1. One is lulled into helpless surrender by irresistible beauty. See 288
2. It is a dream world that you prefer over reality; you fall in love with an idea of life but not life itself. 289
3. The BG promises an end to Ache, the satisfaction of all desires: 291
4. The BG replaces all values with the Culture of Enjoyment or the Hakuna Matata, top of 292
5. Fantasy of Endless Affluence and Abundance, Shangri-La; see 299
6. After short-term pleasures have lost their novelty and allure, ennui or numbness sets in.
7. Eventually, one cannot appreciate anything and they begin to feel they’re missing the boat and are overcome with envy. This is the typical BG narrative.
8. As one acclimates to the BG’s indulgence and pampering, one becomes inert, paralyzed, and helpless. This too is part of the BG narrative.
9. Often one doesn’t know one is snared into the lap of the BG until it is too late.
10. Most people indulge the BG in cycles, splurging in its decadence, followed by a time of Spartan self-denial and temperance, followed by splurging, self-denial, etc.
Study Questions for “The New Mecca” 286
One. Explain the seduction of “elaborate Theming” described on pages 288 and 289. What inherent dangers are suggested? Also see pages 291, 298-303
Two. What are the city’s demographics? 289, 290
Three. What is Saunders’ “epiphany”? 291, 292: He’s a man who prides himself as a skeptical anti-consumer but he realizes the technology has advanced to a level of omnipotence that renders him helpless to its charms and infatuation.
Four. What does the essay say about the dangers of rampant consumerism? 292, 293: We lose our identity, our sense of time, our faculties of skepticism and irony, our moral sense (enjoying life at expense of slave labor), how acquisition feeds even more desire and betrays the promise of contentment and satiety.
Five. What’s the “downside” of Dubai’s Consumer Nirvana? 293-295, 297, 304: small group gets rich while the poor pay for it; foreign workers are embracing one form of hell as a substitute for a greater hell at home; the rich hedonists embrace their euphoria on the backs of the poor; the labor is so backward that it has driven this modern city to the Middle Ages.
Six. What failure of American imagination and empathy are described on pages 308 and 309? Americans see the Arab world as “The Other” or Las Otras; they fail to see the simplicity and purity of heart; the poor man who puts cookies in an envelope; perceptions of labels are different, for example the Taliban, see page 308 bottom and 309. The poor actually want a lot of what America brings but not the bullying, the killing of innocents, and exploitation, see 309.
Seven. What is Saunders’ bittersweet conclusion about Dubai in terms of what it says about Americans? 311: We all have the same desires, savory or otherwise, and the inability to see our common humanity and condition results in hostility. He captures this paradox in Dubai.
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