Week 8: Culture Jam Continued & "THE CORPORATION"

Culture Jam & Final Thoughts

1) First I'd like to say that the entire time I was reading this book I found myself questioning every purchase I have made and its connection to media placement, or peer influence, and it can be pretty scary not quite knowing the difference between your personal preference and that preference which has been sold to you. The idea that the American consumer is really a Manchurian consumer, is a pretty difficult pill to swallow.

2) Also the story Lasn told about the neighbor who slowly transformed from a very open and outgoing person to a reserved, net addict was certainly an example in its extreme. However there are many forms of this addiction, and in some ways everyone who uses the internet has some attachment or connection to one or many of the nets many facets. I knew a kid who had destroyed his computer, when he "woke up" and realized that he was spending all of his time on chat rooms, and online games, and was missing important things in reality. He was very much like the woman described in Lasn's book, not knowing they forgot to eat, not showering so as not to disconnect. VERY SCARY.

3) Now that I am on the subject of connection and disconnection, I'd like to mention that I don't think there is a way to disconnect completely know that the media world has become some kind of omnipresent entity. Would disconnecting be considered anti-social? Can these MUD's or multi user domains, be considered social environments, or is it simply a veil? Security in the multiverse should be considered at all times, you are never truly alone. You have no way of knowing, if where you are surfing, who you are speaking to, what you are looking at, is private anymore, and who or what is watching and for what reason.

4) I found the section on selling an experience, creating emotion, especially the section on Princess Diana, and how the mass public who lacked any real care for the British Royal family, thought that Diana's death was the greatest loss in our lifetime. The idea that she sold an experience to the public even today seems vile to discuss, but in reality I don't think my family knew anything of Diana other than her media stories, and for some reason I do remember them being incredibly distraught at her death, as if a loss in the family. Very Strange.

5) Lastly, "MOST OF OUR ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS ARE RED HERRINGS." The idea that we are expending all this energy doing little things for the environment, recycling and such when the only way to effect real environmental change is to attack the source of the pollution, waste, and so on. Lasn wants you to rise up, and acknowledge that you cannot create change sitting at home.

The Corporation:

-the idea that the corporation was a subordinate to the people, but that it developed the thirst for more power, the need to absorb and spread. If you can't deprive a person life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (14th Amendment), well then that applies to a corporation as well, opening the floodgates for exploitation of people, places, and things.

-limited liability explains a lot, jeez.

-designed to think about stock holders, not about stake holders (the community), the idea that we created these corporate persons who now have the right to control and destroy as they please.