We had visitors from out of town this weekend, and we wanted to show them a good time. Because they had two children, ages 6 and 10, we decided to go to San Diego's newest big-name attraction, Legoland. Built entirely for children, Legoland is a theme park owned by the European Lego toy company.
The kids, of course, were delighted. Even in Arizona, where they live, Legoland is apparently promoted rather heavily, and the kids were sure that it would be a delightful day of fun and excitement.
They hated it. Six year-old Brandon, who's right smack in the middle of the target age range for the park, called it "Loserland". Evidently feeling that term wasn't denigrating enough, he later amended it to "Lamo-loserland".
And he thinks he knows why:
As we wandered through the park, something kept tickling the back of mind. So much about the park seemed eerily familiar. Then it struck me. I reminded me of nothing so much as the years I spent living in Europe.
Legoland is an almost perfect microcosm of Europe, nested in Southern California. Very clean, very safe, and utterly, utterly boring.
Well, I guess I haven't been missing anything. I think I'll stick with the other amusement parks like Disneyland and Magic Mountain.
Near the end, he writes:
As we left the park, The Lovely Christine decided that she just wouldn't be happy until she complained to park management about the deeply lame nature of the attractions provided. So, we went to guest relations, where Chris had a brief conversation with an impressively mustachioed customer relations lady. The woman calmly listened to our complaint, judiciously stroked her mustache, and told us, "Well, you get out of it what you put into it."
...
But, being an American, when I go to an amusement park, I don't want to "put anything into it". If I want to put effort into having fun, I can do that far more cheaply, and every bit as effectively, in my own back yard. The reason I am going to an amusement park, and paying a pretty stiff price in hard-earned money to do so, is so that they can provide me with amusement. That's why I'm giving them my money. That's supposed to be the deal. I give them my money, and they pander to me.
Reading this over again, I was struck by a thought. Wasn't part of the appeal of Socialism/Communism that the worker would be happy in his work for its own sake? You're working for the good of the collective, not just yourself. You were expected to put your all into the system and you would get out of it the satisfaction of having helped the society as a whole, even if you weren't materially rewarded commensurate with your effort. In other words, "you got out of it what you put into it."
In a capitalistic society like ours, we use money as a sort of storage medium for effort or energy. It's kind of like winding a spring. If I have a self-contained spring unit, I can wind it up and then put it in some sort of machine which will run off the spring. If I have several such machines that are compatible with the spring, I can put it in any one of them. With money, I "store" the energy I exert while working, and then "expend" that energy to obtain goods and services. Like the various machines that can run off our hypothetical spring, I can get whatever goods or services I want provided they're available. What Dale is saying is that he wants to put his spring unit into the park and let it do the work. He doesn't want to wind the spring even more.
(I whipped this one out pretty quick so the analogies may not be the best.)
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