How Capitalism Makes Us Selfish
Constant competition normalizes appropriation and exploitation
Brief disclaimer
This is the second of a multi-part article series based on a paper I originally wrote for a University rhetoric course. If you missed my previous piece, I recommend reading it first.
I broke my (very long) paper into sections and made edits to make it easier to read, so I hope you enjoy.
Linguistic appropriation and exploitation
My last article outlined a specific incident of ongoing linguistic appropriation and exploitation by a young, hearing social media (micro)influencer.
I focused on this particular case because of the significant attention it has received over the past two years, and because it is ongoing. However, Lola is most certainly not alone.
There are many similar cases involving hearing people appropriating sign language for personal gain. There have even been cases of people pretending to be professional interpreters for significant events, such as the memorial honouring Nelson Mandela, and a televised police press conference.
What I seek to understand is why.
Appropriation of ASL on social media
I want to explore the reasons, despite outcry from the Deaf community, social media influencers and content creators continue to engage in behaviours they’ve been told are harmful. Is it as simple as greed for money and attention, or are there deeper reasons this is such a widespread issue? Given the extent of the problem, I strongly believe there are greater social and structural factors at play.
My research examines and combines disability theory and Marxist philosophy in order to gain a deeper understanding of the sociological explanations for the blatant, shameless appropriation and exploitation of sign language for clout on social media.
The Deaf community has, for many years, tried to call out such harmful behaviour. Unfortunately these attempts usually result in the Deaf person being shouted down by the influencer’s fans, the influencer playing the victim, and those calling out the behaviour being blocked and ignored. Clearly this approach isn’t working.
In order to be effective in combating the ongoing linguistic appropriation and exploitation, we need a better understanding of its causes. I suspect I will find significant social and structural factors which allow and even encourage this type of behaviour to continue.
Alienation and individualism
As Dr. Jason Hannan writes in his book, Trolling Ourselves to Death, our individualistic culture causes us to become disconnected from one another while being more connected than ever before. This loneliness and isolation leads us to seek attention, support, and validation wherever we can find it.
For social media influencers with a large following which has grown out of appropriating from marginalized people, they may feel they cannot change that which has earned them recognition and praise, however hollow it may be. Social media undoubtedly benefit from users exploiting both themselves and others, bringing more users to the platforms and generating ever greater profit for the companies.
At the same time the lives of Deaf, disabled, and other marginalized people are devalued by a capitalist system, which seeks to extract labour from its population. As our culture and humanity are ranked lower in this hierarchical system, it is morally justifiable to exploit us and our language for profit.
With these concepts in mind, I will rely upon Jeremy Bentham’s theories of utilitarianism and Karl Marx’s criticisms of capitalism to help explain this phenomenon. I discuss numerous themes of behaviourism, digital dualism, ableism, exoticism, and capitalism to analyze how they influence our behaviour on social media.
The five ‘isms I will be exploring in my upcoming articles are:
Behaviourism;
Digital dualism;
Ableism (audism & devaluation);
Capitalism & competition; and
Exoticism & fetishization
I will then turn to Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx’s principles of socialism to investigate whether a more ethical, equitable framework is possible on our modern social media platforms.
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
Related articles
Capitalist Ideology as Socio-Cultural Trauma
Linguistic Appropriation and Exploitation on Social Media
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