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I'm actually very happy to be writing this a bit late because I get to address some of my personal opinions on some issues that were brought up during the conversation in class. In terms of the two videos above Adbusters and some of the literature is disseminates is I feel some of the most ruthless critics of the modern media human and the mental environment we have been nurtured into. However, one of its strongest points in its entire campaign is that the mental media environment is directly linked to the economic regime we find ourselves in.
Adbusters and other organizations like them (Media Matters to name another) are taking what in Linda Christensen in "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us" calls the "opportunity for action" and both exposing it in the bluntest of forms and also using it as a call to arms for psycho-social revolution. As when Christensen describes some students saying, "For some the lesson doesn't end in the classroom. Many who watched the cartoons before we started our study say they can no longer enjoy them. Now instead of seeing a bunch of ducks in cloths, they see the racism, sexism, and violence that swim under the stories." Adbusters and Media Matters and the Love Police and other media and class conscious organizations try and provide resources for those who find themselves at this point of regression to synthesis both theory and energy into action.
My biggest point of contention in our discussion was this idea of "drawing a line." I think we make two mistakes in this. First we make the mistake of confusing media, advertisement, and propaganda with social influence and peer pressure. the latter is a social instrument meant to synthesis culture and maintain some cultural equilibrium the former is an entirely synthetic perverse form of pressure derived wholly and entirely by a select group with a special interest in mind that roots itself on control. When we say media the fact of the matter is that what is meant is in fact corporate media; Democracy Now! isn't the one convincing people that moccasins are back in style. Secondly, we assume that there is no drastic alternative to the current stream of society only amendments and reform can be made. Well, the current has only existed for what would be considered a blink of history, not more then 60 years ago the television was no source of catharsis. Yes, social control still existed, mainly through the right hand of the church and government, however it was a more organic control, one that could only squeeze so hard in fear of the push back, one that one felt could be changed or abolished (the Republic days of Spain or the French Revolution for example) This new form however, is synthetically modified and sanitized to be easy to swallow and numbing. WE DON'T NEED DISNEY FAIRY TALES OR MARVELS SUPER HEROS! what we want is the comfort of simpler days rather then the effort required to better our situations. Marx had said "religion is the opiate of the masses." well, he had no idea what MTV had in store for the masses.
This is beyond Disney and cartoons, this is about the fact that corporate advertising has infected every ounce of what should be organic human culture and ingrained its brand and labels.And the reasoning and theory behind it all rests on an economic system that values profit above all else and sees the dictatorship of capital as the driving force in human existence. I think of a song by the Krishna band 108, "I dream of a world were a smile isn't a rare gift, where feelings and desires mean more than quotas, expectations and disappointed stares. where we have a right to hurt, scream, cry, live, die and sit in silence just because we can. I dream of a world where I can love you in spite of what keeps us apart and where second best is as good as first or a millionth. where we don't over analyze every breathe or under appreciate what our words mean to another. where we find comfort in silence and a place of peace in all of the noise and where everything that is thrown at us makes us better, stronger and more appreciative. where we celebrate life, death and all that comes in between. where songs sing to us and a loved ones words make us dance." We should no longer have to dream these dreams, this is the world that is natural to us, the world we originially come from, what we see instead is a facade an imaginary world of things and products were emotions don't exist and life is measured rather than lived. It is a world resting on the shoulders of immigrants crushed by the power of culture that denied them person hood, a world held up by the blood and sweat of workers who daily make the sacrifice to the alter of a false "meritocracy" and return home to there children who have more and more in-common with sheep then adolescents because thy Shepperd Mickey Mouse is the parents last resort when overtime must be worked to pay for the genetically modified food on the table. And when the education system indoctrinates not love compassion and autonomy but competition jingosim and social darwanism and we consider a re-imaganing of Booker T. Washington race theory and extend it to other classes as the solution we perpetuate the crisis such as suggested in Mcintosh's "Unpacking White Privilege." The class struggle, the gender and orientation struggle, the environmental struggle, and the mental autonomy struggle are all interlocking, it is why this si a revolution that both we must fight and we can win because it will come to a tipping point where it is no longer an option when environmental and psychological collapse are at the flood gates do face the tide or hope for a new Noah and a GE constructed arch?
sorry for the ranting.....just take back your humanity and mental autonomy. Life shouldn't come pre-packaged or pre-sweetened. depression isn't a medical condition its the sane reaction to an insane environment. weed out consumption and harvest life and the memories that come with it.
https://www.adbusters.org/
http://mediamatters.org/
http://www.cveitch.org/
http://www.democracynow.org/
Kevin, I am having trouble accessing your videos. I got mine to work by copying and pasting the HTML thing from YouTube into the HTML tab when you make a new post. From there, you can switch tabs back to text and write around it. Hope that helps!
ReplyDeleteI think what you said about distinguishing between media, advertising and peer pressure and social influence makes a lot of sense. I also think that so many people, even when they become aware of what these aspects have serperatly done to them, are so entrenched in their ways of succumbing to these influences that they are unwilling to change. These people giving into peer pressure and influence need to learn to accept other people for their differences and what we can learn from each other.
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