10.9.06

While I'm on a slow roll...

....I started out with the intention of posting the book list that I was meme'd by Michael Hawkins' at Spontaneous Arising, but ended up in a dream puppet's stumblings and found this bit of Foamy Custard:



[.....]
A number of times in American history, the populace has glanced outside the duality struggles of content and briefly viewed the controlling symbols of context. Artists have glimpsed outside the duality and have allowed a large number of the ruled to see the rulers. And visionaries have also seen outside the duality. These are times when third parties in America have had their greatest impact.

But these times have been rare. Much more common has been the dominance of one of the symbols, equality or freedom, at the expense of the other. In the first half of the 20th century, the symbol of equality dominated America and the world in the form of mass communications, mass production, mass culture, totalitarian, communist, Fascist and Nazi political systems. As Erich Fromm observed, the overriding desire was to 'escape from freedom' during this period of time.

The second half of the 20th century, though, saw the decline of the equality symbol and the rise of the symbol of freedom. Much of the impetus for late capitalism and consumerism has been fired by this 'escape from equality' and a 'return to freedom.' This desire to escape from equality and return to freedom is behind the rise of postmodernism and relative narratives over meta-narratives. It is also responsible for a lack of standards of morality, for celebrity culture and Hollywood and the growth of the religious right and evangelical fundamentalists. It is also behind the growth of a segmented, niche marketplace full of numerous cable TV channels and the explosion of brands and consumer choice.
[.....]


I thought it quite timely to be posing such questions of our current state in the world. Thinking in such terms individually to discern shit from shine-o-la excercises the muscle that has for too long now fallen into a state of atrophy. Too many, for too long, have allowed others, betters, more accomplished, more wealthy, more powerful, to present us public opininion 'free, courtesy of the house' for us to follow and display. Goods to purchase and appropriate social conduct all available for free marketing to You.

This market obediance has led us to the place and time that we find ourselves in today and that same programming is what me must undo collectively.

This would be a truly fruitful situation from which a productive counterculture could be a feasible reality; but if we're to make that future a reality, there is a lot of collective self-improvement to be done.

10 comments:

Amelopsis said...

I'm still working on the book list Hawk :)

Anonymous said...

Serious philosophical insight Amelopsis.You have given me the homeworks that I did not real desire but have no choice but to appreciate and think deeply about.

Amelopsis said...

Thanks Jeff, I'm glad to know this piqued your interest.

scout said...

"This would be a truly fruitful situation from which a productive counterculture could be a feasible reality; but if we're to make that future a reality, there is a lot of collective self-improvement to be done."

too true and well said!!!!! i find it interesting that even amongst us bloggers, those who are 'politically aligned' will personally attack another blogger who's views stray an iota from the poster's opinion. makes me think, 'hmm, no better then those they malign, like bush et al'.

just a note: i still can't read the light grey font on the articles here.....the dark font in your opinion after shows up fine.

Amelopsis said...

Hi Scout - funny you have this problem with the colour/font here... I don't have any gray at all, it's all green.

Anyone else having this issue?

As for shouting down others, I think dissent is always fruitful, providing that all involved parties are properly informed. I have no problem in shooting down another's stated opinion when it seems to be blatantly ill informed, or outright bigotry.

'to each his own' is definitely a two way street in that regard.

Arguing facts is one thing, but arguing opinion or ideology gets much more complicated unless there's a level playing field to start on.

scout said...

hi back!
i don't have any problem with dissent of opinion, especially as you say, when it's ill informed or bigotry. i'm just snivelling because a blogger of some note who calls down the governement, focus on family and all that crap attacked my personal belief system....hey, there's limits, and if my personal beliefs don't suit someone then what the hell if it doesn't cause harm? i'm not about to leap on someone because they prey to insects or something.

i figured out (i think) the font colour thing.....was at a friends on her pc looking at your site and everything showed up no prob. i'm on a mac...be interesting to see if other mac users have the same prob as me. i'll catch up with one and get them to check it out.

blog on!!!! :)

Amelopsis said...

I could see how attacking another's personal beliefs is unkind; I must confess that I'm not sure what you're referring to, though. I looked through a few of your posts that I'd missed a lot of comments on, but I'm afraid I didn't come across anything.
It sounds like you had an unpleasant discussion that you didn't invite - I hope it wasn't overly picky under the skin.

Aha! Interesting that it might be a Mac issue...I've been toying with the idea of changing things up, but haven't made the time needed to make it so. I'd be interested to know if it happens on all macs though. (hope your trip to the dentist went well!)

Michael Hawkins said...

Empress: Take your time with the list -- but I can't wait to read it....

scout said...

it was on another site where i commented. i just don't go there anymore. simple :)

it does seem to be a mac issue....had a fellow macite look and this was the comment:
I tried that website on 3 different browsers and they all looked the same. I can't read it either, it's the green-on-green. The colours are too close, not enough contrast. It seems like a cool blog though, what I can see of it anyway. (George the dog - cute!)

dentist went well (as well as dentist can go), they even remembered to save my tooth for me (i'm going to bury it). i figure i should be off the t-3's by tomorrow or next day, thanks for asking.

Amelopsis said...

Glad to hear the trip to the dentist wasn't traumatic and you can have a ceremony for the dearly departed.
Thanks for the 3rd party comments on the blog / mac colour issue. I think it might spur my exploration into revamping the entire look. Mine's a rather humble blog, but it still takes time to fiddle with all those template kajiggers.