How greed became good: from Cosimo I Medici to Gordon Gecko

Author: Elisa Biagini

 

How did we become such voracious consumers?

Our overconsumption is destroying a world infinitely more fascinating than the stuff we produce. Do we really need so much food, clothing and technology? When did this phenomenon begin?

While in Writing I, “The Writer and the City,” students focus on the city of Florence as a case study, reading and discussing texts about its past and present (already observing phenomena connected with our topic, such as the birth of banks and the importance of the Medici family, mass tourism and cheap souvenirs) and finding connections between local and global, in Writing II, “The Writer and the World,” they broaden their horizon of young citizens dealing with social and political issues through the tool of language. It is during this semester that we will focus on the issue of greed and, after discussing a variety of texts, watching clips from movies, listening to a few songs and looking at some art pieces, the students will be asked to give one creative response (a poem, a song or a political manifesto) and then write a research essay.

We will begin with the short text by Etgar Keret, “Gadget glut,” an ironic take on our obsession with electronic paraphernalia and we will then focus on the history of the phenomenon of greed from the early days of the banking system to sumptuary laws (using excerpts from F. Trentmann’s, “The Empire of Things,” Dante’s “Divine Comedy” as well as quotes from Marx’s “Capital” and Stieglitz’s articles on the current economic situation). We will also watch a clip from the 1987 movie “Wall Street.” Our next step will be food: overproduction, waste etc. with some reflections on the way animals are treated in the process (we will read G. Monbiot’s piece “War on the Living World” as well as other articles submitted by the students, now involved in the process of collecting interesting material). Greed has always played an interesting role in the fashion industry as well (something students always love to talk about!) and we will follow the tracks of a t-shirt, thanks to the article “Our Cotton Colonies” by M.Krese, moving then on to analyze the connection between fashion, luxury and vulgarity in contemporary music and movies (we will watch a clip from the 2013 movie “Bling Ring” by S. Coppola and listen to songs such as Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’, “Thrift Shop” and other Hip Hop and Rap songs provided by the students, as well as some artworks from the recent British exhibit “The Vulgar-fashion Redefined,” Barbican art gallery).

The ultimate goal of all this will be to have the students reflect also on the concepts of class and privilege, making them aware of their desires: which ones are real and who really shapes them, and to make them understand that all our choices, every single day, are deeply and inevitably political.