In english...

The dramatic story of Christopher McCandless, that is represented in the international best selling book “Into the Wild” has demonstrated the escapism culture that is growing in capitalist countries. This is demonstrated very clearly by Christopher McCandless’s choice of living in the unknown wilderness rather than living in the urbanized materialistic society. His lifestyle is not one that is completely unique in the notion that there have many people who have chosen to escape society exactly like Christopher McCandless. This concept of “escaping” society can be expressed on many degrees of finding a new domain of reality. The most sever is illustrated by Christopher McCandless’s completion rejection of society but on a much smaller degree can be represented by escapism through such outlets as the abuse of television and video gaming consoles. This ideology is a movement that denies realities for an elapse of time and embraces the unrealistic and exciting.

To understand the escapism movement one need to understand the reasons to escape. For the case study of Christopher McCandless, it is the necessity to escape a capitalistic society that is found in all aspects of American culture. Christopher McCandless’s complete hatred lead him to escape in such powerful terms but why would he feel such a hatred to capitalistic society. The answer is found in another anti-capitalistic book, entitled “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk. This quote is taked from the main character Tyler Durden, “ an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need… We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very very pissed off.” This quote embodies two principal aspects of the need for escapism, one is the unfulfillment that can be brought by living a so called successful lifestyle, in the ability to be wealthy. The other key aspect of escapism that provokes escapism, is the aspect of failure that is only natural to happen to a certain number of the population. This group of people will never be able to be extremely wealthy so they look for means to escape their reality.

To prove  this point of the coloration between capitalist societies and their dependence of escapism. One can compare the statistics of weekly hours of television in differently wealthy countries. The two world leaders for watching the most television is United States of America and the United Kingdom. Both countries are based on the ideology of capitalism and both countries watch twenty eight hours of television weekly on average. This can be compared to Sweden a socialist country who only watches  eighteen hours of television per week. It can be concluded that escapism is found on a much larger scale in a capitalistic countries rather than in a socialist country.

            “Into the Wild” has shown the escapism culture that is very strong in capitalistic countries. The stress and disliking of capitalism can become very strong and a person can choose many extreme measures like Christopher McCandless.