We watched the Motorcycle Diaries the other night (take a look at the Film trailer, have a read of the diaries, and check out Steve's previous post). As i'm sure you know it charts the formative journey that a young Che Guevara (Time 100, Wikipedia) took throughout Latin America.
The scenery, cinematography, and acting were all breathtakingly good, and it'd take a dogmatic pedant to fail to be enthralled by the film. But I know you all expect me to offer a "neo-liberal" critique, so here goes....
I don't have to point out the less savoury elements of Che's later exploits, but if he is your hero then take a look at Alvaro Llosa and Randall McElroy for starters. The iconic image of Che is a powerful (and wonderfully ironic) brand that has been paradied by Red Molotov (Thatcher), the Mises Institute (Austrian Economists) and myself at The Orange Path (Mises), my favourite being the Mickey Mouse ears one. Anyway....
My point is this: the entire film is a presentation of poverty, and the portrayal of injustice. It is marvellous, in that it impressionably documents harshness and destitution, and human conditions that should rightly be condoned, confronted, and rectified.
Throughout the film I was waiting for the presentaiton of communist theory, or some articulation as to just how Che intended to to solve this problem. It never came, and it never really does.
The left (broadly speaking) think that simply depicting hardship is enough to win the battle of ideas. It isn't - no-one really disagrees that prosperity isn't widespread enough, but the argument should be about the economic consequences of prospective solutions. Che and John Lennon are equally woshipped legends, who paved the way for the modern celebrity approach to poverty: presenting it within a frame of slogans.
My hope is that The Filter^ contributes, in some small way, to an approach that judges arguments on their intellectual and logical merit as well as their emotional content. And hopefully one day the left will have to do something more than just present a problem, without offering a systematic solution.
Youth, idealism, beauty: good
automatic communism: bad
A few years ago, it was difficult to find synthetic motor oils, and equally difficult to find someone who admitted to using them. Nowadays, however, you can find synthetic motor oils on the shelves of Wal-Mart, and other retailers, and the number of people turning to synthetic motor oils, particularly in light of the recent events affecting fuel prices, has risen greatly.
So why do people use synthetic motor oils rather than sticking with the old petroleum based stand-bys which are admittedly cheaper?
1. Let's start with the cost per quart issue. Synthetic motor oils ARE more expensive at purchase. However, these oils last longer, requiring fewer oil changes. As a synthetic motor oil outlasts several changes of petroleum based lubricants, the ultimate out-of-pocket cost of the lubricant is less. This cost savings becomes even greater if you have someone else change your oil for you rather than doing it yourself!
Posted by: motorcycle oil | March 09, 2007 at 01:16 PM