Welcome to the good life. We have pie and punch.
Intrigued? Well the good life, or rather, the concept of the good life is essentially that simple. As Americans, we are bombarded from all sides by images of what the good life entails, and thus everyone has built a perspective of "the good life". I propose that the good life is a life of awareness - most people are not aware that they are being controlled and impacted by pop culture and living what they think is their idea of a good life, an idea supplanted into each of their minds. Many people have their own take on the good life, some people I interviewed, some people who broadcast their ideas through music and others who sell it to us by other means. Perhaps the good life doesn't exist, and it is only a concept created by corporations to help sell their products. Perhaps it does exist and it is easier to attain than one would think. Based on many perspectives, we can work towards debunking the concept of a "good life".
Perhaps the best way to start unraveling the theory of a good and meaningful life is to start with my own belief system. I hold it true that a good life is something people must strive for, not something that you can be born into, such as may be the case with material wealth. No, I find that a truly good life is a life where you operate in full awareness of the factors guiding your life, factors trying to mold you into their image. Becoming aware in the sense that you can see the puppet strings that try to attach themselves o you is not an easy task, one that I am not versed in too deeply. It is the case for many people to subconsciously adopt the motto "ignorance is bliss" wherein what you don't know cannot hurt you. In this case it can be inferred that if you are ignorant of an assailant creeping up behind you, you will be perfectly fine, but if you are aware of his presence, then you are in some serious danger. What good can it do you to be unaware of the puppeteer that is controlling your every action and controlling every thought you think is your own? The way I see it (or perhaps I have been conditioned to see it this way, it is certainly a possibility) someone should try to be as aware of both themselves and everything impacting them as they can.
I am well aware that my ideas are not my own. I doubt that any of my ideas concerning my life and attitude have anything to do with me. I am a product of my environment. I can tell you, it’s a very uncomfortable position to be in; you don't know exactly what your beliefs are, you second-guess everything because you know that it came from one source or another. That's why I believe I find the most meaning in writing. True, most plot devices and in general, plots, have been created before. But the truth remains that when you put pen to paper or words to a screen, it is an original burst of thought from yourself. Even for those not gifted in writing can create something original and meaningful. The quality of the work doesn't have to be good, but it is meaningful in that it was created from the author's originality. Creating a fictional story, a poem, really any form of creative writing has meaning because it defies corporate media. If it's original, it's unaffected by anything but imagination. Perhaps it is cliché to say this, but imagination ultimately boils down to the best tool to defy social norms.
I talked to several people to determine what they felt made a good and meaningful life. Talking to these people made it evident that some people have not given a whole lot of thought to their life’s meaning, and much less to the concept of meaning in general. Person A said "Meaning, well that's the stuff that has importance to you, like, the stuff you like." similar to this was Person B who said that meaning "isn't something that can be easily tossed away, more like the stuff that's precious to you." From these two, we're left to wonder exactly what importance is - what makes something a necessity to someone? I think people have been greatly encouraged to not think critically about "abstract" things like the meaning of life and what makes a good life. Instead, people focus on the more concrete concepts of "things". People put significance into objects, like their new phone, their clothes, and their cars. It seems that people hold things important, and the better the thing makes you look in person, the better and more important it becomes to you. Things in themselves hold little actual value, however. Sometimes people use these things to stimulate other ideas. A person may find a photo album important, as it documents what they see as important events in their lives or the lives of loved ones.
In America we are greatly exposed and more or less run our lives by Popular culture. Within Pop culture lay three different but not necessarily separate categories: Corporate, Folk Culture, and Big Subcultures. For this unit we have delved deeply into personifying Corporate Culture. Within this subcategory of Pop culture lie more subcategories that classify the messages broadcasted by corporate culture. These categories are Dominant, Marginal/Fringe, and Prohibited/Unacceptable. Dominant messages are those that are the basis of the music videos, movies, and books that we all consume. They typically involve "good" values of misogyny, heroism, and going with the flow. Marginal or fringe messages are those like "You can smoke pot and be a drug addict while you're young and single, as long as you clean yourself up and get settled with a nice wife and 2.5 kids.” They start off "bad" and end up "good". In prohibited messages, however, you will only see the direct opposition to the Dominant culture, and this is why you hardly ever see these kinds of messages being tossed around casually. The instances where these are shown are often found alongside the marginal messages, as the two are related. A prohibited message might encourage you to take to the streets and start the revolution, destroying every piece of corporate anything you find.
One medium that essentially serves up corporate messages to teens on a silver platter is the ever-expanding world of video gaming. With 3 current-gen gaming consoles, the attraction to video gaming ranges between age groups of 8 to 20s and 30s. Most every video game has a plot in which you must defeat a foe of some kind. In most of these you play the story's hero. You are the cream of your village's crop, there's something special about you, and you have a predetermined destiny for greatness. This serves as a drag for many teens, albeit subconsciously. They need the affirmation that they can be better than what they are now, that they can do more. Other than that, gaming is like a new sport between teens, a new form of competition where you can truly outshine your peers and earn your bragging rights without ever actually accomplishing much. It is a form of grandstanding, with every game becoming worse and worse, making you capable of doing more and more to humiliate your friends. Not to mention that the games' level of violence is another huge draw; it gives teens the ability to commit deviant crimes without suffering punishment. It allows teens to battle against armies of "evil" creatures, without doing much to reflect on the evil of killing said creature. For social devolution we can all count video games as a major player, no pun intended.
Another method of providing corporate messages is through literary media. Institutions like publishers and bookstores have a huge say in what we the people read. The process of putting a book through publishing from first draft to final, printed copy is a long and hard ordeal involving many rewrites and drafts. Typically we end up with the watered down and editor approved version of the author’s ideas. When the writer first sets his pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) he or she puts out an unpolished brick of a story, one that needs refining in order to pass through to publishing. The first brick of text contains all the author’s ideas for the work and everything he sees going into it. Some of those ideas get lost in the editing process and thus the author is limiting the ideas and the opinions in the text. Clever authors are the ones who lose very little to the crippling gaze of the publishing fiend. Take for example that most Fantasy stories follow the same string of plot as every other one. However, we do have those that pop up to take a different tact. Every story has a hero. Every story has a villain. Every story with a hero has a conclusion where typically the hero is victorious over the villain. He may even fall in love throughout the course of the story. Books provide a raw source of folk messages that have turned corporate, the concepts of the true love, the happy ending
To look at the blend of corporate culture and folk culture as a transitionary tool, I bring up the example of the Christmas holiday. I remember a time when I would eagerly count down the days until Christmas came, waiting impatiently for the mystical Santa Claus to appear and deliver his various Christmas gifts to me on the 25th of December. It used to be a time of complete and unbridled happiness, and no, I'm not overstating that. However, as time progresses and one grows older, discovering certain truths about your childhood beleifs, Christmas becomes just another day in the year, except you are presented with gifts by people and are expected to give gifts to others. Things reverse polarities, where I would have found myself counting down days until Chrismas arrived, this year I found myself shocked to find that Christmas was three days away, and I had nothing done in the way of shopping for my girlfriend, my family, and whatever friends I planned to shop for. So there's that, the gifting thing. Another slight example of how things switch around between childhood and adolescence is gifts. When I was a kid, and I'm positive that most of us think this way, I hated getting clothes as a gift from my relatives. I would always want this or that new toy or game, usually because I had seen it on TV. Now I find myself asking for clothes as opposed to whatever else they might imagine I want, mostly because the clothes you wear can depict social status.
Connecting this consumerist state of mind to the material we have discussed in class, I can see clearly the corporate strings attached to the Santa puppet. The entire concept of Santa Claus is a machination of the Coca-Cola company to sell more of heir own product. Our parents perpetuate the lie because it has become imbedded in our American folk culture- A magical being who rides around the world and delivers presents to "good" children and coal to "bad" children. Folk culture present in this ritual is the concept of good and evil, though perhaps a bit downplayed. Santa, the judgement figure, akin to Jesus, declares that good children recieve gifts as a reward of their goodness, similar to getting into Heaven, and bad children should get coal to serve as a punishment that isn't too harsh, but a reminder for them to get back on track, a downplayed Hell concept. Seeing as Santa does not actually exist, and no parent gives their kid coal, every Christmas-celebrating kid in the world is led to beleive they are good. Imagine the narcissism THAT can breed. It's just another one of those self esteem-boosting rituals, much like the gold star. "Let's have these kids all feel good about themselves and be all chipper and whatnot." It is a representation of people's constant need of affirmation that what they are doing is right and they should feel good about themselves.
Moving into folk culture, America has had its even share of nursery rhymes, stories, and life lessons that are handed down through families and teachers to the ever-so-receptive ears of the moldable child. Most of us come packaged with the sense of right and wrong that was taught to us as children, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, eat over your plate, chew with your mouth clothes, keep your clothes on in public. No one is told as a child that they should gnash their teeth around whilst eating or that they should pick on other kids and torment them regardless of what they have done. No, the kids who turn out like this are not because of instructions that lead them to do so, but instead a lack of healthy instruction that tells them what is good and moral. Kids with parents who don't tell them how to live a good and meaningful life have no guideline with which to follow and typically form their own agenda, usually a bad one. Without a guideline, even a wrong one, a kid cannot successfully emerge from their infantile state into their adolescence. It is true that people generally consider the teenage years to be the formative years where you decide who and what you will be, having gotten past the childhood years and already with a strong parental influence on your life. Perhaps that is why there is so much variation from teen to teen, many different groups and cliques all forming different identities. If there were no guidelines set up in our youth and we decided to follow our own paths then, maybe life would be very very different now.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
MLK Reflection
To be quite honest, there isn't a whole lot for me to reflect on for this Martin Luther King Junior Day. I was not plagued by the media that honors his movement for Black rights, nor was I subjected to hearing his iconic "I have a Dream" speech. Andy has said that the Dream speech is his worst speech. But, based on what? the content, or the affect? Personally, I think it may have been one of his greatest, if not THE greatest speech he ever gave. Over 250,000 people were present that day on the Lincoln memorial steps. That day, whether or not you care to admit it, Martin Luther King Jr. delvered a speech that drove the Civil Rights Movememnt into a higher gear, having impacted the entire congregated mass in such a manner that there was not a word spoken whilst the man spoke. His mastery of the english language was evident in the speech that spurred on the Civil Rights Movement's pressure on president Kennedy.
Other than that, I can't reflect a whole lot on the day off that we got in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Perhaps he may be a postage stamp saint, compressed into a bite-sized sound byte, but at least his message is a good one. They may have covered up some of his more radical positions, but he is honored yet for his undying devotion to his people and the movement he helped create.
Other than that, I can't reflect a whole lot on the day off that we got in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Perhaps he may be a postage stamp saint, compressed into a bite-sized sound byte, but at least his message is a good one. They may have covered up some of his more radical positions, but he is honored yet for his undying devotion to his people and the movement he helped create.
Inauguration Day Assignment
LDH2BM - What aspects of our lives were emphasized by the speeches, ceremony, music, song, spectacle? What image of "the good and meaningful life" was strengthened and what sorts of lives were implicitly or explicitly critiqued?
Barack Obama has officially been sworn in as the 44th president of America, not to mention the first African-American President. At his inauguration speech, Obama addressed much, from the path America must walk to restore itself to its once "great state" down to the reduction of our carbon footprint. Wait? Reduce the carbon footprint? Im guessing he means that we should start doing so tomorrow, right? Because my sentiments mirror those of David Freddoso from "The Corner": "Just based on the 500 to 600 private jets that came to today's event, you can bet that the carbon footprint for this inauguration more than makes up for the conservation efforts by Democrats on Capitol Hill - probably for years to come. But throw in all of the buses that are idling along Independence Avenue today, and we might actually have warmer weather by the end of the week." I think that was a little bit of a subtle contradiction. However, it is true that this is a first address, and we can't expect Obama to be specific in his thoughts and plans for leading the country out of the "storm" in which we find ourselves. What I can appreciate in this speech is Obama's bluntness - he wasn't candy coating it too much. he acknowleged that we are in an economic sludge, that we are at war against a hateful adversary, our education system is shot to hell, and health care is too expensive. He acknowledges these as "indicators of crisis." This is where the folk messages of America come into play. Obama tells us that we will meet these challeneges head on, using the all-american values of hope over fear and hard work, determination. Barack relied on the cornerstone of all American folk messages, telling us all that it is our job now to carry on "the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness." Coming out of the the mouth of this African American man raised by a single mother and put through Colombia and Harvard, the man who has become the president, this notion almost sounds beleivable.
I would say that Obama's proposed guidelines for living a good and meaningful life are proposed with that last sentiment In the above paragraph. Obama said that it would be up to us to carry on the american tradition that dictates we are all born equal, all men having certain inalienable rights, etc, etc. Yes, Barack Obama seems to be lending some credence to that American myth, but it still does not hold true for the vast majority of Americans. Black poverty rates are nearly triple for hwat they are for whites. Women still make only 70% of every dollar made by a man, and the is general inequality throughout the states. It may be Barack Obama's hope that with this change of office, things may fare better for the disadvantaged members of society, but with all that he has on his plate, Barack may forget to throw the dog a bone. As for messages that Obama gave about how not to live a good and meaningful life, those were fairly clear and abundant as well. "Those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." This seems like a fairly nice rehashing of the same stuff we've been fed for the past 8 years. Sure, It's worded a bit nicer and he made sure to include that these people slaughter innocents, but essentially it still boils down to "we will kill all of the 'terrorist insurgents' because of how they impose their ideals on others." Continuing his tirade against the evils of the world, but still maintaining his Obama-esque civility, Barack pressed on to say "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." This, to me at least, appears to be a strike on Putin indirectly, but also an invitation for a new alliance. Obama is clearly very intricate with his words - take the hand that is offered to you, or we will make sure history remembers you as the ones who raped and pillaged and ultimately lost.
I Ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
Barack Obama has officially been sworn in as the 44th president of America, not to mention the first African-American President. At his inauguration speech, Obama addressed much, from the path America must walk to restore itself to its once "great state" down to the reduction of our carbon footprint. Wait? Reduce the carbon footprint? Im guessing he means that we should start doing so tomorrow, right? Because my sentiments mirror those of David Freddoso from "The Corner": "Just based on the 500 to 600 private jets that came to today's event, you can bet that the carbon footprint for this inauguration more than makes up for the conservation efforts by Democrats on Capitol Hill - probably for years to come. But throw in all of the buses that are idling along Independence Avenue today, and we might actually have warmer weather by the end of the week." I think that was a little bit of a subtle contradiction. However, it is true that this is a first address, and we can't expect Obama to be specific in his thoughts and plans for leading the country out of the "storm" in which we find ourselves. What I can appreciate in this speech is Obama's bluntness - he wasn't candy coating it too much. he acknowleged that we are in an economic sludge, that we are at war against a hateful adversary, our education system is shot to hell, and health care is too expensive. He acknowledges these as "indicators of crisis." This is where the folk messages of America come into play. Obama tells us that we will meet these challeneges head on, using the all-american values of hope over fear and hard work, determination. Barack relied on the cornerstone of all American folk messages, telling us all that it is our job now to carry on "the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness." Coming out of the the mouth of this African American man raised by a single mother and put through Colombia and Harvard, the man who has become the president, this notion almost sounds beleivable.
I would say that Obama's proposed guidelines for living a good and meaningful life are proposed with that last sentiment In the above paragraph. Obama said that it would be up to us to carry on the american tradition that dictates we are all born equal, all men having certain inalienable rights, etc, etc. Yes, Barack Obama seems to be lending some credence to that American myth, but it still does not hold true for the vast majority of Americans. Black poverty rates are nearly triple for hwat they are for whites. Women still make only 70% of every dollar made by a man, and the is general inequality throughout the states. It may be Barack Obama's hope that with this change of office, things may fare better for the disadvantaged members of society, but with all that he has on his plate, Barack may forget to throw the dog a bone. As for messages that Obama gave about how not to live a good and meaningful life, those were fairly clear and abundant as well. "Those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." This seems like a fairly nice rehashing of the same stuff we've been fed for the past 8 years. Sure, It's worded a bit nicer and he made sure to include that these people slaughter innocents, but essentially it still boils down to "we will kill all of the 'terrorist insurgents' because of how they impose their ideals on others." Continuing his tirade against the evils of the world, but still maintaining his Obama-esque civility, Barack pressed on to say "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." This, to me at least, appears to be a strike on Putin indirectly, but also an invitation for a new alliance. Obama is clearly very intricate with his words - take the hand that is offered to you, or we will make sure history remembers you as the ones who raped and pillaged and ultimately lost.
I Ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Big Paper drafté
Welcome to the good life. We have pie and punch.
Intrigued? Well the good life, or rather, the concept of the good life is essentially that simple. As Americans, we are bombarded from all sides by images of what the good life entails, and thus everyone has built a perspective of "the good life". I propose that the good life is a life of awareness - most people are not aware that they are being controlled and impacted by pop culture and living what they think is their idea of a good life, an idea supplanted into each of their minds. Many people have their own take on the good life, some people I interviewed, some people who broadcast their ideas through music and others who sell it to us by other means. Perhaps the good life doesn't exist, and it is only a concept created by corporations to help sell their products. Perhaps it does exist and it is easier to attain than one would think. Based on many perspectives, we can work towards debunking the concept of a "good life".
Perhaps the best way to start unraveling the theory of a good and meaningful life is to start with my own belief system. I hold it true that a good life is something people must strive for, not something that you can be born into, such as may be the case with material wealth. No, I find that a truly good life is a life where you operate in full awareness of the factors guiding your life, factors trying to mold you into their image. Becoming aware in the sense that you can see the puppet strings that try to attach themselves o you is not an easy task, one that I am not versed in too deeply. It is the case for many people to subconsciously adopt the motto "ignorance is bliss" wherein what you don't know cannot hurt you. In this case it can be inferred that if you are ignorant of an assailant creeping up behind you, you will be perfectly fine, but if you are aware of his presence, then you are in some serious danger. What good can it do you to be unaware of the puppeteer that is controlling your every action and controlling every thought you think is your own? The way I see it (or perhaps I have been conditioned to see it this way, it is certainly a possibility) someone should try to be as aware of both themselves and everything impacting them as they can.
I am well aware that my ideas are not my own. I doubt that any of my ideas concerning my life and attitude have anything to do with me. I am a product of my environment. I can tell you, it’s a very uncomfortable position to be in; you don't know exactly what your beliefs are, you second-guess everything because you know that it came from one source or another. That's why I believe I find the most meaning in writing. True, most plot devices and in general, plots, have been created before. But the truth remains that when you put pen to paper or words to a screen, it is an original burst of thought from yourself. Even for those not gifted in writing can create something original and meaningful. The quality of the work doesn't have to be good, but it is meaningful in that it was created from the author's originality. Creating a fictional story, a poem, really any form of creative writing has meaning because it defies corporate media. If it's original, it's unaffected by anything but imagination. Perhaps it is cliché to say this, but imagination ultimately boils down to the best tool to defy social norms.
I talked to several people to determine what they felt made a good and meaningful life. Talking to these people made it evident that some people have not given a whole lot of thought to their life’s meaning, and much less to the concept of meaning in general. Person A said "Meaning, well that's the stuff that has importance to you, like, the stuff you like." similar to this was Person B who said that meaning "isn't something that can be easily tossed away, more like the stuff that's precious to you." From these two, we're left to wonder exactly what importance is - what makes something a necessity to someone? I think people have been greatly encouraged to not think critically about "abstract" things like the meaning of life and what makes a good life. Instead, people focus on the more concrete concepts of "things". People put significance into objects, like their new phone, their clothes, and their cars. It seems that people hold things important, and the better the thing makes you look in person, the better and more important it becomes to you. Things in themselves hold little actual value, however. Sometimes people use these things to stimulate other ideas. A person may find a photo album important, as it documents what they see as important events in their lives or the lives of loved ones.
In America we are greatly exposed and more or less run our lives by Popular culture. Within Pop culture lay three different but not necessarily separate categories: Corporate, Folk Culture, and Big Subcultures. For this unit we have delved deeply into personifying Corporate Culture. Within this subcategory of Pop culture lie more subcategories that classify the messages broadcasted by corporate culture. These categories are Dominant, Marginal/Fringe, and Prohibited/Unacceptable. Dominant messages are those that are the basis of the music videos, movies, and books that we all consume. They typically involve "good" values of misogyny, heroism, and going with the flow. Marginal or fringe messages are those like "You can smoke pot and be a drug addict while you're young and single, as long as you clean yourself up and get settled with a nice wife and 2.5 kids.” They start off "bad" and end up "good". In prohibited messages, however, you will only see the direct opposition to the Dominant culture, and this is why you hardly ever see these kinds of messages being tossed around casually. The instances where these are shown are often found alongside the marginal messages, as the two are related. A prohibited message might encourage you to take to the streets and start the revolution, destroying every piece of corporate anything you find.
One medium that essentially serves up corporate messages to teens on a silver platter is the ever-expanding world of video gaming. With 3 current-gen gaming consoles, the attraction to video gaming ranges between age groups of 8 to 20s and
30s. Most every video game has a plot in which you must defeat a foe of some kind. In most of these you play the story's hero. You are the cream of your village's crop, there's something special about you, and you have a predetermined destiny for greatness. This serves as a drag for many teens, albeit subconsciously. They need the affirmation that they can be better than what they are now, that they can do more. Other than that, gaming is like a new sport between teens, a new form of competition where you can truly outshine your peers and earn your bragging rights without ever actually accomplishing much. It is a form of grandstanding, with every game becoming worse and worse, making you capable of doing more and more to humiliate your friends. Not to mention that the games' level of violence is another huge draw; it gives teens the ability to commit deviant crimes without suffering punishment. It allows teens to battle against armies of "evil" creatures, without doing much to reflect on the evil of killing said creature. For social devolution we can all count video games as a major player, no pun intended.
Another method of providing corporate messages is through literary media. Institutions like publishers and bookstores have a huge say in what we the people read. The process of putting a book through publishing from first draft to final, printed copy is a long and hard ordeal involving many rewrites and drafts. Typically we end up with the watered down and editor approved version of the author’s ideas. When the writer first sets his pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) he or she puts out an unpolished brick of a story, one that needs refining in order to pass through to publishing. The first brick of text contains all the author’s ideas for the work and everything he sees going into it. Some of those ideas get lost in the editing process and thus the author is limiting the ideas and the opinions in the text. Clever authors are the ones who lose very little to the crippling gaze of the publishing fiend. Take for example that most Fantasy stories follow the same string of plot as every other one. However, we do have those that pop up to take a different tact. Every story has a hero. Every story has a villain. Every story with a hero has a conclusion where typically the hero is victorious over the villain. He may even fall in love throughout the course of the story.
To look at the blend of corporate culture and folk culture as a transitionary tool, I bring up the example of the christmas holiday. I remember a time when I would eagerly count down the days until Christmas came, waiting impatiently for the mystical Santa Claus to appear and deliver his various Christmas gifts to me on the 25th of December. It used to be a time of complete and unbridled happiness, and no, I'm not overstating that. However, as time progresses and one grows older, discovering certain truths about your childhood beleifs, Christmas becomes just another day in the year, except you are presented with gifts by people and are expected to give gifts to others. Things reverse polarities, where I would have found myself counting down days until Chrismas arrived, this year I found myself shocked to find that Christmas was three days away, and I had nothing done in the way of shopping for my girlfriend. Another slight example of how things switch around between childhood and adolescence is gifts. When I was a kid, and I'm positive that most of us think this way, I hated getting clothes as a gift from my relatives. Now I find myself asking for clothes as opposed to whatever else they might imagine I want.
Connecting this to the material we have discussed in class, I can see clearly the corporate strings attached to the Santa puppet. The entire concept of Santa Claus is a machination of the Coca Cola company to sell more of heir own product. Our parents perpetuate the lie because it has become imbedded in our American folk culture, a magical being who rides around the world and delivers presents to "good" children and coal to "bad" children. Folk culture present in this ritual is the concept of good and evil, though perhaps a bit downplayed. Santa, the judgement figure, declares that good children recieve gifts as a reward of their goodness, and bad children should get coal to serve as a punishment that isn't too harsh, but a reminder for them to get back on track. Seeing as Santa does not actually exist, no parent gives their kid coal, so every Christmas-celebrating kid in the world is led to beleive they are good. It's like another one of those self esteem-boosting rituals, much like the gold star. It is a representation of people's constant need of affirmation that what they are doing is right and they should feel good about themselves.
Changing pace for a minute, I would like to point out how the Christmas Holidays change from beacons of happiness to ultimately depressing slumps. Consider it like this; you've lost faith in your shiny, polished idea of a benevolent gift-giver, your relatives don't know you well enough or don't see you often enough to know what gift to get you, and so they just give you money to make up for it. You find out that Christmas is a shallow holiday of give and receive, emphasizing on your own reception. Turning on the tv presents a barrage of holiday themed ads desperately trying to get you to buy their product. Christmas can bring me down like no other thing, making me just regret the fact that all the people around me feel the "Christmas Spirit" and i can't. Every year, my mother plays the same CD, a christmas collection Cd. John Lennon, Live Aid, thta kind of stuff. When I was younger I couldn't really understand the lyrics, but it certainly set the mood. That music meant it was christmas time. We played the same songs this year, but now I understand the lyrics and I can't identify how they set off those Christmas sparks inside me. I wasn't satisfied with just being devoid of Christmas spirit, so I asked my immediate family if they felt it. They all said yes. This meant to me that the spirit isn't determined by age. I still haven't found out what exactly causes it, or lack of it.
Moving into folk culture,
Intrigued? Well the good life, or rather, the concept of the good life is essentially that simple. As Americans, we are bombarded from all sides by images of what the good life entails, and thus everyone has built a perspective of "the good life". I propose that the good life is a life of awareness - most people are not aware that they are being controlled and impacted by pop culture and living what they think is their idea of a good life, an idea supplanted into each of their minds. Many people have their own take on the good life, some people I interviewed, some people who broadcast their ideas through music and others who sell it to us by other means. Perhaps the good life doesn't exist, and it is only a concept created by corporations to help sell their products. Perhaps it does exist and it is easier to attain than one would think. Based on many perspectives, we can work towards debunking the concept of a "good life".
Perhaps the best way to start unraveling the theory of a good and meaningful life is to start with my own belief system. I hold it true that a good life is something people must strive for, not something that you can be born into, such as may be the case with material wealth. No, I find that a truly good life is a life where you operate in full awareness of the factors guiding your life, factors trying to mold you into their image. Becoming aware in the sense that you can see the puppet strings that try to attach themselves o you is not an easy task, one that I am not versed in too deeply. It is the case for many people to subconsciously adopt the motto "ignorance is bliss" wherein what you don't know cannot hurt you. In this case it can be inferred that if you are ignorant of an assailant creeping up behind you, you will be perfectly fine, but if you are aware of his presence, then you are in some serious danger. What good can it do you to be unaware of the puppeteer that is controlling your every action and controlling every thought you think is your own? The way I see it (or perhaps I have been conditioned to see it this way, it is certainly a possibility) someone should try to be as aware of both themselves and everything impacting them as they can.
I am well aware that my ideas are not my own. I doubt that any of my ideas concerning my life and attitude have anything to do with me. I am a product of my environment. I can tell you, it’s a very uncomfortable position to be in; you don't know exactly what your beliefs are, you second-guess everything because you know that it came from one source or another. That's why I believe I find the most meaning in writing. True, most plot devices and in general, plots, have been created before. But the truth remains that when you put pen to paper or words to a screen, it is an original burst of thought from yourself. Even for those not gifted in writing can create something original and meaningful. The quality of the work doesn't have to be good, but it is meaningful in that it was created from the author's originality. Creating a fictional story, a poem, really any form of creative writing has meaning because it defies corporate media. If it's original, it's unaffected by anything but imagination. Perhaps it is cliché to say this, but imagination ultimately boils down to the best tool to defy social norms.
I talked to several people to determine what they felt made a good and meaningful life. Talking to these people made it evident that some people have not given a whole lot of thought to their life’s meaning, and much less to the concept of meaning in general. Person A said "Meaning, well that's the stuff that has importance to you, like, the stuff you like." similar to this was Person B who said that meaning "isn't something that can be easily tossed away, more like the stuff that's precious to you." From these two, we're left to wonder exactly what importance is - what makes something a necessity to someone? I think people have been greatly encouraged to not think critically about "abstract" things like the meaning of life and what makes a good life. Instead, people focus on the more concrete concepts of "things". People put significance into objects, like their new phone, their clothes, and their cars. It seems that people hold things important, and the better the thing makes you look in person, the better and more important it becomes to you. Things in themselves hold little actual value, however. Sometimes people use these things to stimulate other ideas. A person may find a photo album important, as it documents what they see as important events in their lives or the lives of loved ones.
In America we are greatly exposed and more or less run our lives by Popular culture. Within Pop culture lay three different but not necessarily separate categories: Corporate, Folk Culture, and Big Subcultures. For this unit we have delved deeply into personifying Corporate Culture. Within this subcategory of Pop culture lie more subcategories that classify the messages broadcasted by corporate culture. These categories are Dominant, Marginal/Fringe, and Prohibited/Unacceptable. Dominant messages are those that are the basis of the music videos, movies, and books that we all consume. They typically involve "good" values of misogyny, heroism, and going with the flow. Marginal or fringe messages are those like "You can smoke pot and be a drug addict while you're young and single, as long as you clean yourself up and get settled with a nice wife and 2.5 kids.” They start off "bad" and end up "good". In prohibited messages, however, you will only see the direct opposition to the Dominant culture, and this is why you hardly ever see these kinds of messages being tossed around casually. The instances where these are shown are often found alongside the marginal messages, as the two are related. A prohibited message might encourage you to take to the streets and start the revolution, destroying every piece of corporate anything you find.
One medium that essentially serves up corporate messages to teens on a silver platter is the ever-expanding world of video gaming. With 3 current-gen gaming consoles, the attraction to video gaming ranges between age groups of 8 to 20s and
30s. Most every video game has a plot in which you must defeat a foe of some kind. In most of these you play the story's hero. You are the cream of your village's crop, there's something special about you, and you have a predetermined destiny for greatness. This serves as a drag for many teens, albeit subconsciously. They need the affirmation that they can be better than what they are now, that they can do more. Other than that, gaming is like a new sport between teens, a new form of competition where you can truly outshine your peers and earn your bragging rights without ever actually accomplishing much. It is a form of grandstanding, with every game becoming worse and worse, making you capable of doing more and more to humiliate your friends. Not to mention that the games' level of violence is another huge draw; it gives teens the ability to commit deviant crimes without suffering punishment. It allows teens to battle against armies of "evil" creatures, without doing much to reflect on the evil of killing said creature. For social devolution we can all count video games as a major player, no pun intended.
Another method of providing corporate messages is through literary media. Institutions like publishers and bookstores have a huge say in what we the people read. The process of putting a book through publishing from first draft to final, printed copy is a long and hard ordeal involving many rewrites and drafts. Typically we end up with the watered down and editor approved version of the author’s ideas. When the writer first sets his pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) he or she puts out an unpolished brick of a story, one that needs refining in order to pass through to publishing. The first brick of text contains all the author’s ideas for the work and everything he sees going into it. Some of those ideas get lost in the editing process and thus the author is limiting the ideas and the opinions in the text. Clever authors are the ones who lose very little to the crippling gaze of the publishing fiend. Take for example that most Fantasy stories follow the same string of plot as every other one. However, we do have those that pop up to take a different tact. Every story has a hero. Every story has a villain. Every story with a hero has a conclusion where typically the hero is victorious over the villain. He may even fall in love throughout the course of the story.
To look at the blend of corporate culture and folk culture as a transitionary tool, I bring up the example of the christmas holiday. I remember a time when I would eagerly count down the days until Christmas came, waiting impatiently for the mystical Santa Claus to appear and deliver his various Christmas gifts to me on the 25th of December. It used to be a time of complete and unbridled happiness, and no, I'm not overstating that. However, as time progresses and one grows older, discovering certain truths about your childhood beleifs, Christmas becomes just another day in the year, except you are presented with gifts by people and are expected to give gifts to others. Things reverse polarities, where I would have found myself counting down days until Chrismas arrived, this year I found myself shocked to find that Christmas was three days away, and I had nothing done in the way of shopping for my girlfriend. Another slight example of how things switch around between childhood and adolescence is gifts. When I was a kid, and I'm positive that most of us think this way, I hated getting clothes as a gift from my relatives. Now I find myself asking for clothes as opposed to whatever else they might imagine I want.
Connecting this to the material we have discussed in class, I can see clearly the corporate strings attached to the Santa puppet. The entire concept of Santa Claus is a machination of the Coca Cola company to sell more of heir own product. Our parents perpetuate the lie because it has become imbedded in our American folk culture, a magical being who rides around the world and delivers presents to "good" children and coal to "bad" children. Folk culture present in this ritual is the concept of good and evil, though perhaps a bit downplayed. Santa, the judgement figure, declares that good children recieve gifts as a reward of their goodness, and bad children should get coal to serve as a punishment that isn't too harsh, but a reminder for them to get back on track. Seeing as Santa does not actually exist, no parent gives their kid coal, so every Christmas-celebrating kid in the world is led to beleive they are good. It's like another one of those self esteem-boosting rituals, much like the gold star. It is a representation of people's constant need of affirmation that what they are doing is right and they should feel good about themselves.
Changing pace for a minute, I would like to point out how the Christmas Holidays change from beacons of happiness to ultimately depressing slumps. Consider it like this; you've lost faith in your shiny, polished idea of a benevolent gift-giver, your relatives don't know you well enough or don't see you often enough to know what gift to get you, and so they just give you money to make up for it. You find out that Christmas is a shallow holiday of give and receive, emphasizing on your own reception. Turning on the tv presents a barrage of holiday themed ads desperately trying to get you to buy their product. Christmas can bring me down like no other thing, making me just regret the fact that all the people around me feel the "Christmas Spirit" and i can't. Every year, my mother plays the same CD, a christmas collection Cd. John Lennon, Live Aid, thta kind of stuff. When I was younger I couldn't really understand the lyrics, but it certainly set the mood. That music meant it was christmas time. We played the same songs this year, but now I understand the lyrics and I can't identify how they set off those Christmas sparks inside me. I wasn't satisfied with just being devoid of Christmas spirit, so I asked my immediate family if they felt it. They all said yes. This meant to me that the spirit isn't determined by age. I still haven't found out what exactly causes it, or lack of it.
Moving into folk culture,
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Intricate Study/Deconstruction of Labor Day (Draft)
"Labor Day" as it stand in the US, is now a federal holiday that takes place on the first monday of September. The holiday was established as a federal holiday in June of 1984, though the holiday was first created by the Central Labor Union, a trade organization in the New York and New Jersey area. The Central Labor Union declared that there should be a day in which "the common working man" was "celebrated for his efforts." Since the federalization of the holiday, Americans all over the country take september 1st off not so much to celebrate the working man as the Central Labor Union may have depicted it, instead celebrating themselves as workers and spending time relaxing for the long weekend. Corporate advertisements that lead up to the Labor Day weekend are targeted at consumers' home lives, emphasizing the family and the "special times" spent wth one another. It also stresses sales on people at the same time. seizing the opportunity to make larger profits. For a more generic message, not so family-oriented, they still have the huge saving weekend extravaganza, because god forbid that there would exist a holiday where corporate culture doesn't ENTIRELY guide it. So ultimately what labor day boils down to is a breif break from working where you are told, (by commercial media) that it is supposed to be about families gathering and enjoying time with each, something which is precious and cherished. But, wait, your store is still open on labor day? And the grills are on sale? Hot Damn! Forget my family - I need to take hold of these sales! Don't worry though, you can bring your family! We got sales on all childrens products 99$ and above! Why not buy a little something, a trinket of affection for the Mrs.? It's in the spirit of the holiday!
I think this paints the picture of a holiday that wasn't manufactured by corporation, that started out with good intentions. Once companies realized there would be three days where consumers would have time off to do as they pleased, it became a profit making period. This is a perfect representation of American culture, where people are intended to gather with friends and have barbeques on the beach and maybe build a bonfire, real happy and carefree.
I think this paints the picture of a holiday that wasn't manufactured by corporation, that started out with good intentions. Once companies realized there would be three days where consumers would have time off to do as they pleased, it became a profit making period. This is a perfect representation of American culture, where people are intended to gather with friends and have barbeques on the beach and maybe build a bonfire, real happy and carefree.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Thoughts on Christmas and New Years
I remember a time when I would eagerly count down the days until Christmas came, waiting impatiently for the mystical Santa Claus to appear and deliver his various Christmas gifts to me on the 25th of December. It used to be a time of complete and unbridled happiness, and no, I'm not overstating that. However, as time progresses and one grows older, discovering certain truths about your childhood beleifs, Christmas becomes just another day in the year, except you are presented with gifts by people and are expected to give gifts to others. Things reverse polarities, where I would have found myself counting down days until Chrismas arrived, this year I found myself shocked to find that Christmas was three days away, and I had nothing done in the way of shopping for my girlfriend. Another slight example of how things switch around between childhood and adolescence is gifts. When I was a kid, and I'm positive that most of us think this way, I hated getting clothes as a gift from my relatives. Now I find myself asking for clothes as opposed to whatever else they might imagine I want.
Changing pace for a minute, I would like to point out how the Christmas Holidays change from beacons of happiness to ultimately depressing slumps. Consider it like this; you've lost faith in your shiny, polished idea of a benevolent gift-giver, your relatives don't know you well enough or don't see you often enough to know what gift to get you, and so they just give you money to make up for it. You find out that Christmas is a shallow holiday of give and receive, emphasizing on your own reception. Turning on the tv presents a barrage of holiday themed ads desperately trying to get you to buy their product. Christmas can bring me down like no other thing, making me just regret the fact that all the people around me feel the "Christmas Spirit" and i can't. Every year, my mother plays the same CD, a christmas collection Cd. John Lennon, Live Aid, thta kind of stuff. When I was younger I couldn't really understand the lyrics, but it certainly set the mood. That music meant it was christmas time. We played the same songs this year, but now I understand the lyrics and I can't identify how they set off those Christmas sparks inside me. I wasn't satisfied with just being devoid of Christmas spirit, so I asked my immediate family if they felt it. They all said yes. This meant to me that the spirit isn't determined by age. I still haven't found out what exactly causes it, or lack of it.
Connecting this to the material we have discussed in class, I can see clearly the corporate strings attached to the Santa puppet. The entire concept of Santa Claus is a machination of the Coca Cola company to sell more of heir own product. Our parents perpetaute the lie because it has become imbedded in our American folk culture, a magical being who rides around the world and delivers presents to "good" children and coal to "bad" children. Folk culture present in this ritual is the concept of good and evil, though perhaps a bit downplayed. Santa, the judgement figure, declares that good children recieve gifts as a reward of their goodness, and bad children should get coal to serve as a punishment that isn't too harsh, but a reminder for them to get back on track. Seeing as Santa does not actually exist, no parent gives their kid coal, so every Christmas-celebrating kid in the world is led to beleive they are good. It's like another one of those self esteem-boosting rituals, much like the gold star. It is a representation of people's constant need of affirmation that what they are doing is right and they should feel good about themselves.
Changing pace for a minute, I would like to point out how the Christmas Holidays change from beacons of happiness to ultimately depressing slumps. Consider it like this; you've lost faith in your shiny, polished idea of a benevolent gift-giver, your relatives don't know you well enough or don't see you often enough to know what gift to get you, and so they just give you money to make up for it. You find out that Christmas is a shallow holiday of give and receive, emphasizing on your own reception. Turning on the tv presents a barrage of holiday themed ads desperately trying to get you to buy their product. Christmas can bring me down like no other thing, making me just regret the fact that all the people around me feel the "Christmas Spirit" and i can't. Every year, my mother plays the same CD, a christmas collection Cd. John Lennon, Live Aid, thta kind of stuff. When I was younger I couldn't really understand the lyrics, but it certainly set the mood. That music meant it was christmas time. We played the same songs this year, but now I understand the lyrics and I can't identify how they set off those Christmas sparks inside me. I wasn't satisfied with just being devoid of Christmas spirit, so I asked my immediate family if they felt it. They all said yes. This meant to me that the spirit isn't determined by age. I still haven't found out what exactly causes it, or lack of it.
Connecting this to the material we have discussed in class, I can see clearly the corporate strings attached to the Santa puppet. The entire concept of Santa Claus is a machination of the Coca Cola company to sell more of heir own product. Our parents perpetaute the lie because it has become imbedded in our American folk culture, a magical being who rides around the world and delivers presents to "good" children and coal to "bad" children. Folk culture present in this ritual is the concept of good and evil, though perhaps a bit downplayed. Santa, the judgement figure, declares that good children recieve gifts as a reward of their goodness, and bad children should get coal to serve as a punishment that isn't too harsh, but a reminder for them to get back on track. Seeing as Santa does not actually exist, no parent gives their kid coal, so every Christmas-celebrating kid in the world is led to beleive they are good. It's like another one of those self esteem-boosting rituals, much like the gold star. It is a representation of people's constant need of affirmation that what they are doing is right and they should feel good about themselves.
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