America, the World Leader to...?

When the Journey IS the Destination

“Thus one section of humanity, comparatively rich, hardworking, and creating considerable surpluses, has known how to, and still does know how to, exchange things of great value, under different forms and for reasons different from those with which we are familiar.”

The ABOVE video was perhaps NOT the best example of one of them.

The way a given society chooses to annihilate the excess energy it produces is of the utmost importance. It is around this expenditure that a CULTURE is defined. Whether a society is aggressive, imperialistic, or non-violent all depends on the form the society gives to expenditure of surplus energy. Each society had a DEFINING CHOICE on how it would expend excess resources, building its values on an economically useless expenditure. The artifices of religion and art all form around this essential cultural activity, acting as recipients and modes of expression of the basic embodiment of surplus. Be it a church with its corps of people removed from economic activity, or a frugal dedication of energy in terms of a military structure dedicated to expansion, they all have their origins in the same need to find a channel for excess production.

Excerpts from a paper by David L. R. Kosalka on Georges Bataille and the Notion of GiftThere are better examples. But You DID Build it, America! You gave the world, a "free" choice.