http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3719259008768610598#
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Media post
Today in class we discussed how looking at different shots on film can be viewed in different ways. One prime example of this is the media exposure on 9/11. In this video is a conspiracy theory about how the government is behind the destruction of the twin towers instead of terrorist attackers. This clip not only expresses a completely different view point then what were used to, but an abundance of evidence to back it up. The video is a bit lengthy but very interesting so take a look!
Momento and Baudrillard
In Christopher Nolan's Memento, a man named Leonard seeks to discover the identity of a man who raped and killed his wife. His search is complicated by the fact that he has no short-term memory as a result of the trauma from the rape and murder of his wife. Leonard is seen constantly attempting to piece together facts surrounding his wife's death while at the same time trying to figure out where he is, why he is there, and even who he is every few minutes. In an attempt to remind himself of these answers, Leonard uses photographs of people and places with notes on attached to them that contain information about peoples names, how and why he knows someone, and anything else that could prove useful in helping himself remember clues about the murder. This storyline sets up a perfect postmodern experience in which evidence and perceptions of that evidence are constantly analyzed to reconstruct a sense of what is “real”. In the film, Leonard is constantly reconstructing the events and causes of his personal history with the photographs, notes, and messages that he leaves himself to better understand reality. Also, the viewer and the protagonist of the film are placed in the same position. Like Leonard, the viewer witnesses the present while also attempts to reconstruct the events that have led up to that moment with clues that mirror the ones used by Leonard. This creates a parallel experience between the protagonist and the viewer that allows for the viewer to feel like Leonard, constantly interpreting and making assumptions based on broken pieces of evidence and being lost in a world that lacks clarity and meaning. This gets at Baudrillard’s idea that we can create an ordered and coherent narrative out of a fragmented field of events and causes and that this idea in itself calls into question our capacity to understand events and their causes as they “really” are.
Post-Class
Tuesday's conversation about perception made me read over Baudrillard again- it's kind of depressing, constantly thinking that what I see is probably not real. Rather than think about representations of this idea, such as Memento and The Matrix, I thought about what I've learned so far from my surroundings and the teachings from the CMC major. And, not surprisingly, I got a little annoyed. There are certain things that should be trusted. I want to trust that teachers aren't lying to me-- but what do you call teaching religious doctrine via history books in Texas? I want my politicians to be humanitarians and do what's best for the people they represent- but politicians have the corruption stereotype for a reason. I trust law enforcement to protect me-- but there's never that guarantee. And I want the media to tell me the entire story, not this bullshit about "some people say" or "the authorities" or the rest of the anonymous world. So I watch the news and I get angry, because chances are that's not what happened. But "the authorities" are clever-- those who speak out vehemently against the mainstream media quoting independent sources and the rare journalist not under a corporate thumb are radicals, crazy people who may as well be charged with treason. I can never be sure that whole clips of real life are being played, or things are being photoshopped. As a result of this uncertainty and lack of reality in everyday life, I'm left feeling a little alone, like this knowledge I'm acquiring is not general knowledge, and I'm thought to be one of those crazy people gaping at the ignorance of Glenn Beck or O'Reilly. I would consider whole truths a key part in knowing reality, and what's real- and I seriously feel like I am in a desert, with not a lot of people with me.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
9/29/10
Like many others have already stated in their blogs, Disney holds a very special place in my childhood. When I was younger it was hard to find a Disney movie where I didn’t know every line, song and character. At one point my mom had to ask me to stop constantly singing Disney tunes around the house. So, needless to say, my trips to Disney World were truly amazing. When I walked down the notorious “Main Street” my heart pounded with excitement and my imagination ran wild. Everything was so happy, playful and full of spirit. Today, going to Disney World, the excitement is still there but the realities of the reproduced fantasies are more prominent. Now having a background of Critical Media studies, I am able to look at the theme park and see beyond is playful cover.
After reading “The City of Robots” by Umberto Eco, there were a couple of points I found to be very interesting. For one, how effectively Disney World was able to produce the illusion of reality. When you enter the Magic Kingdom, you are surrounded by life size buildings, functioning shops, realistic robots and other dressed up characters. Instead of just watching these imaginary places in Disney movies, you are able to walk around the fantasy world as if you are in the movie yourself. As Eco calls it, Disney is a “masterpiece of falsification.” Everything is presented to you as if it is “real” because you can walk into the different shops and purchase items with real money from a person who is dressed in costume acting the part. Disney has managed to create a hallucination atmosphere where you want to believe what you are witnessing is real.
Although Disney gives off a feeling of fun and excitement, is what they are promoting in your best interest. Disney has not only managed to create a realistic fantasy world but has also taken advantage of the fact that we live in a consumer society. Because Disney allows you to indulge in an out of body experience, you sometimes forget how much money your spending. You may think you need to buy something in order to fully participate in the whole experience. I was at Disney World a few weeks ago and just to get into the park alone the fee was 80 dollars, not including parking. The hype for the fantasy experience is in such demand, that people will pay ridiculous dollars just to be there.
"On my honor I have neither given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this blog."
Disney pre-class
Having read tonights reading which directly correlates to a similar reading I did in prior weeks in CMC-200, I found Dorfan and Mattelart to have some very intersting material in their article. Having done the Disney work for 200, I already knew the bulk of Domani's material and a fair amount of Dorfan&Mattelart's but the latter provided me with a great deal of fresh perspective. I liked how the text looked at the connotative and dennotative readings of Disney texts and especially the patriarchal aspects of father/son narrative relation. I have seen firsthand what D&M clarify on page 123 about Disney being a social environment 'which extends beyond all frontiers and ideologies, transcends differences between peoples and nations and particularities of custom and language' (123) as I lived in Singapore for a month in my youth and saw a prevalence of Disney characters abroad. The narratives put forth by these characters and their archetypes are universally relatable which suggests as D&M put it a 'common collective vision' (123).
I found D&M's statement on 125 to be particularly eye opening in 'children's literature is a genre like any other, monopolized by specialized subsectors within the culture industry' (125) as I had never given thought to children's literature at all, let alone as a genre. I found the coverage of new reality, closed circuits, mass culture, utpoia, and nostalgia to be interestingly approached in the text on 126&127 as an effective leighway to the coverage of generational conflicts, which was the golden concept of this article.
D&M state on 126 that 'the identity of parent and child inhibits the emergence of true generational conflicts. The pure child will replace the corrupt father, preserving the latters values. The future (the child) reaffirms the present (the adult), which, in turn, transmits the past. The apparent independence which the father benevolently bestows upon this little territory of his creation, is the very means of assuring his supremacy' (126). This was a very intersting spin on what D&M identify in their instructions expelling someone from the Disneyclub as 'Marxism-fiction, a theory imported from abroad by "wicked foreigners"' (125). This stood out to me because what they say about the emergence of true generational conficts is literally a reinterpretation of Marx's theory of the owners of material production subsequently owning mental production. In D&M the father acts as the proletariat and teh child the bourgeoisie, the father shaping the childs thought processes vicariously through their own experience and future hopes for the child. As my Dad conditioned my mental production to act with chivalry whenever the opportunity arises, i.e. opening doors for women, the fathers in this text influence their children and condition them through juvenile narratives the inspire, such as Disney's ideological interpretations. Also paramount to this is D&M's statement that 'inasmuch as the sweet and docile child can be sheltered effectively from the evils of existence, from the petty rancors, the hatreds and teh political or ideological contamination of his elders, any attempt to politicize the sacred domaine of childhood threatens to introduce perversity where there once reigned happiness, innocence and fantasy' (124).
D&M also cover Marxian thought in their conceptualization of mass culture, reflecting the proletariats pros and cons over the bourgeoisie: 'MAss culture...had a levelling effect and has exposed a wider audience to a broader range of themes, it has simultaneously generated a cultural elite which has cut itself off more and more from the masses. COntrary to the democratic potential of mass culture, this elite has plunged mass culture into a suffocating complexity of solutions, approaches and techniques, each of which is comprehensible only to a narrow circle of readers' (127). All the material in this quote is talking about the proletariats dominance over the mental production of the bourgeoisie, even stating that the complexity of solutions, approaches and techniques is comprehensible to only a narrow circle of people reading the text i.e. the proletariats themselves. This means the bourgoise follows the proletariats ideology without question considering themselves incapable of reading the full context of why things are the way they are, which they perceive the proletariat to have a grasp over - in the same way the son listens to the father unquestioningly.
on my honor I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work.
I found D&M's statement on 125 to be particularly eye opening in 'children's literature is a genre like any other, monopolized by specialized subsectors within the culture industry' (125) as I had never given thought to children's literature at all, let alone as a genre. I found the coverage of new reality, closed circuits, mass culture, utpoia, and nostalgia to be interestingly approached in the text on 126&127 as an effective leighway to the coverage of generational conflicts, which was the golden concept of this article.
D&M state on 126 that 'the identity of parent and child inhibits the emergence of true generational conflicts. The pure child will replace the corrupt father, preserving the latters values. The future (the child) reaffirms the present (the adult), which, in turn, transmits the past. The apparent independence which the father benevolently bestows upon this little territory of his creation, is the very means of assuring his supremacy' (126). This was a very intersting spin on what D&M identify in their instructions expelling someone from the Disneyclub as 'Marxism-fiction, a theory imported from abroad by "wicked foreigners"' (125). This stood out to me because what they say about the emergence of true generational conficts is literally a reinterpretation of Marx's theory of the owners of material production subsequently owning mental production. In D&M the father acts as the proletariat and teh child the bourgeoisie, the father shaping the childs thought processes vicariously through their own experience and future hopes for the child. As my Dad conditioned my mental production to act with chivalry whenever the opportunity arises, i.e. opening doors for women, the fathers in this text influence their children and condition them through juvenile narratives the inspire, such as Disney's ideological interpretations. Also paramount to this is D&M's statement that 'inasmuch as the sweet and docile child can be sheltered effectively from the evils of existence, from the petty rancors, the hatreds and teh political or ideological contamination of his elders, any attempt to politicize the sacred domaine of childhood threatens to introduce perversity where there once reigned happiness, innocence and fantasy' (124).
D&M also cover Marxian thought in their conceptualization of mass culture, reflecting the proletariats pros and cons over the bourgeoisie: 'MAss culture...had a levelling effect and has exposed a wider audience to a broader range of themes, it has simultaneously generated a cultural elite which has cut itself off more and more from the masses. COntrary to the democratic potential of mass culture, this elite has plunged mass culture into a suffocating complexity of solutions, approaches and techniques, each of which is comprehensible only to a narrow circle of readers' (127). All the material in this quote is talking about the proletariats dominance over the mental production of the bourgeoisie, even stating that the complexity of solutions, approaches and techniques is comprehensible to only a narrow circle of people reading the text i.e. the proletariats themselves. This means the bourgoise follows the proletariats ideology without question considering themselves incapable of reading the full context of why things are the way they are, which they perceive the proletariat to have a grasp over - in the same way the son listens to the father unquestioningly.
on my honor I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work.
Disney and Eco
Having lived in Orlando until I was six years old, I have had my fair share of trips to Disney World. It’s safe to say I own majority of the Disney movies ever made and I’ve watched them all so many times the tape on the VHS is nearly breaking. It’s amazing to me having been to Disney so many times and watching the films so many times that I never once perceived them in a different light.
After reading Eco’s piece several things came to mind. First, it is hard to grasp the fact that during my many trips to Disney, though I thought I was visiting the most magical place on earth, I was actually being led through endless traps that kept me constantly consuming in a fairytale world that would do just the opposite of making my dreams come true and instead leave me with false promises, tired legs and an empty wallet.
The second thing I thought about was the way that I remember feeling while at Disney. These memories came to mind when Eco talks about the impression that the houses in Disney give you. He says “The houses of Disneyland are full size on the ground floor, and on a two thirds scale on the floor above, so they give the impression of being inhabitable but also of belonging to a fantastic past that we grasp with our imagination” (202). Thinking back, Eco is so right in the sense that the way the houses are portrayed are that of authentic homes that once belonged to a city long ago. While in the theme park, you become so immersed in what is going on around you that you begin to forget about the world outside Disney. After thinking long and hard about which point during my trip to Disney did I feel like I was traveling to a real city, I decided that for me, it has to be when they take you on the boat ride from the parking lot (one of several entry options). Going on a boat and having it take you somewhere definitely made me feel as a child that I was traveling to a legitimate city. Eco’s reading not only makes you realize how Disneys strategic marketing grabs hold of your wallet the second you step on the property, but also the ability it has to fog up our intuition as to what is real, hyperreal, and just a Disney fairytale.
Where Dreams Come True?
I have always been a big Disney fan. Whether it meant going to Disney World or watching Disney movies in the comfort of my own home, it has always been a large part of my childhood. Classics like Cinderella, Snow White and Beauty and the Beast, had never been challenged until I began CMC. Last class, we were discussing how hegemonic masculinity exists where men are taught to be violent. This among other issues such as the intelligence of women not being supported and the idea that a woman needs to be completed by a man are all reoccurring patterns that exist within the Disney culture. This teaches children at a young age to believe these ideas and turn them into norms. Apparently, Disney is not all that it is cracked up to be.
Dorfman and Mattelart bring new light to the problems with Disney in “Introduction: Instructions on How to Become a General in the Disneyland Club. They argue that anyone who negatively criticizes Disney is deemed indecent and a political agitator. I think that it is a big problem that no one is questioning Disney as it shows how comfortable everyone is with that type of society. It seems as though people are also afraid to disapprove of it because it is such a large part of society and because it is supposed to “make dreams come true”. The issues I previously discussed such as a woman needing to be completed by a man becomes conditioned into the lives of children thereby causing this notion that Dorfman and Mattelart call a “new reality”. Adults are imposing this “new reality” (126) on their children, believing it to be essential. At such a young age how are you supposed to know what fantasy is and what isn’t? As a result, the line between desire and reality becomes blurred. The other problem is that children learn how to handle certain situations by what the media (Disney) tells them. In a sense, this switches the authority figure from the parent to Disney.
Dorfman and Mattelart bring new light to the problems with Disney in “Introduction: Instructions on How to Become a General in the Disneyland Club. They argue that anyone who negatively criticizes Disney is deemed indecent and a political agitator. I think that it is a big problem that no one is questioning Disney as it shows how comfortable everyone is with that type of society. It seems as though people are also afraid to disapprove of it because it is such a large part of society and because it is supposed to “make dreams come true”. The issues I previously discussed such as a woman needing to be completed by a man becomes conditioned into the lives of children thereby causing this notion that Dorfman and Mattelart call a “new reality”. Adults are imposing this “new reality” (126) on their children, believing it to be essential. At such a young age how are you supposed to know what fantasy is and what isn’t? As a result, the line between desire and reality becomes blurred. The other problem is that children learn how to handle certain situations by what the media (Disney) tells them. In a sense, this switches the authority figure from the parent to Disney.
Disney 9/29
For Thursday, the reading we had assigned was “Introduction: Instructions on How to Become a General in the Disneyland Club.” I found this very interesting now looking at the world of Disney we have today. A child is introduced to the world of Disney at a very young age with the cartoons, parks, and movies. Looking at the world today with what Disney owns now, we can almost say that Disney has corrupted us as young adults and even older adults. As children, we were so excited to go see Goofy and all of the Disney characters at the amusement park. But now, I have seen an older age group attending the Disney parks in Orlando. In Disney now they have the House of Blues, which I have attended and I know a lot of kids at Rollins have attended for concert shows. They also have many more venues for adult targeted audiences such as the Hard Rock Café and the world of ESPN. When I was going to DisneyWorld as a child, I had never even heard of ESPN or thought about it.
Disney has found a way to target all ages if it did not already do so. And as consumers, we all have followed Disney and still show up as adults even if we are not bringing younger children to the park. So as Disney “corrupts” young children into loving all of their favorite characters, it now puts in their heads that there are a lot more things you can do at Disney when your older and again “corrupts” you as an adult and attracts them in different ways.
On my honor I have not given nor received nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this blog.
Disney - Pre Class Post
"Disney is the great supranational bridge across which all human beings may communicate with each other." (Ariel Dorfam and Mattelart 123) This is so true. I moved lots as a child and remember always loving to watch Disney movies, going to Disney World or having some kind of Disney toy - and all other kids no matter where I lived knew it too! So yes indeed I would have to agree Disney is huge, well known every where in the world and may let all humans being communicate with each other in some way, shape or form. To give Disney the Nobel Peace Prize may have gone a bit too far, though, I believe.
Disney is so well known and 'loved' around the world because it is a place where utopia lives. Disney, a juvenile literature, embodying purity, spontaneity, and natural virtue, while lacking in sex and violence, represents earthly paradise (Dorfman 126). No matter what Disney movie we watch it always has a happy ending. If you start out poor (Cinderella) you turn into a princess, if you are lonely (Snow White) you get swept off your feet by the man of your dreams, if you are a minority (Pocahontas) there's nothing to fear because the Caucasian man will fall in love with you and save you...and so on. Everyone child can relate to something in a Disney character and take away their worries, bring happiness and laughter to their hearts. At the same time Disney reinforces all ideologies that the rest of mass media does such as, the woman needing the man to be complete, the man being protective over the woman, the male being the strong and dominant gender, the female being lovely, caring and pretty...So from a very early age we know what our dreams should be - for me it was to be a princess and to find the man of my dreams. Maybe because that's what Disney told me when I was younger?!
It is interesting how Dorfman mentioned that it is the adults that produce these comics (126). I never really thought about that. It is the adult that want to escape into this world. But this salvation only offers him an imperfect escape; it can never be so pure as to block off all his real life problems (127).
Disney
The concepts found in Ariel Dorfman and Armmand Mattelart’s piece called “Introduction: Instructions on How to Become a General in the Disneyland Club” I found easy to relate and apply to Disney’s Donald Duck Cartoons during World War II. It is ironic that in the “Instruction on How to Expel Someone from the Disneyland Club” section of this article, the authors suspect that readers may label them as political agitators and Walt Disney as above politics, because in reality Disney was very involved in political activities. During World War II Walt Disney was commissioned by the United States government to make propaganda cartoons, supporting the war. The main character of these films was Donald Duck. Donald was portrayed as a soldier, going through various funny situations in a war time setting. The ‘enemies’ had slanted eyes, alluding to the Japanese forces, and were painted dark colors, to induce the sense of evil. As expected, Donald Duck was always victorious, and his dehumanized enemies were left defeated with silly or simple tactics. This allows the audience to presume that Donald Duck (America) can easily and is defeating its dark enemies (the Japanese). This cartoon not only conveys the idea we were winning and going to win the war, but also associated the war with laughter and good feelings. These good feelings that come with comedy and cartoons and related to the war, hence there are positive opinions of the war. This type of propaganda was especially effective because customarily children’ cartoons are not critically analyzed. “Above all, there is the implication that politics cannot enter into areas of ‘pure entertainment,’ especially those designed for children of tender years” (Dorfman and Mattelart, 124). This is a very dangerous implication, because if media outlets are accepted as ‘fluff’ or of no significance, then their meanings or ideologies are more easily transmitted to their audience. One of the first concepts we learn in Critical Media and Cultural Studies is that there is no such thing as “pure entertainment”. Much like the media genre of comedy, children’s media outlets are written off by the majority as meaningless, and as having the purpose of entertainment, and only entertainment. With this popular mindset, all of Walt Disney’s creations can be overlooked and accepted by not only our culture, but by cultures around the world. In reality, Walt Disney’s franchise is encoded with many hegemonic ideologies, which are then instilled into our cultures youth at a young age.
Eco "The City of Robots"
Since I have never been to Disney World, I compared Eco’s, “The City of Robots”, to my experience at Colonial Williamsburg. Williamsburg is not a completely fake city because it was rebuilt on its original foundations but it has incorporated many fake elements through its restoration and reconstruction. Although its purpose is to share history with visitors, the tours shape the way that they want the public to see it. Similar how Eco describes the experience of Disney World because, “Access to each attraction is regulated by a maze of metal railings which discourages any individual initiatives” (205). The tour guides at Williamsburg take you to certain attractions, let you participate in hands on activities having to do with colonial life, take you to a restaurant to eat traditional food, and then to the gift shops.
Visitors take their experience at Williamsburg as genuine and true to what the colonial life actually was. If the visitor believes that anything within the town is fake or recreated they will not enjoy their experience as much. Eco says, “But once the ‘total fake’ is admitted, in order to be enjoyed it must seem totally real” (202). This is why Williamsburg makes the effort to have all of their tour guides dressed in traditional colonial clothing and talking in accents, having shopkeepers dressed up in the gift shops, and fake families inside the houses showing the colonial lifestyles.
Williamsburg is not as nearly as strong of an example of Disney World but still shares some of the same elements of being consumers within these places. Eco says, “The customer finds himself participating in the fantasy because of his own authenticity as a consumer” (201). So even though all of the employees of Williamsburg are acting, and visitors are placed into an authentic environment to try to relive life in the past, the current consumerism of our society still exists within places like these. Visitors purchase “antique” items, “old-style” lunch, or other items that are exclusive to Williamsburg. Even though they may be into the scene that the town has created, their role as a consumer will still exist.
"Fantasy and reality often overlap." - Walt Disney
Ever since I can remember, Disney has always been that one constant that kept me moving forward. Whether I was going through a phase where I wanted to be Cinderella or a business executive, it did not matter as long as that company was my home. However, in entering as a critical media student, I have been encouraged and guided to look at Disney, its philosophies, even its parks with a more crucial eye. Currently working on my CMC 200 paper on Disney, I have come across a lot of similar arguments claiming that Walt Disney did not like what the world was becoming. He believed there was a lack of order and structure and that is parks could provide the escape to this.
Reading The City of Robots, I could not help but think of Eco’s view of reality in comparison to what Walt Disney may have thought. Disney always said, “fantasy and reality often overlap,” and I believe it is here that we discover our first problem. Disney wanted to create an escape, a fantasy, but what is the company causing when they do this? They “tell us that technology can give us more reality than nature can” and in fact, I would go as far as enough as they force that concept into your mind the minute you enter the park. It is through technology, yes, that Disney is able to create the atmospheres we all know, but it is through control that this “reality” completely engrosses us. Audio-animatronics, interactive characters (now reaching the point where they can actually have a conversation with the guests), themed-lands - they are all apart of the bigger picture of control. It is true that “visitors must agree to behave like its robots” when they enter into the park, often being herded around though lines, corridors, shows, and sidewalks, but they are agreeing to surrender themselves in the pursuit of a “better reality.” Disney gives us that outward perfection, that ideal society, that clean-cut escape, but we need to take a step back and realize just how much control goes into the business of “reality” and its mask behind the word of “fantasy.”
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Jean Baudrillard vs. Billy Joel
In class today, Tuesday 9/28/2010 we discussed Jean Baudrillard's piece 'The Precession of Simulacra'. As my media example for the week and the title of this post suggest this post is about taking a critical media approach interpreting a musical text through Baudrillard's filter. The media text I will be analyzing through Baudrillard is the song by Billy Joel, 'We Didn't Start the Fire.' The song 'We Didn't Start the Fire' lyrically lists the historical personalities and events from 1949 - 1989. The lyrics take the form of a list, in which Joel lists off everything from famous people, movements, books, theorists, events, social problems, movies, musicians to even include Ham the Chimpanzee, formerly known as the 'Space Monkey' who was the first 'American' launched into space as a test subject pre-human launch in 1961.
The song textually embodies Baudrillard's notion of 'simulacra' which the dictionary defines as 'a slight, unreal or superficial likeness or semblance' (dictionary.com) as it is a historical list of global persons and events however it is not all encompassing or entirely factual. This gives the songs listing of historical events in order from 1949 the appearance of being an all inclusive historical account which it however is not. What I am attempting to do in this blog is take key events from the song and decipher them through Baudrillard.
To start with Baudrilard states on page 457 that 'in order for ethnology to live, its object must die; by dying, the object takes its revenge for being 'discovered' and with its death defies teh science that wants to grasp it'. The dictionary definition of ethnology differs from this however being 'a branch of anthropology that analyzes cultures, esp. in regard to their historical development and the similarities and dissimilarities between them' (dictionary.com). Using the dictionary's definition Joel's lyrical text embodies an ethnology as it compares global historical events on a timeline, albeit from an American-centric perspective. For example, Joel lyrisizes 'sputnik' and 'space monkey' in rapid succesion, Sputnik being the first orbiting satellite the USSR put into space in 1957 which started the space race and Space Monkey being America's rebuttle to this launch, testing their own spacecraft with Ham the Chimpanzee in 1961. Joel uses an American-centric viewpoint to list historical events and contrast some of them globally. The song by the end paints an impressive global picture of an American-centric historical timeline from '49 to '89 however it is an incomplete text. The text thus acts as Baudrillard would say, as representation of such a text. Baudrillard conceptualizes representation on page 456 as stemming 'from the principle of the equivalence of teh sign and of the real (even if this equivalence is utopian, it is a fundamental axiom)'. Joel's lyrics thus represent the real but do not manage to properly its lyrical signifiers as the real as the text is not all encompassing.
The song starts off with the lyric 'Harry Truman'. Truman was the President after Roosevelt and responsible for both dropping the atomic bomb on Japan ending WWII and starting the Marshall plan to rebuild Europe post-war. Joel later mentions Einstein who developed the Theory of Relativity. To use Baudrillard to analize these two inclusions we need to look at his coverage of nuclear balance and then science. On page 475 Baudrillard elaborates 'the risk of nuclear annihilation only serves as a pretext, through the sophistication of weapons for installing a universal security system, a universal lockup and control system whose deterret effect is not at all aimed at an atomic clash but, rather, at the much greater probability of any real event, of anything that would be an event in the general system and upset its balance. The balance of terror is the terror of balance.' (475). Now I have taken this out of context and backwards to prove my point (the science comes first in Baudrillard) but forgive for this misguidance. What Baudrillard means here is that post-Truman ending WWII using the atomic bomb on Japan, culture has never again resorted to nuclear usage in war-time out of balance. Elaborating, Russia knows we have nukes and we know they do so we are at a standstil to use them on one another as it would lead to the annihilation of both. To tie this into science, the atomic bomb was a scientific breakthrough which was then militarized and used to annihilate an enormous amount of people in order to resolve world conflict. This notion of science as an inherent weapon is paramount in Baudrillard. Baudrillard states on 457 that, 'it is not a question of sacrifice (science never sacrifices itself, it is always murderous)' (457). The atomic bomb drop is the clearest example of science as murderous although there are a plethora of them - the largest being the creation of science leading to the disenchantment of the world.
My next lyrical example from Joel tied directly to Baudrillard is the mention of Disneyland. Joel lists Disneyland refering to its creation and opening, however the universality of recognition in Disneyland as a global cultural norm relates to Baudrillard. Disneyland, created by Walt Disney emerged as a reinvention of American culture through distortion of historical fact to create the magical world we all love. Disney's 'Mainstreet' is based on a utopian 1950's American 'Pleasantville', other aspects of the park based on other time periods such as the Victorian era combining differing ideologies to create the park. Baudrillard says 'this 'ideological' blanket functions as a cover for a simulation of the third order: Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the "real" country, all of "real" America that is Disneyland (a bit like prisons are there to hide that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, that is carceral)' (461). This conceptualization by Baudrillard covers a number of topics in his piece, most paramount that of simulation. Simulation, defined by Baudrillard throughout the text stands as: '...the generation by models of a real without origin or reality... to feign to have what one doesn't have (implying absence)... threatens the difference between the "true" and the "false", the "real" and the "imaginary"... it transfers the symptom of the organic order to the unconscious order: the latter is new and taken for "real" more real than the other' (453-455). In my words what this pertains to the experience of Disneyland as follows: people who enter Disneyland see images, cultural norms, social structures and hierarchies that mimic reality, simulating the American cultural experience so chameleon-like that upon entering the park the guest's suspension of disbelief forces them to take the American cultural simulation presented by Disneyland as truth for the duration of their stay. This is problematic for the real American culture as Disneyland stands, in Baudrillard's words, as 'a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes' (454). What is meant here, in lamens terms, (and this quote did not apply specifically to Disneyland but I used it in that context) is that Disneyland presents the American cultural experience without any of the bad - there is no mention of slavery, civil war, 9/11, Pearly Harbor, Vietnam, racism or any negative aspects of American history anywhere in Disneyland. The pirates even sing and dance. What this notion acts as, in Baudrillard's terms is to dissimulate American history of negativity - 'to dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has (implying presence)... leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked...' (454). Baudrillard continues marking 'the transition from signs that dissimulate something to signs that dissimulate that there is nothing marks a decisive turning point. The first reflects a theology of truth and secrecy (to which the notion of ideology still belongs). The second inaugurates the era of simulacra and of simulation' (457). By dissimulating American culture to create a purposeful falsified utopian simulation of American culture, the guests leaving Disneyland are struck fighting the dilemma incurred by the simulacra seeing the real world from a fundamentally altered perspective byproduct of the visit - 'the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its fully meaning' (457). The exited guests remember, associate and instill Disney-history on both their own subjective experience and that of American history and there is something supremely dangerous about this. In summation from Baudrillard, 'it is thus very naive to look for ethnology in the Savages or in some Third World - it is here, everywhere, in the metropolises, in the White community, in a world completely cataloged and analyzed, then artificially resurrected under the auspices of teh real, in a world of simulation, of the hallucination of truth, of the blackmail of the real, of the murder of every symbolic form and of its hysterical, historical retrospective - a murder of which... for a long time has extended to all Western societies' (458).
I took some of Joel's lyrical text and analyzed aspects of it applying Baudrillard's theories and have come away with a much more elaborate understanding of both Joel, Baudrillard and the pros and cons of science, simulation, simulacra, dissimulation, ethnology, ideological blanketing, and the balance of terror. My final thought taken from Baudrillard is this 'simulation is infinitely more dangerous because it always leaves open to supposition that, above and beyond its object, law and order themselves might be nothing but simulation' (466) and to think I only covered five of Billy Joel's lyrics...
On my honor I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work.
The song textually embodies Baudrillard's notion of 'simulacra' which the dictionary defines as 'a slight, unreal or superficial likeness or semblance' (dictionary.com) as it is a historical list of global persons and events however it is not all encompassing or entirely factual. This gives the songs listing of historical events in order from 1949 the appearance of being an all inclusive historical account which it however is not. What I am attempting to do in this blog is take key events from the song and decipher them through Baudrillard.
To start with Baudrilard states on page 457 that 'in order for ethnology to live, its object must die; by dying, the object takes its revenge for being 'discovered' and with its death defies teh science that wants to grasp it'. The dictionary definition of ethnology differs from this however being 'a branch of anthropology that analyzes cultures, esp. in regard to their historical development and the similarities and dissimilarities between them' (dictionary.com). Using the dictionary's definition Joel's lyrical text embodies an ethnology as it compares global historical events on a timeline, albeit from an American-centric perspective. For example, Joel lyrisizes 'sputnik' and 'space monkey' in rapid succesion, Sputnik being the first orbiting satellite the USSR put into space in 1957 which started the space race and Space Monkey being America's rebuttle to this launch, testing their own spacecraft with Ham the Chimpanzee in 1961. Joel uses an American-centric viewpoint to list historical events and contrast some of them globally. The song by the end paints an impressive global picture of an American-centric historical timeline from '49 to '89 however it is an incomplete text. The text thus acts as Baudrillard would say, as representation of such a text. Baudrillard conceptualizes representation on page 456 as stemming 'from the principle of the equivalence of teh sign and of the real (even if this equivalence is utopian, it is a fundamental axiom)'. Joel's lyrics thus represent the real but do not manage to properly its lyrical signifiers as the real as the text is not all encompassing.
The song starts off with the lyric 'Harry Truman'. Truman was the President after Roosevelt and responsible for both dropping the atomic bomb on Japan ending WWII and starting the Marshall plan to rebuild Europe post-war. Joel later mentions Einstein who developed the Theory of Relativity. To use Baudrillard to analize these two inclusions we need to look at his coverage of nuclear balance and then science. On page 475 Baudrillard elaborates 'the risk of nuclear annihilation only serves as a pretext, through the sophistication of weapons for installing a universal security system, a universal lockup and control system whose deterret effect is not at all aimed at an atomic clash but, rather, at the much greater probability of any real event, of anything that would be an event in the general system and upset its balance. The balance of terror is the terror of balance.' (475). Now I have taken this out of context and backwards to prove my point (the science comes first in Baudrillard) but forgive for this misguidance. What Baudrillard means here is that post-Truman ending WWII using the atomic bomb on Japan, culture has never again resorted to nuclear usage in war-time out of balance. Elaborating, Russia knows we have nukes and we know they do so we are at a standstil to use them on one another as it would lead to the annihilation of both. To tie this into science, the atomic bomb was a scientific breakthrough which was then militarized and used to annihilate an enormous amount of people in order to resolve world conflict. This notion of science as an inherent weapon is paramount in Baudrillard. Baudrillard states on 457 that, 'it is not a question of sacrifice (science never sacrifices itself, it is always murderous)' (457). The atomic bomb drop is the clearest example of science as murderous although there are a plethora of them - the largest being the creation of science leading to the disenchantment of the world.
My next lyrical example from Joel tied directly to Baudrillard is the mention of Disneyland. Joel lists Disneyland refering to its creation and opening, however the universality of recognition in Disneyland as a global cultural norm relates to Baudrillard. Disneyland, created by Walt Disney emerged as a reinvention of American culture through distortion of historical fact to create the magical world we all love. Disney's 'Mainstreet' is based on a utopian 1950's American 'Pleasantville', other aspects of the park based on other time periods such as the Victorian era combining differing ideologies to create the park. Baudrillard says 'this 'ideological' blanket functions as a cover for a simulation of the third order: Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the "real" country, all of "real" America that is Disneyland (a bit like prisons are there to hide that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, that is carceral)' (461). This conceptualization by Baudrillard covers a number of topics in his piece, most paramount that of simulation. Simulation, defined by Baudrillard throughout the text stands as: '...the generation by models of a real without origin or reality... to feign to have what one doesn't have (implying absence)... threatens the difference between the "true" and the "false", the "real" and the "imaginary"... it transfers the symptom of the organic order to the unconscious order: the latter is new and taken for "real" more real than the other' (453-455). In my words what this pertains to the experience of Disneyland as follows: people who enter Disneyland see images, cultural norms, social structures and hierarchies that mimic reality, simulating the American cultural experience so chameleon-like that upon entering the park the guest's suspension of disbelief forces them to take the American cultural simulation presented by Disneyland as truth for the duration of their stay. This is problematic for the real American culture as Disneyland stands, in Baudrillard's words, as 'a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes' (454). What is meant here, in lamens terms, (and this quote did not apply specifically to Disneyland but I used it in that context) is that Disneyland presents the American cultural experience without any of the bad - there is no mention of slavery, civil war, 9/11, Pearly Harbor, Vietnam, racism or any negative aspects of American history anywhere in Disneyland. The pirates even sing and dance. What this notion acts as, in Baudrillard's terms is to dissimulate American history of negativity - 'to dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has (implying presence)... leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked...' (454). Baudrillard continues marking 'the transition from signs that dissimulate something to signs that dissimulate that there is nothing marks a decisive turning point. The first reflects a theology of truth and secrecy (to which the notion of ideology still belongs). The second inaugurates the era of simulacra and of simulation' (457). By dissimulating American culture to create a purposeful falsified utopian simulation of American culture, the guests leaving Disneyland are struck fighting the dilemma incurred by the simulacra seeing the real world from a fundamentally altered perspective byproduct of the visit - 'the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its fully meaning' (457). The exited guests remember, associate and instill Disney-history on both their own subjective experience and that of American history and there is something supremely dangerous about this. In summation from Baudrillard, 'it is thus very naive to look for ethnology in the Savages or in some Third World - it is here, everywhere, in the metropolises, in the White community, in a world completely cataloged and analyzed, then artificially resurrected under the auspices of teh real, in a world of simulation, of the hallucination of truth, of the blackmail of the real, of the murder of every symbolic form and of its hysterical, historical retrospective - a murder of which... for a long time has extended to all Western societies' (458).
I took some of Joel's lyrical text and analyzed aspects of it applying Baudrillard's theories and have come away with a much more elaborate understanding of both Joel, Baudrillard and the pros and cons of science, simulation, simulacra, dissimulation, ethnology, ideological blanketing, and the balance of terror. My final thought taken from Baudrillard is this 'simulation is infinitely more dangerous because it always leaves open to supposition that, above and beyond its object, law and order themselves might be nothing but simulation' (466) and to think I only covered five of Billy Joel's lyrics...
On my honor I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work.
Tuesday Sept 28
Today in class we began to talk about Baudrillard. I found Baudrillard's theory of the real very interesting and true. To us, real is what we define it as internally. We defined the simulacra as something that simulates something that already exists, a likeness of something that may have no connection to something that is real.
The example that was used was the mini Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas. Some people who see the mini Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas believe that since it simulates the real Eiffel Tower in Paris, that there is no need for them to experience it. This is an example of what Baudrillard explains as substituting the real for the real. His idea of what we have become is that we don't care about the natural world, we want the fake.
Another example of simulacra is Disneyland. Baudrillard talks about the hyperreal and the Imaginary and how it applies to Disneyland. "It is first of all a play of illusions and phantasms: the Pirates, the Frontier, the Future World , etc. This imaginary world is supposed to ensure the success of the operation" (460). Baudrillard from there goes on to explain, "Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simmulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle"(461). I found this to be an understandable example of simulacra and how the real delivers false promises.
I found it alarming yet true about the public's reactions to pictures of the war. It is not popular for mass amounts of people to see pictures of death and destruction. Once we see those pictures, we pay less attention to what is going on abroad. Though that is a sad fact, it is very true.
Post Class Post 9/23
In class on Thursday we finished our discussion on Lyotard and began talking about Habermas. I found the Habermas reading/in class discussion to be very interesting and real. I have found that I personally enjoy learning about Commodity Fetishism and the ideologies behind it so when Habermas talked about "the cult of the new" I found it very interesting.
The cult of the new has to do with how we in society like new things. We like being shocked or exposed to things that we haven't been exposed to before. We talked about how advertisements create the cult of the new. An example that really resonated with me was new cell phone advertisements. It seems like there are new cell phones coming out on a regular basis which leaves us the consumers, always wanting the next best thing. However, because knowledge will always grow and technology will continue advancing, we will never have THE best cell phone or THE best tv because although it may be top of the line at a given time, it won't be long until something bigger, better, faster, or stronger comes out.
Applying this to my own life, a couple months ago I bought the newer version of my old blackberry and now, the Blackberry Torch just came out and I want that. Here is the Blackberry Torch Commercial by AT&T as an example of cult of the new:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCrRHGubYDM
Post Class
I really enjoyed class discussion today about Baudrillard. So many movies are indirectly based off of Baudrillard's theories. One ofthem directly being the Matrix as we discussed in class and another one that came to my mind was The Day after Tomorrow. The Day after Tomorrow is all about what could possibly happen to our world some day. Of course now it is all fake and images made up by men. But we could argue that 9/11 has already happened in our (or at least some peoples minds) before it actually really happened. I am sure there were people out there that may have once dreamed about planes crashing into the World Trade Center - there are even movies out there that indirectly relate to 9/11. The Day after Tomorrow is more than just simulacric. The images of New York city going under may have no relationship to reality now but yet theentire movie is related in a way to real situations, such as tornados and tsunamis - they just don't happen to that extend that the world is being destroyed. It is a scary thought though isn't it?!
The age of postmodernity has been able to imagine, create, simulate and copy such crazy images into our heads that we sometimes lose touch of what is real or could be real. Or it simply makes us question, what is really real?
Media especially can trick us into what is real and simulacra.
For example those three images during war that Lindsey put up are crazy. Media could do whatever they want and create three completely different stories. It all depends on where they want us to look.
I found this media example of two people dressed up like Avatars and their board reading: 'Save the real avatar tribe.' Avatar is a great 3D fictional movie that has been created out of James Cameron's mind. This is NOT real but watching that movie in 3D seems so close to real. Some people like to believe so much in something (that is not real) and simulate it - like this people here. Just like we were talking in class about how some people believe they have been to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, although they just saw it in Las Vegas. Same thing right? Haha well not exactly! But maybe our world has come so far that we just don't need the 'real' thing anymore and are satisfied with what at least looks to be real. If people like to believe they are Avatar then let them - but they probably have lost touch reality...
Baudriallard's idea of 'simulacra' really intrigues me. After reading I started to think of examples of simulacra that I have been exposed to. The first idea that came to my mind was the 'David' statue that we see all over Europe and in particular, Florence. The multiple copies of this masterpiece are 'simulacra'. Although these statues may look and in fact be exactly the same in there physical appearance, each one is different. The viewer, the location, the size, these are all factors that affect how the statue is portrayed yet they all depend on each other. The dependance on each other brings us back to the notion of intertextuality.
David - Florence
The idea of a hyper real state also grabs my attention. I get the impression that Baudriallard is saying that we are so influenced by the media and the world has become so accessible through the media that we are no longer seeing the world through experience. We are seeing a modified and edited version of the world. I think Lindsey's example of the war image is a perfect way to show how the media can manipulate what we see as 'real'. To truly experience something real, we would have to see it with our own eyes or we are not getting the full picture. I think he would also argue that simulacra is not really the 'real' thing, again it is a modified version of something that has already existed. I guess my question is, what is real? Maybe this era of simulacra and media is what is real in today's era.
The discussion of reality and how people choose to believe through comfort what the media portrays brought to mind many thoughts of war especially the Governments control over the content we have been able to see and the highly restricted coverage of the war at whole.
The reality experienced can be different from one person to another. We only know what we are given the ability to know and find comfort in this.
In a culture, which is so technologically advanced we are consumed with the products and consumerist items revolving our worlds and find comfort in them just as we find comfort in the power and control of these few media conglomerates.
At a larger scale, devastating outcomes can come through the misrepresentation of what is “reality”. How the media depicts nationalities, for example, conditions us to feel a certain way and to function in a way because how someone looks, there nationality represents something much larger; the media creates this Stigma. The fear in this is all of these things make us into something that is the product of the media and this than creates a larger issue in how we function in all realms of our lives for the rest of our lives.
The website below I found to be very interesting in mentioning how the wealth of someone can create mass power which I believe to be the same as the few media conglomerates continuously repeating the content which will keep them in a position of power and reality is thus created by the few.
http://daveanddawncook.com/rich-people-build-networks-we-can-too/#more-1754
“We all know some famous rich people who have become wealthy as a result of the network they built. We know Bill Gates (Microsoft), Sam Walton (Walmart) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon).
Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad had a hero who became very rich by building his own network. This man is better known for the product he perfected, but really became rich because of the network he built across the world. Even today, many of us think Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, but in actuality he only improved and perfected the light bulb. His true stroke of genius was to create a company
that strung electrical lines that allowed the light bulb to penetrate society. His network made him, Thomas Edison, a multimillionaire!”
Pre Class: Baudrillard & Zizek
Jean Baudrillard's essay "The Precession of Simulacra" greatly relates to Christopher Nolan's film Memento. One quote in particular stuck out to me in Baudrillard's essay after watching Memento: "if a symptom can be 'produced,' and can no longer be taken as a fact of nature, then every illness can be considered as simulatable and simulated, and medicine loses its meaning since it only knows how to treat 'real' illnesses according to their objective causes" (Baudrillard 454). This quote relates perfectly to the plot within Memento in which Sammy Jenkin's wife asks Leonard whether he believes that Sammy is faking his illness or not. In fact, her belief that Sammy's illness if fake leads her to his ultimate test: administering her insulin over and over again seeing if he will remember that he had done it just moments before, ultimately leading to her death. Leonard's insurance company was unable to properly diagnose Sammy's condition because they were unsure of whether it was a true illness. According to prior tests on prior subjects, Sammy should have been able to construct new memories. Considering that he was unable to create new memories, the insurance company assumed that he was faking his illness, that the glimmer of recognition in his eyes was real, but Leonard soon learned that you fake that look of recognition if you feel like you are supposed to recognize someone. The entire movie is based around questioning what is real and whose motives are true. Within the story line "It is always a question of providing the real through the imaginary, proving truth through scandal..." (Baudrillard 465).
Monday, September 27, 2010
Baudrillard and the lack of reality
The first thing I did when I opened up to Jean Baudrillard's "The Precession of Simulacra" was use my dictionary widget to figure out what in the world that means. I had a feeling I wouldn't get very far without any idea of the title's vernacular. An "unsatisfactory representation of something" has come after something, and that's what Baudrillard is trying to talk about. What is REAL? Thanks to my major, it's something I automatically ask myself when I listen to the news, look at pictures in a magazine, or listen to statements and speeches from political officials. It's all rather pessimistic, considering that the automatic assumption in answer to that question is "not what I'm being shown."
I can agree with Baudrillard's ideology that there is no such thing as "reality," but I'm not really sure if I can sufficiently explain why exactly I believe that. Without reading too much into what Baudrillard's reasons are, I think that there are certain things that are formed by humans, which therefore by default gives them a point of view. When I think about it, the first thing that comes to mind, funnily enough, is the final scene of the Jim Carrey version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." The entirey of the Who's world zooms out, and it's on the tip of a snowflake. Let's take this in a realistic standpoint, assuming that it's possible (which it very well may be). The Who nation have spent their entire life for generations falling as a cell in the formation of this snowflake. And though we see the snowflake for maybe more than a few seconds, their sense of time does not have the same correlation as ours. Many movies do this, and for a split second, we can all feel like postmodern thinkers, the thought of "maybe we could just be a universe inside of a locker of an alien gym (a la Men In Black). It's a scary thought-- but what I appreciate the most about Baurillard is that he is so willing to admit that what we see is probably not true, and it's an issue that we accept it as true for a multitude of reasons.
When I watched Memento for the first time, I was SURE that Teddy was THE John G. I was so sure that he was just weasling his way into Lenny's life to protect himself. And at the end, I was thrown-- Christopher Nolan did his job well. But then I watched it in its entirety again-- despite my knowledge of the ending, I still was so skeptical. What is real? I made little charts and diagrams with Lenny and Teddy and Natalie's intentions- and I still don't think there is a real, linear way to draw out exactly what that movie is all about. I want to badly for there to be a TRUTH, a solid answer with a definitive bad guy and good guy-- but the fact that I can never be sure is unsettling. I think that this is what Baudrillard is getting at when he describes a simulacra- Memento is an unsatisfactory representation of a life... but is there ever really a truly satisfactory representation?
On my honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work."
Lindsay Hansen
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Baudrillard & Zizek
In “The Precession of Simulacra”, Baudrillard talks about how our society has replaced all reality with signs. He discusses simulacra’s (copies of things that do not have an original) and how they refer to symbols of culture and media that create our perceived reality. He also says, “simulation threatens the difference between the “true” and the “false”, the “real” and the “imaginary” (454 Baudrillard). He talks about the example when someone (simulator) fakes sick- if any symptom can be “produced” and doesn’t have to be due to nature than every sickness can potentially be simulated and therefore medicine’s meaning (to cure illness) is gone, because medicine is only supposed to cure “real” illness.
In “The Spirit of Terrorism”, Jean Baudrillard begins with discussing how images are the most important things and have the most impact on us. He brings up the attack on the World Trade Center and that the reason people are so fascinated with the attack is because of the image that we think of when we think of that day. It is true that we remember how we felt on 9/11 (scared, confused, sad) but we mostly have an image in our head; where we were when it happened, looking at everyone else’s reaction around us, watching the TV and seeing the planes crash into the buildings. He talks about how the real is added to the image which makes it an additional “frisson” and how it is more scary for us to think about that day because there was no violence that made this event “real”, but just a random act of terror- all we have to think about is the image that was created for us to remember. Like he states, it’s not like the violence was there first and then the image was added to it, but rather the image is there first and then the “frisson” of the real is added after. He also discusses how much media and terrorism go hand-in-hand. After 9/11, the terrorists have gotten so much media attention, that they probably consider themselves famous in America. This type of media attention is inevitable because people do want to know what’s going on in our country, but it does not help the terrorist situation, not only because they probably like the attention, but also because they will know what information we know about them and what we don’t know, which does not favor in our advantage.
Even though we each have our own image of 9/11, there is a ‘derealization’ (Zizek 233) of what happened that day. As he states, the months that followed were filled with the news repeatedly stating how many people died in that tragic event, but never were their bloodied bodies shown. Even though this is probably due to the families’ wishes and what is regulated by the government, it still separates their reality from our reality…so it makes us wonder, is our reality even real?
"On my honor I have not received, nor witnessed, nor given any unauthorized assistance on this work"
Habermas Post Class
In class we discussed Habermas' quote on page 99 citing the quote impartially so that it read as follows; ' The idea of being 'modern'... changed with the belief, inspired by modern science, in the infiinite progress of knowledge...' (99). I found this quote to read far differently than the actual quote in the text and talked about it a bit in class but would like to further flush out my thought process in this rift.
That idea as cited, to me basicaly just says that the idea of modernity changed with the uncovering of knowledge through the sciences. The idea of being modern in this sense would just mean that science has progressed, belief has grown in science and society has expanded following shifts in modern science's infinite quest for knowledge. The quote from the text in its entirety reads as follows and says something completely different to me that far better helped me understand Habermas; 'Specifically, the idea of being 'modern' by looking back to the ancients changed with the belief, inspired by modern science, in the infinite progress of knowledge and in the infinite advance towards social and moral betterment' (99).
The key pieces included here suggest a much greater expanse of the belief in modern science leading to changes in the idea of moderniy. This quote opens up Habermas' conception to include more sociological and anthropological aspects. Bringing in the ancients to the quote and the conceptualization Habermas puts forth that generationally culture and cultural beliefs (norms) expand off of previous generations works. The idea here is that the advances in sciences by-generation lead to the structuring of the new beliefs of the next generation i.e. the works of Socrates, Aristotle, the Roman advances in architecture, medicinal advances, the creation of tools, industry, social&cultural norms directly impact and are involved in the next generation, the next society. The idea of being modern thus is how the contemporary society expands on the ideas of past and how the expansion on these ideas lead to new developments, improvements and progress knowledge.
What stood out to me even more than this is the inclusion of 'in the infinite advance of towards social and moral betterment' (99) because this directly correlates to a Marxian ideology of social structural formation through time/by generation. What Marx said, roughly, was that the idea of modernity in comparison to past generations was the creation of cultural, moral and social norms that proved societies progression. Taking this and using a bit of Howson's sociological view to create an example, I will expand on the civilizing process to move into Foucalt - trying to clarify things in my own head. Howson describes the civilizing process as the creation of societal constraints by the proletariat over the bourgeoisie to expand and create new social norms and acceptablity in conduct. The civilizing process moved society from 'grotesque' society to 'civilized'. Grotesque society was marked, in a nutshell, by vulgarity, using Britain as the example, pre-civilizing, sex was commonplace and not frowned upon in public, nor was defecating or fighting. The civilizing process shifted this through the reconstruction of cultural norms and acceptabilities to a more civilized culture in which public displays were frowned upon and even illegal in some instances. Foucalt describes the 'knowledges, practices and norms that have developed to regulate the quality of life of the population as biopolitics' (Howson, 126). Biopolitics emerged from Habermas' looking back to the ancients, they looked back saw what was wrong, shifted society to civilize and progress. The sciences have done the same, it all spawns and expands from a certain point and progresses in the infinite advance Habermas dictates. The Marx aspect allowed society to create social and moral bounds to allow progression, the civilizing process is example of this and as society expands these cultural norms and moral boundaries progress with society to change their constitution and relevance by generation.
The problem I had with the class example was that it left out the inclusion of the ancients and the infinite advance of social and moral betterment. I think that those three notions are implicit to what Habermas is trying to say in this piece and need to be included in the lesson as we try to learn the theories of these great sociologists.
That idea as cited, to me basicaly just says that the idea of modernity changed with the uncovering of knowledge through the sciences. The idea of being modern in this sense would just mean that science has progressed, belief has grown in science and society has expanded following shifts in modern science's infinite quest for knowledge. The quote from the text in its entirety reads as follows and says something completely different to me that far better helped me understand Habermas; 'Specifically, the idea of being 'modern' by looking back to the ancients changed with the belief, inspired by modern science, in the infinite progress of knowledge and in the infinite advance towards social and moral betterment' (99).
The key pieces included here suggest a much greater expanse of the belief in modern science leading to changes in the idea of moderniy. This quote opens up Habermas' conception to include more sociological and anthropological aspects. Bringing in the ancients to the quote and the conceptualization Habermas puts forth that generationally culture and cultural beliefs (norms) expand off of previous generations works. The idea here is that the advances in sciences by-generation lead to the structuring of the new beliefs of the next generation i.e. the works of Socrates, Aristotle, the Roman advances in architecture, medicinal advances, the creation of tools, industry, social&cultural norms directly impact and are involved in the next generation, the next society. The idea of being modern thus is how the contemporary society expands on the ideas of past and how the expansion on these ideas lead to new developments, improvements and progress knowledge.
What stood out to me even more than this is the inclusion of 'in the infinite advance of towards social and moral betterment' (99) because this directly correlates to a Marxian ideology of social structural formation through time/by generation. What Marx said, roughly, was that the idea of modernity in comparison to past generations was the creation of cultural, moral and social norms that proved societies progression. Taking this and using a bit of Howson's sociological view to create an example, I will expand on the civilizing process to move into Foucalt - trying to clarify things in my own head. Howson describes the civilizing process as the creation of societal constraints by the proletariat over the bourgeoisie to expand and create new social norms and acceptablity in conduct. The civilizing process moved society from 'grotesque' society to 'civilized'. Grotesque society was marked, in a nutshell, by vulgarity, using Britain as the example, pre-civilizing, sex was commonplace and not frowned upon in public, nor was defecating or fighting. The civilizing process shifted this through the reconstruction of cultural norms and acceptabilities to a more civilized culture in which public displays were frowned upon and even illegal in some instances. Foucalt describes the 'knowledges, practices and norms that have developed to regulate the quality of life of the population as biopolitics' (Howson, 126). Biopolitics emerged from Habermas' looking back to the ancients, they looked back saw what was wrong, shifted society to civilize and progress. The sciences have done the same, it all spawns and expands from a certain point and progresses in the infinite advance Habermas dictates. The Marx aspect allowed society to create social and moral bounds to allow progression, the civilizing process is example of this and as society expands these cultural norms and moral boundaries progress with society to change their constitution and relevance by generation.
The problem I had with the class example was that it left out the inclusion of the ancients and the infinite advance of social and moral betterment. I think that those three notions are implicit to what Habermas is trying to say in this piece and need to be included in the lesson as we try to learn the theories of these great sociologists.
9/26/10
To feed off of tlloyd’s post about the “Cult of the new” in our discussion last class, I too believe that we as consumers are victims in today’s world. When analyzing Habermas concept of constantly wanting more and new products, I immediately thought of my father. When the ipad first came out last year, it was a huge success. For those of you who don’t know, the ipad is a tablet computer designed and developed by Apple. It is particularly marketed as a platform for audio and visual media such as books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. After the first advertisement for the ipad came out, the product more than intrigued my father. In the commercials, the ipad looked fun, easy and much more practical for the average businessman. Since my dad is constantly checking emails and researching developments on the internet, to him the new item seemed like an absolute “need” or necessity. Although this apple creation seemed like a real solid deal, my dad took no time to look into the negatives of the product. While the ipad seems to be more convenient than a regular mac computer, it fails to mention its lack of a web cam, actual keyboard, limited memory space and its inability to multitask with other applications. From an outsider, it may seem like that the Apple co. may just not have the technology or capability to improve these flaws. However, we have seen this pattern before. Like many apple products before the ipad, Apple is known for selling different mac products and then coming out with a new and improved version only months later. It is not that Apple does not have the ability to improve their products, they just know that because of our societies need for “new and improved” items, they can make a bigger profit by selling a less efficient product first and then sell the improved one later even though they could have sold the more efficient version first.
My dad was definitely a prime victim in this situation. No matter how many times I told him that Apple would come out with a better version not too long after the first one, he was convinced that he needed the ipad now. In today’s society it always seems like someone or some company is telling us what were lacking. We are always in need for something bigger, better and faster; nothing is ever good enough. Especially with the excessive amount of media today, everywhere we turn our heads an advertisement is telling us that we want something. Because of this incredible desire for need, are lives seem to constantly revolve around profit instead of allowing us to take a step back and see what’s really important.
"On my honor I have neither given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this blog."
post class- habermas
"Cult of the New"
“The Cult of the New” is a concept that really resonated with me after reading Habermas. This idea that we are constantly wanting more, wanting the latest’s and greatest, and consuming purely frivolous items only seems to grow and grow with the constant influence from the media to have the best. What makes us feel this pressure to have the best? Is it truly because the latest item is better? Is it pressure from outside media sources? Or is it pressure from our peers that causes us to experience this “Cult of the New”? Whatever the influence, the cult continues…
The first example that jumped to my mind was ipod’s. Every 9-12 months Apple comes out with a new and improved ipod. At times the changes are quite noticeable, at other times, the changes are so minor that only the trained eye would notice. However big or little the change is in the technology, we still have a desire to obtain the latest.
Regardless of the product, I think it is very clear that we as consumers fall victim of this “Cult of the New”. I know I do, and I cannot think of a single person who doesn’t in one area or another fall victim as well. If you have something that you covet and you are constantly updating, post it below.
Post Class Post Habermas
In addition to cwswimmer6's post, I also wanted to talk about Habermas' notion of 'the cult of the new' in Modernity An Unfinished Project and it's modern mentality. In his writing Habermas stresses our societal yearning for the newest, fastest, most efficient products our there, this 'desire' that goes against cultural traditions (another thing Habermas talks a lot about) relates to his idea of 'Hyperstimulated sensitivity' and how our generation in particular has become so reliable on technology in our everyday lives.
It's sad to admit but without my phone and/or laptop I'd probably go crazy and feel like I literally have nothing - which just isn't true but we've been made to think otherwise. While I'm not too particular about getting the latest and greatest gear, I do have a Black Berry and a new Apple Laptop, in both the computer/cell phone industries we witness through advertisements online, on television, the radio, etc. the release of hundreds of new models a year. Over time these various gadgets lose value, are replicated, edited, and distanced from the most popular tools -- this is where I feel Walter Benjamins Mechanical Reproduction could come in handy in terms of relation to the material.
Another quote I liked (or eventually like after I learned it's meaning) was when Habermas stated "modernism is a yearning for true presence" (159)
On my honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work"
It's sad to admit but without my phone and/or laptop I'd probably go crazy and feel like I literally have nothing - which just isn't true but we've been made to think otherwise. While I'm not too particular about getting the latest and greatest gear, I do have a Black Berry and a new Apple Laptop, in both the computer/cell phone industries we witness through advertisements online, on television, the radio, etc. the release of hundreds of new models a year. Over time these various gadgets lose value, are replicated, edited, and distanced from the most popular tools -- this is where I feel Walter Benjamins Mechanical Reproduction could come in handy in terms of relation to the material.
Another quote I liked (or eventually like after I learned it's meaning) was when Habermas stated "modernism is a yearning for true presence" (159)
On my honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work"
Post Class Post
"...so called realistic representations can no longer evoke reality except as nostalgia or mockery."
Lyotard's quote had me interested in the TV guide in a totally different way on Thursday night. When I selected to watch the movie Clueless, I quickly realized how hysterical this mockery of this "so called realistic representation" was. At the time, Clueless was that "realistic" depiction of public high school stereotypes in the 90s. I easily sat and watched this movie in its entirety and it had me laughing like I had never seen it before. The movie brought me back to old feeling of the 90s, and it felt like an actual nostalgic flashback.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clueless_(film)
I also liked the discussion in class about how important technology has become in society. Lack of communication and now a traumatic event for many people addicted to the use of these electronic products. I frequently ask myself if technology has made life easier or if it has simply complicated our society more?
"On my honor I have not received, nor given, nor witness any unauthorized assistance on this work."
Post Class 9/26
In class on Thursday our class discussed the rest of the Lyotard reading and then started to go over the Habermas reading. What stuck out in my mind was the concept of bricolage. Bricolage is a variety of things coming together and staying together. We talked about how bricolage derives from the belief of going into a different ethnographic culture that is not your own and observe that different culture. We talked about this is hard because when one enters a different culture, the culture will change because it knows it is being observed.
I can relate to this from a communication class that I took last year, which was intercultural communication. For our essay in this class we had to write what our professor called an ethnographic essay. For this essay we had to interview someone that was culturally different than us and describe what that culture is like. We also had to do an exercise called a “cultural experience.” Here we had to plan a day with the person we were interviewing put ourselves into their culture. For mine, I went to my friends for Thanksgiving. He is from Venezuela and they do things a little differently than my family would do on Thanksgiving. While I was there every one of his family members knew that I was doing this project and the atmosphere of the dinner was different in their terms because they all knew what I was trying to do. However, after a few minutes everyone carried on normally and forgot about my project and just took me in as one of their own. The concept of bricolage here was in effect but once everyone got comfortable they went back to doing what they “normally” do. Bricolage should be studied we need to have the knowledge of what is normal in other cultures.
On my honor I have not given nor received nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this blog.
Media Example Post - Habermas
Habermas talks about how "the cult of the new" how our society always wants the new, the better. He also talks about something in our society is consuming us with the idea of desire. But something i feel is quite important is while using technology, you get disconnected from the world around you. People stop talking at dinner because they are texting, or people don't look around when they are walking in the streets. People are missing out on life and that is what my media piece is about.
Post Class Habermas 9/26/10
During class on Thursday, September 23rd we ended with the quote " Hyperstimulated senstivity" (page 101). Our generation has become super visual and in need for the bigger better faster. We really have a difficult time disconnecting from our electronics. Most people in the 21st century cannot go a full day without some kind of media. Using their phones, computers, televisions or radios. People all around the world are connected to their cell phones at all times. It is even known as irresponsible to not have a cell phone with you at all times, you are not even really allowed to disconnect. It is sad to see that kids in this generation are also "hyperstimulated senstivity". Children rarely go outside and use their imaginiations to play. This excessive use of media could have a downside to children's own creative thought, communication skills, and the idea of relaxation. When does our generation get outside the idea of "desire" to stop the constant stimulation? I have no real resolution to this question, i have no idea what it is going to take to stop this consumer and wanting world we live in.
I can honestly say that in my own experience with media and technology, i love the feeling of disconnect with my cell phone. i really hate the burden of always texting, always having my phone on me or just having this feeling of something attached to me. Every person should have a couple days to disconnect from their phones and not have to worry. Just relax and not feel a pressure to text, email, facebook, etc. If our society starts to do this system of disconnect, maybe everyone will be able to relax a little more.
"You Will" - The Cult of the New
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.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Habermass - Post Class post
The Lyotard and Habermass readings have been quite a challenge this week. Being in class and listening to discussion has helped me a lot to understand our two philosophers/ writers a lot more. Especially with Habermass I seemed to really grasp what he is trying to say.
It seemed that everyone in class came to understand Habermass a lot more when we began talking about his quote on p. 101 on hyperstimulated sensitivity. Habermass wrote “Modernity – An Incomplete Project” around 1980 so well before the 21st century and well before the revolution of technologies such as iPhones, BlackBerries, iPads…He is concerned that we are (when he wrote this) still living in modernity and are not ready yet for postmodernity. “The Project of modernity has not yet been fulfilled”. He worries that we are losing something that is of importance. This is when we began our class discussion about how many of us cannot ‘live’ with out having our phones beside us 24/7. We have them beside us when we sleep, eat, drive, work out, study…and feel ‘empty’ when it is not beside us. Not being connected is almost scary to some of us. And although communication is becoming ‘easier’ it is also becoming more impersonal. We are always one step ahead and cant seem to focus on the moment anymore – we cant seem to feel relaxed in the moment because technology has caused us to never stop ‘keeping busy’. One of my classmates gave an example of how she went to a kindergarden and they wanted to test how kids would interact if they took all technology away – she said, “they didn’t know what to do”. That is so sad to me. So maybe Habermass is/ was trying to warn us about something nobody else saw – that is, that living in the postmodern is making us lose the complete referent to the historical. Especially now in the 21st century I complete agree with Habermass. Although we may be faster in doing things and communicating, we are losing ourselves in this world of technology and no longer living in the present but always in the future.
I must say I really enjoy reading Habermass. I really believe in what he says and find his way of thinking highly stimulating.
AHC
Media Example - The impact of technology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu62bZX5VUU
This relates to what Habermass was talking about on page 101. When he is questioning if technology/ continuous development is actually taking away something...he questions if something is eroding in us. This YouTube video talks about the good and the bad that comes with technology especially on kids...
AHC
Class response
In class on Thursday, one quote, which circulated a lot of discussion, was “hyper stimulated activity”(101). As consumers in a commodity driven society where the media is constantly growing, advancing, and showing us what we need/should want we, as citizens, we are constantly being bombarded with newer items to purchase. Being someone who’s grown up with technology becoming increasingly available for basically every means of functioning in society, we are as Habermas states hyper stimulated. There is pressure on the constant necessity for the pursuit of success, things to buy for everything, structure and being in a high paced culture we become null from the motion of it all. Technology is used in some cases to teach but in others it allows us to become completely dependant on the system and without its presence in our lives we are unable to function properly. We now have an intense need to be connected at all possible mediums to one another and being cut off from this for whatever reason, anxiety sets in.
On my honor I have neither given nor received aid on this blog.
Friday, September 24, 2010
This week as we discussed both Lyotard and Habermas and came to a common ground as to why they disagree for the most part I was confused initially. However, I really enjoyed the Habermas reading because it really seemed to me to relate the most to the constant motions of everyday life in the 21st century. Specifically, I was stuck on the idea of the “cult of the new” (p.99) After our class discussion and the realization of how relevant this is for all of the generations in today’s society. I found it fascinating after our class discussion when I was watching TV and came across multiple TV advertisements that were selling, “the bigger, better, faster.” However, last night after class I had an interview for a job I’m very interested in. I went to the interview and as I sat and discussed some of the job criteria with the boss I came across something very interesting. The boss asked me if I knew how to use itunes. In my head I was thinking of course I know how to use itunes you idiot! I was naïve in thinking everyone knows how to use itunes, but that is part of our culture these days. What brings me to this topic is that the boss informed his Mac laptop was so far behind the time (2007) that itunes did not work on his computer and he had to purchase a new to get it which he needed for his business. I thought this was a great example of how our world is all about the “bigger, better, faster.” It is sad to think that the market thrives so well on our need or want for thing to the extent that it is absolutely necessary to purchase the newest in order to get an application from the past.
Hyperstimulated Activity
Though the Habermas reading wasn't my favorite, I liked our class discussion on hyperstimulation. I can't even imagine the criticism Habermas would have if he was around to see what our world is like today. He may have ended up like Benjamin. I was driving to the Millennia Mall to meet up with a friend of mine. As I got off the exit, I couldn't find my phone in my bag, which of course I was rummaging through while trying to make a left turn. I wasn't slightly panicking because my Jeep tires were being a little iffy, but more because I had no idea how I was supposed to find my friend without calling her. At that moment my phone rang, right when I braked and my purse flew to the floor of the passenger seat. There was no way I was going to get my phone- but I was so concerned that whoever was calling me wasn't going to get ahold of me in the first second they wanted to. And so now I'm trying to figure out what it would be like to not have cell phones. What changes would we all have to go through? We would have to PLAN everything- and try harder to be on time. With texting we have an innumerable amount of excuses, and whoever is waiting for us can know that they'll have to wait. We probably wouldn't be so antsy when someone doesn't call or text. Relationships would have a higher amount of trust- anyone can easily hack an email account or guess a phone password and read messages that aren't for their eyes. So now I'm trying to put myself in that situation. I'd call from a home phone to my friend's work phone, assuming I would know she is there. I'd have to say, "let's meet in the food court at 5:30 next to the Panda Express." But what if something happened? What if my car broke down on the way there? What would I do without being able to get ahold of AAA? And meanwhile, I have someone relying on me to show up. I get more anxious trying to figure out what I would do without my portable technology. I try not to abuse it, but the easiest thing to pass time or the best way to get myself out of a weird situation is to just look down and type a message. There are so many things to take into account, but I don't think the majority of people would know how to function without my email, cell or computer. Habermas and I would not be friends.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Post Class
Today in class we discussed the quote “hyper stimulated activity” (101) from Habermas’s essay. I think this quote is very relevant to our generation as we talked about. At the end of class, someone brought up the excessive use of Adderall among students. We are expected to do so much in a day; life is sped up more than it ever has been before due to the emergence of media. Has the speed at which we are expected to perform caused the increase for the need of drugs like Adderall? Are humans supposed to be operating at the current pace of life? It is hard to focus with so much going on around us all of the time. We are constantly on our phones, on Facebook, watching television, on our computers. I think some of the only true time spent away from these things is when we are in class or in other circumstances where we are demanded to be off of these devices.
Another aspect of the end of class discussion today was how technology has removed a lot of human practices from our daily lives. It could be debated whether this is a negative thing and we need to go back to the way things were, or if human existence just evolving altogether. I think one way that technology has been detrimental is the distraction that it causes. I know many friends who are unable to maintain focus during a conversation because they are texting on their phones at the same time. Technology has affected human interaction because there is much less face-to-face time than existed in the past. I think that this has contributed to decreased social skills because in person confrontation does not have to occurEnd of Week Post 9/23
After our discussion in class on Thursday in which we compared the differing ideals of Habermas’ and Leotard’s theories concerning the curtain roles of modernity and post modernity within our culture, I was reminded of my required summer reading No Impact Man. No Impact Man is a book written by Colin Beavan which documents Colin’s experiences with defying cultural norms. Colin and his family took on the task of saving the planet from their small apartment in New York City. Their goal was to make no environmental impact which means they did not create trash, use electricity, eat non organic food, buy new merchandise, or use any form of motorized transportation. Colin documented this year long experiment by blogging daily and eventually publishing a book. However, the book not only informs the readers of Colin’s experience, it also educates its audience about human’s enormous environmental impact, its consequences, and ways to improve our daily lives. The No Impact Man blog and book exemplifies aspects of both Herbermas and Leotard’s definition of modernity and post modernity. In accordance to Habermas’ definition, Colin’s experiment is a modern piece because it goes against traditional cultural norms, creates a ‘coffee shop’ atmosphere through his blog, and fights against the ‘cult of the new’. The No Impact Man experiment called for Colin and his families to completely re- arrange their lives. His wife, who previously belonged to a culture of consumption, yacht clubs, and luxury, now entered a culture of ‘green’ thinking. Most people in New York take taxis, drive cars, or take the subway. The Beavans rode bikes and scooters. Watching television, eating out to dinner, buying a coffee, turning on a light, using air-conditioning or dishwashers are all apart of out traditional culture. They are culture norms that are not questioned, but accepted as natural in today’s society. However, the Beavans lived without all this, they had a compost bucket, washed their laundry in the tub, they did not wear deodorant, eat food out of season, use their lights, or buy any new products. While reading about a day in the life of a Beavan, I found their routine odd. Their daily cultural norms differ from mine, and a majority of others. They are going against the traditional and therefore are in Habermas’s definition modern. Colin’s project would also be considered modern to Habermas’ standards because it created a ‘public sphere’. By maintaining a blog during the experiment in which he asked for help and readers answered or asked countering questions, Colin created an interaction. He allowed others to get involved in his cause and state their opinions; masses of people communicating in hopes of sparking change not only in Colin’s life but others as well. This type of interaction is related to Habermas’ idea of “coffee shop conversation” in which people were allowed to become involved, thus creating a public sphere. Finally, The No Impact project demonstrated Habermas’ modernity because it fought against the ‘cult of the new’. Because the Beavan family did not consume any new products for an entire year, they did not feed into the ‘cult of the new’. This phrase states that our culture is focused on the newer, bigger, and better thing. The cult of the new directly feeds into consumerism. In our Capitalist society, culture is a means of making a profit. People are told, via advertisements that they need to consume more to be happy; however, Colin’s family went against this popular idea and did not consume. On the other hand, the No Impact Man project could be considered post modern because its main purpose was to inspire political change. The reason Colin and his family were going against tradition so harshly was to make a statement, and spark change. Also, Colin made a profit and attends fame from his experiment. He created not only a popular blog, but a book and a documentary film as well.
On my honor i have niether given nor recieved aid on this blog... Kelsey Hughes
On my honor i have niether given nor recieved aid on this blog... Kelsey Hughes
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