A story which has been floating around the Internet for some time:
"Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment cheque because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have." "
Joe Republican clearly highlights the real-life effects of liberal principles with positive benefits. This is an easy and clear idea located within the story. Interestingly enough, while true and salient in terms of reality, the problem with this is that the liberals are convinced that accurate, solid and tenable information will automatically sway people from their previous political or intellectual positioning. This is a mistake, and simply furthers the rift between the Neo-Fascist Christian right, and the Progressive yet Blind Liberal Democrats. Like so many issues, the reductionary stance of rendering a complex process into something simple and binaristic fails to address the problem itself, instead becoming bound up in ad-hominen style debate. Clearly, a two-party system is not in the best interests democracy.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Self vs.System vs.Self
Money! Dating! Fashion! OMG! OMFG roxor! Dazzle my eyes with false promises and seemingly endless variety of distractions presenting those things that I should be thinking about, and I will no doubt be unable to avoid thinking about them. My cell phone keeps me too busy to pay attention to domestic political and my Facebook commitments outweigh my personal free time. So many peripheral events and networked transactions occur everyday, throwing people in and out of social engagements, encouraging more and more dependence on and commitment to someone else's ideas. It's not very plausible, wanting to be recognized for achievement in a proactive, creative manner. Corporate success, being made economically viable through paying little attention to problems with free-market visions of high life, appears much easier. But ironically, it does feel good to go and spend money on something personal and unnecessary when life is getting you down. Why is that? Encouraged since birth, consuming is the lifestream of 'successful' existence. Despite recognizing the fallibility of this concept, it's strangely easy adhering to a system which cleverly replaces autonomy with 'stuff'.
The current 'spring' weather in the Southern Ontario region doesn't help to encourage that everything around you doesn't suck and isn't crap, which is arguably a difficult lie to continually tell oneself when your senses explain otherwise. As a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, I feel assured that my time is nigh, whether guised as a perfect job that falls into my lap, or the big lotto win, or perhaps the swift universal justice of heaven cleansing the Earth of fundamentalism and intolerance. Jaded, so jaded. Get a grip, man.
Settle for the job you have and the life you chose and live vicariously through the representation of others. Settle for your existing social climate. Get a degree in Arts, and then settle on becoming a teacher, even though you're not too keen on kids. Opposition is always a difficult route in the face of comfort and conformity, but freedom costs a buck o' five. That's, like, dramatic irony.
Please understand that I respect and admire this culture of consumption. And I honour it every bit as much as the next.....anarchist. Yet I am completely dependent on it for my continued existence. Kind of a weird paradox that I can't seem to be able to explain my way out of. Feeling meaty with cynicism.
The current 'spring' weather in the Southern Ontario region doesn't help to encourage that everything around you doesn't suck and isn't crap, which is arguably a difficult lie to continually tell oneself when your senses explain otherwise. As a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, I feel assured that my time is nigh, whether guised as a perfect job that falls into my lap, or the big lotto win, or perhaps the swift universal justice of heaven cleansing the Earth of fundamentalism and intolerance. Jaded, so jaded. Get a grip, man.
Settle for the job you have and the life you chose and live vicariously through the representation of others. Settle for your existing social climate. Get a degree in Arts, and then settle on becoming a teacher, even though you're not too keen on kids. Opposition is always a difficult route in the face of comfort and conformity, but freedom costs a buck o' five. That's, like, dramatic irony.
Please understand that I respect and admire this culture of consumption. And I honour it every bit as much as the next.....anarchist. Yet I am completely dependent on it for my continued existence. Kind of a weird paradox that I can't seem to be able to explain my way out of. Feeling meaty with cynicism.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Curiosity of the Social World
Becoming a student once again and navigating the hallways of academia has offered insights that I never expected. As a youth, I always conceptualized school as being a place where grades indicate intelligence, cool kids smoke cigarettes and teachers mediate the distinction between critical thinking and engagement with popular opinion. Now, as a borderline mature student, it has become something else. Critically engaging with the problems and concerns that affect cultural representation, theories of knowledge and cognitive ability seems to lead further and further into a rhizomatic concept of education.
The inability to combat all of the encroaching and perhaps malignant forces which are enacted on human consciousness through whatever means, political, social or religious, is often an overwhelming experience. Treading through these layers of meaning and significances is an act of premeditated caution, one that invokes cynicism and doubt, but it also encourages resolve.
So much theory rests on reducing itself to critique, rather than offering any practical advice for how to actually change anything. Reading critical analyses and theories can easily offer inspiration and a desire to challenge existing ideologies. Invariably, many of these writings come to be insignificant as symbolic markers for change, as the concept of some disillusioned writer deeply entrenched in his or her room scowling at the world and writing all the problems they see in it, but without actually engaging with the problems themselves, is not particularly brave or revolutionary. If we begin talking of new paradigms of communication and the increasing hyperreality of the world or hybrid notions of humanity, then it would seem that we have some vested interest in taking notice of how and perhaps why cultural climates shift. However, just watching it all go by is no more useful than being an instrumental part of it. Being paralyzed by socio-cultural dogma and panoptic networks of interaction is also no help in taking back control of individual experience and these cultural climates. Under a Marxist model of production, the author is no more privileged than the reader, since both are merely part of a larger integrated structure. What this seems to suggest is that importance lies in challenging the systems under which we have no choice but to live, rather than simply making the best of a bad situation.
Consider the world of childhood and youth. No other generation has experienced the dramatic shift in what constitutes childhood than those of the last 20 years. Children have taken up an important and central role in the world of economic consumption. Advertising frequently leans heavily on the objective world that children experience, allowing multi-national corporations like Disney to incorporate their ideologically-charged messages into the world of childhood, expertly guised as harmless, innocuous entertainment that is 'good' for kids. Consider Pocahontas. Both protagonists exemplify supermodel or pop star qualities, and the film persists that love will conquer all while convering up the relatively unacknowledged principles of colonialism, namely deceit and genocide (in similarity with Pocahontas' characters, Disney's Aladdin was modeled after Tom Cruise). Let's face it, family films about mass murder might be a difficult sell. But reducing complex ideas into ideallic fantasies removes the possibilty for critical engagement, especially in the minds of children. When the Nazis turned the word 'propaganda' into a negative concept, it is doubtful that they could have conceived that this idea would expand to incorporate the world of youth consumerism and animated film.
The modern social world is turning away from individualized curiosity, instead becoming focused on ideal goals based mostly on media description. As existence becomes more and more fragmented throughout postmodern culture, power needs to be wrested from systems of incorporation and transferred back to the individual consciousness. This is not exactly an easy thing to do. It's easy to want a fast car, a wife with big fake tits, a big house packed with millions of gadgets and a job which offers unending promotions. Unfortunately, the more that is learned about economic systems, the more that problems and difficulties with these consumerist social constructs become forefront. If your fast car guzzles 200 litres of gas every 5 minutes, chances are you are not very receptive to environmental concerns. Eventually, your kids will curse your name as they pedal to their first jobs on communal buses which operate off bipedal locomotion because you and your generation invested in fossil fuels and went belly up once they were depleted through irresponsible use. Your wife with big fake tits might infuse you with pride and showmanship, but she may be trapped between being a wife to you and becoming an individual, confident woman who does not need a huge chest or rich husband to feel empowered. Or maybe she just likes your money. Your big house might be built by a company who destroyed a 200 year old forest to make way for several city blocks of cubicle housing, devoid of natural vegetation. The gadgets inside may simply be manifestations of your own inability to deal with your conscious self, perhaps sexually invalidated through working a job that closely resembles that of American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. Who knows. Maybe the dream is real after all. Let's just hope we remember what dreams used to be by the time we can afford a house, or better yet, actively work towards creating an environment where our dreams are our own.
The inability to combat all of the encroaching and perhaps malignant forces which are enacted on human consciousness through whatever means, political, social or religious, is often an overwhelming experience. Treading through these layers of meaning and significances is an act of premeditated caution, one that invokes cynicism and doubt, but it also encourages resolve.
So much theory rests on reducing itself to critique, rather than offering any practical advice for how to actually change anything. Reading critical analyses and theories can easily offer inspiration and a desire to challenge existing ideologies. Invariably, many of these writings come to be insignificant as symbolic markers for change, as the concept of some disillusioned writer deeply entrenched in his or her room scowling at the world and writing all the problems they see in it, but without actually engaging with the problems themselves, is not particularly brave or revolutionary. If we begin talking of new paradigms of communication and the increasing hyperreality of the world or hybrid notions of humanity, then it would seem that we have some vested interest in taking notice of how and perhaps why cultural climates shift. However, just watching it all go by is no more useful than being an instrumental part of it. Being paralyzed by socio-cultural dogma and panoptic networks of interaction is also no help in taking back control of individual experience and these cultural climates. Under a Marxist model of production, the author is no more privileged than the reader, since both are merely part of a larger integrated structure. What this seems to suggest is that importance lies in challenging the systems under which we have no choice but to live, rather than simply making the best of a bad situation.
Consider the world of childhood and youth. No other generation has experienced the dramatic shift in what constitutes childhood than those of the last 20 years. Children have taken up an important and central role in the world of economic consumption. Advertising frequently leans heavily on the objective world that children experience, allowing multi-national corporations like Disney to incorporate their ideologically-charged messages into the world of childhood, expertly guised as harmless, innocuous entertainment that is 'good' for kids. Consider Pocahontas. Both protagonists exemplify supermodel or pop star qualities, and the film persists that love will conquer all while convering up the relatively unacknowledged principles of colonialism, namely deceit and genocide (in similarity with Pocahontas' characters, Disney's Aladdin was modeled after Tom Cruise). Let's face it, family films about mass murder might be a difficult sell. But reducing complex ideas into ideallic fantasies removes the possibilty for critical engagement, especially in the minds of children. When the Nazis turned the word 'propaganda' into a negative concept, it is doubtful that they could have conceived that this idea would expand to incorporate the world of youth consumerism and animated film.
The modern social world is turning away from individualized curiosity, instead becoming focused on ideal goals based mostly on media description. As existence becomes more and more fragmented throughout postmodern culture, power needs to be wrested from systems of incorporation and transferred back to the individual consciousness. This is not exactly an easy thing to do. It's easy to want a fast car, a wife with big fake tits, a big house packed with millions of gadgets and a job which offers unending promotions. Unfortunately, the more that is learned about economic systems, the more that problems and difficulties with these consumerist social constructs become forefront. If your fast car guzzles 200 litres of gas every 5 minutes, chances are you are not very receptive to environmental concerns. Eventually, your kids will curse your name as they pedal to their first jobs on communal buses which operate off bipedal locomotion because you and your generation invested in fossil fuels and went belly up once they were depleted through irresponsible use. Your wife with big fake tits might infuse you with pride and showmanship, but she may be trapped between being a wife to you and becoming an individual, confident woman who does not need a huge chest or rich husband to feel empowered. Or maybe she just likes your money. Your big house might be built by a company who destroyed a 200 year old forest to make way for several city blocks of cubicle housing, devoid of natural vegetation. The gadgets inside may simply be manifestations of your own inability to deal with your conscious self, perhaps sexually invalidated through working a job that closely resembles that of American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. Who knows. Maybe the dream is real after all. Let's just hope we remember what dreams used to be by the time we can afford a house, or better yet, actively work towards creating an environment where our dreams are our own.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
The Meaning of Meaning
In questioning motivations behind media production, the problematic issue of 'meaning' comes into focus. Meaning itself is an awkward term, much like 'truth' or 'nice', and defining how it functions is debatable: one person's inspiration can easily be another's curse, depending on context and perspective. If the function of meaning is as undefinable as it appears, what is the point of placing importance on it?
Magazines lining the checkout isles of grocery and department stores offer free-playing sociability and interactions which are mostly devoid of any real content, yet they are popular enough to warrant their continual presence in these places. Why yes, I am ready to fully render myself into a pilon and accept Anna Nicole's wasted life as a pretext for concern, and I grieve daily for Britney's amateur haircut. By discussing these and events like them as daily sources for communication, am I, as a person, learning anything? Arguably yes, water-cooler conversations are part of regular life and help people feel surrounded by like-minded colleagues and aquaintances and feel more comfortable not talking about anything too serious. However, in regarding the application of meaning, this content is relatively free of substance.
Fox News' 'No Spin Zone' hosted by Bill O'Reilly offers a concise and deeply disturbing account of journalistic failure. Promoted as an intangible, infallible zone of fact and information dissemination, it provides a unique experience which steps grandly over the 'dogmatic' principles of critical thinking and logical reasoning. The CRTC has recently agreed to a contract with Fox News, which will now become available to the Canadian public. Given the response to O'Reilly in the States (80% of his viewership believe either that WMDs existed in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, or that liberals hate democracy) and his pathological nature, the institution of another financially-backed yet intellectually-vacant television channel will probably not help in educating the viewer or fueling a sense of democratic responsibility. Unless of course, it is used as an example of hostile incursion, bordering precipitously on the edge between humour and trumped-up ideological politics.
"Can ‘distracted’ perception generate collective meaning capable of entering individual experience, and thus become the conscious basis for recognition on the condition’s of one’s existence?" ask Shiller and Urry. If we are distracted away from important concerns and towards superficial ones, is it possible to develop a sense of collective meaning, thereby allowing a sense of self-adjudication? Currently, I say 'no', but that's because I've temporarily invested myself in a deeply cynical rout, feeling hostile towards my social world. However, I can always find solace in knowing that all will be fine, provided I remember that if we don't show anyone, we're free to write anything (Allen Ginsberg).
Magazines lining the checkout isles of grocery and department stores offer free-playing sociability and interactions which are mostly devoid of any real content, yet they are popular enough to warrant their continual presence in these places. Why yes, I am ready to fully render myself into a pilon and accept Anna Nicole's wasted life as a pretext for concern, and I grieve daily for Britney's amateur haircut. By discussing these and events like them as daily sources for communication, am I, as a person, learning anything? Arguably yes, water-cooler conversations are part of regular life and help people feel surrounded by like-minded colleagues and aquaintances and feel more comfortable not talking about anything too serious. However, in regarding the application of meaning, this content is relatively free of substance.
Fox News' 'No Spin Zone' hosted by Bill O'Reilly offers a concise and deeply disturbing account of journalistic failure. Promoted as an intangible, infallible zone of fact and information dissemination, it provides a unique experience which steps grandly over the 'dogmatic' principles of critical thinking and logical reasoning. The CRTC has recently agreed to a contract with Fox News, which will now become available to the Canadian public. Given the response to O'Reilly in the States (80% of his viewership believe either that WMDs existed in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, or that liberals hate democracy) and his pathological nature, the institution of another financially-backed yet intellectually-vacant television channel will probably not help in educating the viewer or fueling a sense of democratic responsibility. Unless of course, it is used as an example of hostile incursion, bordering precipitously on the edge between humour and trumped-up ideological politics.
"Can ‘distracted’ perception generate collective meaning capable of entering individual experience, and thus become the conscious basis for recognition on the condition’s of one’s existence?" ask Shiller and Urry. If we are distracted away from important concerns and towards superficial ones, is it possible to develop a sense of collective meaning, thereby allowing a sense of self-adjudication? Currently, I say 'no', but that's because I've temporarily invested myself in a deeply cynical rout, feeling hostile towards my social world. However, I can always find solace in knowing that all will be fine, provided I remember that if we don't show anyone, we're free to write anything (Allen Ginsberg).
Thursday, February 01, 2007
The Human Condition (some of it)
I think music and musicians are able to communicate better than anyone else. They find ways to construct ideas and feelings and impressions without resorting to words, thereby bypassing that inherent problem of misinterpretation; nobody needs any training to 'get' music; everyone is born with the capacity to appreciate it, much like we are innately predisposed to generating language. Becoming a musician or studying music often leads to interesting discoveries and powerful inspirations, but the value of appreciation does not necessarily differ between a professional musician and a homeless person (which sometimes are the same thing, unfortunately). However, everyone can respond differently to music itself. Not everyone appreciates the noisy, barely musical abberations of Anal Cunt, and not everyone swoons to the pacifying redundancy of Coldplay. But it can be safely asserted that as far as appreciation goes, music can reach all people on all levels. As far as I can tell, othing else holds that particular honour. Going back to musicians being able to communicate, if you can't in fact play or sing very well yet still achieve multi-mega units of sale, you still communicate well, it's just that you communicate that your goals are not entirely noble, capitalizing on the confusion between fashion, minimalism and capitalism, who, in terms of creativity, should be playing with a rock or something equally suited to your level of skill. A lot of music production falls victim to ideological promotion, masking or destroying that creative impulse to generate something to communicate with other people simply for the purpose of fostering expression, appreciation and connectivity.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Cyberspaces
"It is our fall from a simplicity and fullness of life directly experienced, from the sensuous moment of knowing, which leaves a gap that the symbolic can never bridge. This is what is always being covered over by layers of cultural consolations, civilized detouring that never recovers lost wholeness. In a very deep sense, only what is repressed is symbolized, because only what is repressed needs to be symbolized. The magnitude of symbolization testifies to how much has been repressed; buried, but possibly still recoverable." - John Zerzan
Symbolism acts as an important process in conceptualizing the world around us, but an excessive level of only the symbolic represses our ability to exist in a world of substance. Although the pursuit of self-awareness has largely been made difficult and often illegal by most governments, it is nevertheless one of the most crucial aspects in self-actualization. If only what is repressed is symbolized, then organic existence is only located in a very small sphere of periphery. Existing merely on a plane of symbolism works at further repressing our ability to experience directly the fullness of life in exchange for an illusion.....I say as I write a blog entry on a website subsistent on an obsession with virtual identity in a cyberspace realm devoid of any real or essential materiality.
Symbolism acts as an important process in conceptualizing the world around us, but an excessive level of only the symbolic represses our ability to exist in a world of substance. Although the pursuit of self-awareness has largely been made difficult and often illegal by most governments, it is nevertheless one of the most crucial aspects in self-actualization. If only what is repressed is symbolized, then organic existence is only located in a very small sphere of periphery. Existing merely on a plane of symbolism works at further repressing our ability to experience directly the fullness of life in exchange for an illusion.....I say as I write a blog entry on a website subsistent on an obsession with virtual identity in a cyberspace realm devoid of any real or essential materiality.
Monday, January 08, 2007
An Exercise in Observation
I made a decision once I returned home from Asia to heavily involve myself with the things I am interested in (on a level more specific than say watching all 12 episodes of Dexter or praising myself extravagantly for rolling out of bed before noon), and work at developing the type of relationships I want to have with people.
I recently met with an old preacher. His voice thunders like a shotgun equipped with a 21-inch subwoofer, and his beard forces the impression that this man who is being spoken to is in fact God. I learned from this experience that although many people develop their own social and theoretical sensibilities, significantly different approaches to life can actually be working towards attaining the same essential goal. It spoke of challenging institutionalism and exploring subjects that are often shied away from (conflict, sexuality, darkness). It also reinforced that beards=power.
I find far too much impoliteness, denial, and irresponsibility pervading the social spheres that I now find myself in. Denial is a relatively perpetual state that many people either seem to enjoy living in, or simply cannot find any way out of; conversations about nothing, attempts to fool others into believing that one is other than they are, lack of respect for self and becoming engrossed in a climate of fear. How did this lack of self-awareness develop? Has postmodern society developed (or perhaps regressed) to the point where self has become only a virtual entity? Meaning only develops from the comparison of the self to immediate others under a guise of individual progress? Women are only pornography?
Evaluations of established ideas (or perceivably established ideas) are essential. Consider the idea of love. I've always held the idea that unconditional love for all things does not encompass a healthy, progressive psyche, despite what many philosophies and religious ideas have expressed. Unconditional love indicates that this love continues irrelevant to what occurs over time or space (and while some forms of love can and do continue essentially forever, I would argue that it is based on conditions, but conditions that were met). Resentment, disappointment, these are not necessarily negative experiences, and loving an enemy may come after at first hating that enemy. However, without this initial hate, love could not have been achieved (I remember a friend describing that 'the greatest lovers were murderers first'). Additionally, I'm not sure that loving someone for their faults necessarily condones pity, given that love is not actually pity, but this brings up the problem with establishing definitions. As I have come to experience, there is no exhaustive definition for something as problematic as 'love', therefore my experience and interpretation of love will undoubtebly differ from many of those surrounding me. I would also posit that there are people who do have the ability to disturb (though not totally upset) one's own "totally awesome, rockin' life" (Sungwon 2007). If no one had that ability, then an individual would be disconnected from an important aspect of real human experience.
If we can empathize with other people, then we develop the ability to at least partially understand their emotional energy, and to those who are close to us, this can develop into a stronger bond that attaches their presence to our own in a powerful way. However, if the end of any kind of emotionally invested relationship frequently leads a given person into catatonic despair, then perhaps he or she should re-evaluate his or her own self-worth. Strength of character is often rooted in an ability to understand self (as self is in fact the universe), and this strength is something that human beings as a general rule are attracted to. Another friend questioned whether or not this reasoning is sound: "so if my mom dies, and I'm devastated, then it means I'm not satisfied with who I am?" My response was "no, but if that kind of thing is recurrent with any relationship, then I would suggest that self-worth is an issue". This also highlights the importance of often evaluating what has already been evaluated.
Becoming fearless in a culture of fear allows an individual to develop a love of self, which is an important stage in understanding self-awareness and also generating an ability to love others for more than superficial, or selfish reasons.
To me, the essence of self-awareness comes from how important we find exploring that which we don't yet know.
I recently met with an old preacher. His voice thunders like a shotgun equipped with a 21-inch subwoofer, and his beard forces the impression that this man who is being spoken to is in fact God. I learned from this experience that although many people develop their own social and theoretical sensibilities, significantly different approaches to life can actually be working towards attaining the same essential goal. It spoke of challenging institutionalism and exploring subjects that are often shied away from (conflict, sexuality, darkness). It also reinforced that beards=power.
I find far too much impoliteness, denial, and irresponsibility pervading the social spheres that I now find myself in. Denial is a relatively perpetual state that many people either seem to enjoy living in, or simply cannot find any way out of; conversations about nothing, attempts to fool others into believing that one is other than they are, lack of respect for self and becoming engrossed in a climate of fear. How did this lack of self-awareness develop? Has postmodern society developed (or perhaps regressed) to the point where self has become only a virtual entity? Meaning only develops from the comparison of the self to immediate others under a guise of individual progress? Women are only pornography?
Evaluations of established ideas (or perceivably established ideas) are essential. Consider the idea of love. I've always held the idea that unconditional love for all things does not encompass a healthy, progressive psyche, despite what many philosophies and religious ideas have expressed. Unconditional love indicates that this love continues irrelevant to what occurs over time or space (and while some forms of love can and do continue essentially forever, I would argue that it is based on conditions, but conditions that were met). Resentment, disappointment, these are not necessarily negative experiences, and loving an enemy may come after at first hating that enemy. However, without this initial hate, love could not have been achieved (I remember a friend describing that 'the greatest lovers were murderers first'). Additionally, I'm not sure that loving someone for their faults necessarily condones pity, given that love is not actually pity, but this brings up the problem with establishing definitions. As I have come to experience, there is no exhaustive definition for something as problematic as 'love', therefore my experience and interpretation of love will undoubtebly differ from many of those surrounding me. I would also posit that there are people who do have the ability to disturb (though not totally upset) one's own "totally awesome, rockin' life" (Sungwon 2007). If no one had that ability, then an individual would be disconnected from an important aspect of real human experience.
If we can empathize with other people, then we develop the ability to at least partially understand their emotional energy, and to those who are close to us, this can develop into a stronger bond that attaches their presence to our own in a powerful way. However, if the end of any kind of emotionally invested relationship frequently leads a given person into catatonic despair, then perhaps he or she should re-evaluate his or her own self-worth. Strength of character is often rooted in an ability to understand self (as self is in fact the universe), and this strength is something that human beings as a general rule are attracted to. Another friend questioned whether or not this reasoning is sound: "so if my mom dies, and I'm devastated, then it means I'm not satisfied with who I am?" My response was "no, but if that kind of thing is recurrent with any relationship, then I would suggest that self-worth is an issue". This also highlights the importance of often evaluating what has already been evaluated.
Becoming fearless in a culture of fear allows an individual to develop a love of self, which is an important stage in understanding self-awareness and also generating an ability to love others for more than superficial, or selfish reasons.
To me, the essence of self-awareness comes from how important we find exploring that which we don't yet know.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Probing the Membrane of Reality
An interesting turn of events, embarking back unto the rigors of undergraduate education, when only 1 month previously, generations of Koreans gazed upon me with intrigue and intense wonder. Possibly due to the fact that aesthetic sensibility decreed that I wear band shirts to class, students often have to consider just how it came to be that I managed to land a job in the first place. I know my mom still does.
I often consider the position of many of my friends now heavily engaged with the responsibilities of postgraduate academia, who have become even more withdrawn and ranging from modestly to G. B. Shaw-esque cynical. Evidently, the ironies involved with developing research on socio-cultural topics to assist in altering the human condition positively that is enriched and refined to the point where only 0.1% of the population can understand it, often requires that those creating it resort to heavy bouts of ranting and sedation. I laugh maniacally as I saunter down the hall to my seminar of free speech, barely discernible as responsible education. On the otherhand, many of these persons will soon be labeled 'Masters' or 'Doctors' within the coming future. I'm sure that their vast sums of capital, hard work and dedication will, if they are lucky, pay off and add up to offer them the most powerful reward of all - disappointment. Luckily enough, our culture offers numerous vainglorious outlets for dealing with this kind of thing, as we can always just vindicate ourselves by gathering 15295 new friends on myspace and save the universe playing Halo II. Multiplayer X-box Live of course, so that we fool ourselves into believing we possess some manner of social skill and variety of interactive capabilities. Also large guns and testicles.
I often consider the position of many of my friends now heavily engaged with the responsibilities of postgraduate academia, who have become even more withdrawn and ranging from modestly to G. B. Shaw-esque cynical. Evidently, the ironies involved with developing research on socio-cultural topics to assist in altering the human condition positively that is enriched and refined to the point where only 0.1% of the population can understand it, often requires that those creating it resort to heavy bouts of ranting and sedation. I laugh maniacally as I saunter down the hall to my seminar of free speech, barely discernible as responsible education. On the otherhand, many of these persons will soon be labeled 'Masters' or 'Doctors' within the coming future. I'm sure that their vast sums of capital, hard work and dedication will, if they are lucky, pay off and add up to offer them the most powerful reward of all - disappointment. Luckily enough, our culture offers numerous vainglorious outlets for dealing with this kind of thing, as we can always just vindicate ourselves by gathering 15295 new friends on myspace and save the universe playing Halo II. Multiplayer X-box Live of course, so that we fool ourselves into believing we possess some manner of social skill and variety of interactive capabilities. Also large guns and testicles.
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