies has a section on Religion Inc in the west and how it used to actually be the various christian religions but has since morphed into madison avenue, the education system and other pop culture sources. I'm not up on every blog post and thread so this may have been covered here before. Anyway, here's a section that struck me today (written from the perspective of Religion Inc):

Quote:

Most of your wants are determined by Religion Inc. We give you your wants. We use the institutions of education and religion. We use advertising and parents. We’re everywhere. We give you your wants. But we’re careful. We only give you wants that you can satisfy, or hope for. We give you safe wants. We give you values. And not a shred of anguish of indecision or of responsibility.

To be really free you have to create your own wants. What people lack is strength, self-direction, self-discipline, and a sense of drive (necessity) that is internally created.

You are free in everything, except determining your wants. That's up to me. By determining your wants, I determine every action and every value. And you're happy. You don't even know it's happening. You can do whatever you want, and you're safe doing it.

I have no idea why I like the things I like. Why is a corvette cool? Why is this song so good? For some things like food there's a chemical/biological reason, but for many things there are other reasons that I don't really get. And understanding why may not even be that important.

What I think is important is to know the difference between the things you want, and the things you want to want. Your natural/instinctual wants and your rational, thought out wants that help you accomplish your goals in life.

[cardguy]

This thread has some discussions which are relevant to the question you are pondering.