"You Will" - The Cult of the New

Reading through Habermas, I could not help but get lost in his wording and arguments. However, talking through everything in class and relating it to our lives really helped me gain clarity in exactly the validity and strength of his arguments.

Personally, I am more of a visual person and am always looking for an example to help illustrate a perspective. Growing up, I got more enjoyment watching commercials than I did the actual television shows. Even now, I find myself pulling up old advertisements for Disney, AT&T, Apple, and other companies on YouTube just to see how they were constructed. In one of commercial quests, I came across a set of seven advertisements from 1993 for AT&T. The “You Will,” campaign looked at the power of technology and began to hint at the “over stimulated sensitivity” Habermas addressed in his essay. Narrating the advertisement, Tom Selleck asks “have you ever borrowed a book thousands of miles away, crossed the country without stopping for directions, or sent someone a fax from the beach?” Now, I may have only been three years old when these commercials came out, but looking at the various comments and even blogs that have picked up on the ad today, AT&T caught the curiosity of many in releasing this campaign. The technology they show is full of touch screens and monitors, high-speed connections, and virtual reality. People are connecting only through videoconferences and over the phone, a woman is even saying goodnight to her baby over a monitor. Things are moving faster as cars are not stopping to pay tolls, doors are opening by the sound of one’s voice, and children are able to watch a movie “the minute they want to.”

We become completely enthralled at the ideas of the modern, the “cult of the new” and cannot help but be enticed by the “latest and greatest,” by the “bigger, better, faster.” Habermas always warned that this “cult” would dominate the commercialized world and show people what they did not have rather than promote what they did. We are completely controlled by the idea of progress and technology to the point where we are becoming trapped in this hyperstimulated world. We live through virtual communication and unless something is at our fingertips every step of the way, we unconsciously panic. The majority of the ideas that AT&T presented seventeen years ago are a reality; it isn’t a matter of “you will” because we have already reached the point where “we are,” yet we are no where near the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8&feature=player_embedded#

On my honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work.