What Parasite Tells Us About Society | OSCAR BEST PICTURE AWARD

Have you seen the movie Parasite yet? Like, you’ve got to see it. I, it’s an amazing, beautiful film and I promise, as I talk about it in today’s video, there will be no spoilers.

As a coach, public speaker, and best-selling author, I teach topics just like this one all around the world. So stay tuned, and I’ll give you practical tools that you can use to make both yourself and those around you both happier and more successful. Parasite is the story of a family living in relative poverty. They are very low on the socio-economic ladder of South Korean life. Like all of us, they are acutely aware of their position in that social hierarchy. And there’s this idea of demonstration poverty, which is the awareness of one’s own scarcity only in light of, in comparison to, other people’s prosperity.

So on a biological basis, people may be okay, that is, they’ve got a roof over their head, food on the table, all the basic things that they need for happiness, they’ve got them. Now, you can see a prior video, by the way, on how securely meeting our basic biological needs is all that anyone needs for a lot of happiness. But every day, like the people in the movie of Parasite, people are bombarded with clear messages about their comparative position. There’s thousands of advertisements telling them what they lack and any walk downtown, and we can see wealth extravagantly displayed: fancy cars, high-fashion clothes, and look up and around on the suburbs or in the hills, and there’s all kinds of expensive houses showing just where we stand relative to the very wealthy.

Now, if the same people who are experiencing this kind of demonstration poverty today, if instead, they had a great ignorant, if they had no awareness of other people who had higher standards of living and instead all they saw around them are people who had very similar standards of living, would they then be happier? Well, the answer is yes, of course they would. That’s what demonstration poverty is all about. Is it would it’s by seeing something else that it makes us unhappy. We start craving, painfully craving to advance our own economic standing. And that’s what the movie, again, is all about. And the movie gets really interesting and tragic, super sympathetic, and horrific, sad, and hopeless. Yes, you get your money’s worth in this emotional roller coaster ride of a movie.

So what’s the point? Well, the point of the movie is a critical social commentary on social inequality, poverty, and conflict amongst the people struggling at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy. That’s what the movies about: is how they fight amongst themselves, not just against the people who are very wealthy. There’s a real sadness in that, that commentary, that very good observation. But what is my point, you don’t… well, it’s this: it’s drop out of the hierarchy. Maybe that’s not going to happen in terms of dropping out of society and living on a deserted island. I’m not saying that. But can you let go of all the materialistic traps that are so deeply seated in our society?

Now, I’m not discouraging, not for a moment, people having nice things. But what I am encouraging people to do is get some perspective. Once our biological needs are securing, that we do not benefit from more wealth. And it’s the desire for more wealth, in and of itself, that’s harmful most of the time. I would encourage you, as a bit of a remedy, as a solution to this demonstration poverty, to play with the idea of minimalism. Could you try some thought experiments about how little you need? In fact, I’ve included that the link below, an exercise that you can download and try for yourself. Could you become happier while taking concrete action to have less material stuff?

I think that’s counterintuitive for most people. And yet, I encourage you to do this thought experiment. I think more often than not, we can in fact be happier by simply needing less. And I’d be interested in seeing your own views on the movie Parasite in the comment section below. Tell me what you think. Could you identify with that family that was longing to be better off materially? Can you see how people in the lowest ranks of social economic economic hierarchies are often coming into conflict with one another while striving to go up the ranks with the very wealthy? And by contrast, the very wealthy can afford to be detached from this day-to-day, dog-eat-dog reality. So please, go ahead and try the exercise at the link below. Subscribe to my channel, like the video, share with your family and friends. I’m Paul Krismer, your happiness expert. Thanks for watching. Bye for now.