To receive full credit, this blog assignment must be posted by SUNDAY night, March 14th at midnight. If you post late, please email me your post directly at sdebross@uvm.edu as soon as you are able, and I'll give you partial credit.
Please read the introduction and pp 3-71 of "Culture Jam: How To Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge - And Why We Must". Blog a free write of your reactions and reflections on what you have read. How did it make you feel? What stood out for you? Can you connect your personal experience as a young adult living in the American consumer culture to Lasn's words? Be specific and honest!
The honest truth is that this book is making me scared of who I am. I’m blogging right now because I’m only 23 pages into the book and have stopped reading and started thinking about other things probably about 100 times. It’s true what he says…”our minds become a theater of the absurd, and we become shockproof.” I’ve been reading this book so far and it is reminding me of those people who stand up on the big stones outside the UVM library and preach about their ideals. I tune those people out. I have become shock proof to hearing about the crimes against the world. Today, it is like everything is killing us and I have been able to tune it out as just more “noise.” One can get cancer from everything, and I have been desensitized to this just as I have been desensitized to seeing starving children and rape scenes on the television.
ReplyDeleteI also concur that I have a general malaise about life. I would rather watch something on television that I don’t really want to watch than sit with my own thoughts in silence. Maybe I do tune out the noise but I seem to need the noise to function. The sad thing is that it seems irreversible. I think this because while reading the short 23 pages that I have read so far, I have malaise about this book. I tune out and then have to re-read whole paragraphs and feel like it is all the same - media is rotting our brains and our worlds (well no shit) and then I have this period where I want to watch television instead of reading more about how my life is incomplete because I fit the consumer this book is talking about completely.
Made it to page 39. I did not drift off as much because this section read like a story. I can picture the author reading letters from big corporations rejecting his ideas, (his sitting at a table) and then a cut out and a fade in to a scene of him as a child remembering what it was like to not be able to speak out against the government and then another cut/fade back in to him at the table, growing increasingly angry and then flying off the office to make more flyers about saving the environment to send all over America…or something like that.
The point is that the injustices that are being put on people that want to do something good for people and the environment are real, but unless they are presented to me like a story that I can envision like a movie, I don’t really think about it.
Now on page 50. I did not get distracted at all by reading about the people whose lives were so consumed with media that they didn’t shower for four days. Earlier I was having the general malaise about how our world is coming to an end (end of the mind that is), but now I’m reading about how other people’s individual lives are coming to an end and I’m interested and judgmental. I’m critiquing how I think they should live their lives in my head even though I was dying to stop reading and start watching television only 20 minutes ago.
I realize now that I have learned to drone out people who are telling me that there is something wrong with me and that I need to either change or buy a product to help me change. However, if I’m reading about how media is ruining someone else’s life, I can instantly make connections to my own life and realize what I need to change. I’ve droned out the advice of others to the point where I have to make all the connections “myself” or I at least need to think that I’m making them myself.
When the book tells you all the things that are bad about the media it’s like hearing the same old crap about the media and life and blah blah blah. However, when it tells you the story about someone who will literally drift away from anything that is bad including websites, television shows, colleagues and marriages, it makes you stop and wonder how you should change your life so that you don’t end up like that.
Finally finished. I am feeling a little detached from the messages presented. I feel as though I feel happy for most of the time, so I feel that the book is portraying a world that I don’t live in. Is most of the world living in a state of never ending spending and unhappiness? Am I actually unhappy and I don’t even realize it? Is this book just like an ad, convincing you that something is wrong with you?
ReplyDeletehttp://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/161576
ReplyDeleteI think you guys might find this interesting.
Trevor
The first strong story that really stood out for me was when they talked about a family going on a camping trip. I have gone on several camping trips throughout my life and found it scary to hear about a family that is bored during one. I cannot imagine being so media consumed that I couldn’t go on a camping trip and fish, swim, and make a fire because I was detached from that environment. This brings me to remember the book mentioning that kids can name several logos but couldn’t even name three trees. Sad to say, I believe this. I walked out in the woods with my friends once and they had no idea what the trees were. What bugs me more is when people go on outdoor trips or hikes and are texting throughout the whole trip, one can’t leave their cell phone behind for the day?
ReplyDeleteI found the comparisons about the last two to three generations interesting. How this is how we have grown up and how that is significantly different. I also hate the part about having to be stimulated by our surroundings all the time. I find myself trying to get away from stimulus most of the time. I would rather focus with one thing at one time. I found it interesting how people always have to walk around with headphones plugged in and how people claim they work better while watching tv. I do not understand these people, however some do produce good work so I don’t know. I also remember a part in the reading about how it is never quiet nowadays. I found this to be my case when I came to UVM. I live out in the middle of no where VT and at home it is almost always quiet. I go outside and only hear nature and it is very soothing. I took me about six weeks to fully adapt to UVM and its noise. When I come back from break it will probably take me about one to two. Many people say UVM is pretty quiet and not bad, but I hate hearing the airplanes and sirens every day, and then also people who blast music, and just the constant sound of the busses going by and everything. I do believe that is affecting us, even though we claim we have adapted.
I found it interesting how the author couldn’t buy space on TV, how the company really controlled what went on. I thought as long as one had money they could put something in that space, apparently not. To me, this is a sign of take over by the media, but we also buy into it. We still watch several TV shows and people nowadays like mentioned, define themselves by a brand. The brand becomes a part of their personality because each brand represents a different thing. I try not to do this, because I thrift shop a lot and when I have something that someone thinks looks cool, they ask what brand it is. I tell them no idea, because I don’t care, as long as I look good in it, but others do and I hate that.
Anyway, my fingers are hurting. I wish I didn’t have to type so much for school and classes and email. I sent out a message to my friends on facebook saying I am deleting it, so therefore I am getting all my friends’ email addresses sent to me! I feel so free right now! I also am not going to put money into my cell phone anymore, because I do not want to pay 30 dollars a month to keep it going. I was thinking about this last night about how that is a dollar a day and I don’t want to pay that. Anyone know where payphones are on campus or in Burlington?
After reading this first installment of Culture Jam I find myself begrudgingly writing this blog entry. It is just one more way for me to be attached to this dreaded computer. My problem becomes that once I am on-line writing I hop around to all sorts of other sites and by the time I am done I have wasted hours. The internet is a cruel addiction, and one that I am ill equipped to fight.
ReplyDeleteWith that mini rant aside I will talk about my impressions of this book. Regrettably I agree with most all that Kalle Lasn has to say about media being the equivalent to the darkside. It's scary and I feel lucky that I am only addicted to the internet and not T.V. as well. I thought about my mom, my sister, and my boyfriends entire family when I read about the turn off your T.V. week. These people in my life come to a stand still after work when they tune into primetime television.
My mother could do so much more with herself if only she could skip a couple episodes of 24. Maybe read a book, learn to knit, or just have some silence. It really drives me crazy when I go home to visit and that television is blasting. It's all just crap.
In the book he brings up the obsession and problems linked with constant white noise. I used to only be able to sleep and/or study when the radio was playing or a sleep machine was on. I always linked this to my being ADD, but maybe all this media stimulation created a learning disability in me? My mind always needs some sort of input overload to be jump started and noise was always my go to.
Lasn's observations on noise made me really consider whether or not I have ever really experienced silence. Maybe at night in the woods I have experience some form of silence? The whole thing just makes me want move somewhere off the grid.
After reading these first few chapters, sections, whatever you want to call them, I was left thinking a lot and trying to find points where I can disagree…but sadly, it’s all so true and scary. I enjoyed reading it and was intrigued by the different ideas surrounding each topic. I found the idea of how we are detached from nature very true. I have always loved being outdoors, and over the summer I would often take my friends along on hikes. Sadly, there were always attached to their ipods or cell phones, and weren’t able to take in the real beauty that surrounded us. With the idea of media consuming our lives in general, I hate how attached we are. Lately I have been detaching myself from cell phone and computer, and will go a day without checking either. Over break I would leave my cell phone in the hotel room, and not check it for 14 hours. But whenever we as a family had a second to sit down, my mom, sister, and dad all took out their phones and were detached from my brother and I who would just sit there. I thought they all looked pretty ridiculous at times waiting for a bus, cell phone in hand, it’’s like they don’t even care that we are there as a family and we should be talking to each other. My next step is to teach my family to stop being so consumed by media. I have some interesting stories from my vacation in Disney world, and I am looking forward to finishing this book and seeing the other scary things it has to say.
ReplyDeleteThe sections on noise pollution really shook me. I realized how I have real trouble studying without music on in the background. Sometimes I can't even fall asleep without something playing. I'd never stopped to think or wonder what effect this could have on me. Following the section on Noise, the section on jolts served as a matching part. I can't watch commercials now without noticing how quickly the picture shifts and flashes from one thing to another, and really most importantly I realized how amazing it is that I didn't notice it before. It's another form of desensitization, they talk about it in regards to violence and sex, but noise sticks out to me as more important and even more pervasive than those stimuli. As a result I compulsively mute and look away from the TV or my computer screen whenever ads appear, I mention both because I'm shocked at how quickly internet videos have picked up ads to play before and during the clips. Overall my impression so far of the book is describing us as swimming in an overstimulated ocean.
ReplyDeleteI found this reading quite interesting. In reference to the camping trip scenario mentioned in the beginning, its scary but true. Sadly enough, I can see the beginning stages of this in my sister. She would rather sit on the beach and text people not at the beach than engage in any other beach type activity. It's annoying as anything... especially since she is younger than me, and should not appear so lethargic and technology obsessed when it comes to exploring the outdoors. Its sad, really. I thought the idea of the kids in the camping scenario going through a loss of "those selves that, when disconnected from the urban data stream, cease to function." As much as I would like to say this isn't true, a part of me thinks that if this hasn't already arrived, it is surely on its way.
ReplyDeleteI also really liked that part about the earth being a part of our bodies. "If the earth felt less like something out there and more like an extension of our bodies, we'd care for it like kin...If the self is expanded to include the natural world, behavior leading to destruction of this world will be experienced as self-destruction." This statement takes on a very holistic, nature oriented outlook on the world, which I personally think would only benefit our society. "When you cut off the flow of nature into people's lives, the spirit dies." So true, so true. All in all, I really enjoyed the Mood Disorders section.
I also found the Ecology of the mind section to be really interesting as well. It's so true though, if you look at the numbers, it seems as though America is full of people who are just mentally falling apart. "Americans are turning into annoyingly self-absorbed hypochondriacs." This is not to say all mental disorders are self created. I do think that there are some people who do have certain mental disorders, but the shear volume of people in this country alone and the range and span or disorders is just unfathomable, and not to mention unnecessary. I do believe that many of the people who are diagnosed with certain mental disorders could just as easily be helped with a lifestyle change as with psychological help or psychological medications. People are so quick to assume a drug will fix a problem they seem to have based on the symptoms just listed off to them from the television screen. When in reality getting up off the couch and getting some endorphins flowing may better relieve the depression or restless leg syndrome that may seem to be creeping up on them.
This idea of suffering caused by plentitude is also quite interesting. I wouldn't call this type of suffering as intense as the physical suffering caused by for example, malnutrition. But I do think that on some level this plentitude suffering may have some truth to it. People living shallow and meaningless lives and never knowing true satisfaction or happiness. The more things we have the less substance our lives seem to have, so to compensate for the less in out lives, we buy more, which in turn results in less. Its a vicious cycle, although no where near the level of suffering endured by those with the opposite of plentitude.
I also thought the noise section was quite interesting. One part of this section that really stuck out to me was the idea that "quiet may be to a healthy mind what clean air and water and a chemical-free diet are to a healthy body." I also really liked the the poet Marianne Moore's idea that the "deepest feeling always shows itself in silence." It's true, you can really understand how your feeling and decipher what you are thinking so much better when it's quiet and it's just you and your mind.
The jolts section was also quite interesting, it left me with the feeling that our instincts are being visually used and abused.....
....I thought the loss of infodiversity was also really interesting. The concept that "lack of diversity leads to inefficiency and failure...and the loss of one language, tradition, or heritage-or the forgetting of one good idea is as a big a loss to future generations as a biological species going extinct" really holds a lot of weight, and I don't think it should be taken lightly.
ReplyDeleteI also liked the Manchurian consumer section as well. The last part of this section really made me kind of step back and "take stock of my life". Would an anthropologist be able to assemble a portrait of my personality and would that portrait be " an original or a type?" It really made me wonder, and I'm still not quite sure, although I would hope the portrait would be an original one, but I'm not quite sure.
One part of the The Cult You're In section that stood out for me was that "We have been recruited into roles and behavior patterns we did not consciously choose."
In The End of The American Dream, the urban legend wedding sewage disaster example, however gross, I can see the parallels. Also, the idea of the American dream being so seductive that people just keep on dreaming is so true. People would rather just go on blindly living and ignore everything around them.
Culture Jam-Free Write
ReplyDeleteI found the Introduction to be very informative, and sincerely helpful in preparing the reader for the purpose of the book. Culture Jam was written to catalyze a paradigm shift away from consumerism and corrupt advertising, toward a more sincere, authentic society. A big theme was civil disobedience. The author emphasizes that consumerism is unethical to the core, and thus working to “jam it” is inherently the ethical thing to do. This is a philosophical statement, and I LOVE IT. Basically, civilly disobeying advertisements and boycotting big corporations is what needs to happen.
A beautiful quote on page six which I underlined: “If the Earth felt less like something out there, and more like an extension of our bodies, we’d care for it like kin.”
I read the first seventy pages of Culture Jam over spring break. I did Alternative Spring Break this year, which means that I volunteered my time to do social work with a team of ten UVM students. Our group went to Macon, Georgia to work at a community food shelf, as well as an after-school club for impoverished children. The culture in the South, or “Bible-Belt”, is much more capitalistic, conservative, and consumerist than what I am used to in Vermont. On the road trip down there, one thing that really stood out were the billboards. As soon as we crossed the Vermont border, giant advertisements were everywhere along the highways. I feel that they invade a person’s free will because it is nearly impossible not to see them, and be influenced. The one that struck me most, by far, was one in South Carolina that read: “Get US (The United States) out of the United Nations”. I was appalled that such a statement would be written on a sign the size of a building. Yes, it is the right of the public to voice their political concerns, and I will admit that I am not always pleased with the United Nations, or at least the behavior of the United States as a member of the United Nations. Anyway, that message really emphasized how conservative the South really is. The United Nations aims to alleviate global poverty. How could a group of people be against that? The only reason I can come up with is economical. The conservative “Right” may believe that the UN restricts the freedom of the US by placing limits on how corrupt we can be towards other, poorer nations in order to make a buck.
In 1886, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations have protection under the Bill of Rights, and therefore the right to free speech. This gives huge corporations the same rights as private citizens. Equal, right? Wrong! Corporations have far more financial and political resources than any individual. The free speech exercised by a corporation is inherently meant to influence billions of people. In my opinion, corporations, by having protection under the Bill of Rights, actually have more power in the democratic system than the people themselves. By 1919, corporations controlled 80% of the workforce. To me, it seems characteristic of a dictatorship for just one (or a few) powerful entities to control the majority of a given population. A main task of our government is to allocate resources, or manage the economic system. When a handful of vitally linked conglomerates control most of the GDP of our nation, who is really in charge? Can it be that the capitalist economic system has actually become the government, rather than economics being merely a sector of democracy? There is literally NO LIMIT to how large and powerful a corporation can become. They are free to become more powerful than entire countries, and they have.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite sections was "Ecology of Mind", because it discussed all of the physiological problems that are rampant in Western culture, likely as a result of media brainwashing. I would like to look deeper into the correlation between watching television and the onset of childhood ADHD and adult depression/anxiety. In addition, there is really something to be said about the ever expanding division of GDP and overall happiness of a nation. Beyond a certain GDP, the wealth of a nation can no longer determine the comfort and happiness of the citizens. This has become the case in the US, likely because we try to buy things to heal our sorrows. I think the Beatles said it best: "Can't buy me love!"
I really could go on and on about my disdain for consumer culture, and I could find a great quote from nearly every of the first 70 pages, but it is nearly midnight, so I will save it for class discussion on Tuesday.
A common theme presented in "Culture Jam" is the disconnection with nature that is present in today's society. Usually a text such as Lasn's would make me feel guilty more than anything but reading it on a deserted beach in the Outer Banks I feel thankful more than anything. I feel thankful because I would not consider myself part of the cult that is brainwashed by mass media images and advertising. This week I have had no access to internet and television, and it feels great. This is the reason for my late posting. Even though I think I am not affected by advertising and misleading information Lasn points out that everyone is affected at some level. This is why being critical of news and information is very important or being "media literate" as the class suggests helps weave out the damaging effects media images. It is sad to think of families not being able to enjoy the beauty and pleasure in nature or the outdoors. It is also scary to think that information overload and desensitization for images changes people's moods and their ability to enjoy things such as natural beauty.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of rapid fire images or "jolts" as described by Lasn it is interesting to read about the channel surfing effect. I would consider myself a channel surfer when I watch television, but this is because I am more disgusted with the images I flip through more than dissatisfied. Commercials, reality television, and non-intelligent shows; which happens to make up most of television are all turn-offs.
Similar to reading the articles on Google and Facebook there is a sense of a changing attitude in humans. Excess time surfing the internet and following chat rooms had changed the human brain in a way that is destructive to society. How can humans fully appreciate the environment when there is a constant bombardment of images from corporations and marketers that are against the ideals of a healthy culture and planet?
After reading the beginning to the book "Culture Jam" by Lasn, I found that I do agree in almost all respects with his views on advertisements, corporations, and societies general disconnection with nature. However, it is with these sorts of topics, which I start to find myself spiraling into the same sort of general social pessimism every time I am confronted with the dark facts of the world around us. The nature of our current society, and the cogs which turn the wheels within corporate AmericaTM, are working below the surface yet surround us, strangling our ability to manage our lives without influence at all turns, and it is this knowledge which breeds my pessimism.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I did think that Lasn made a number of quality points in the space of nearly 40 pages, his view on our disconnection from nature, surfing the television as a means of brain numbing, and the general fact that our everyday lives are managed by strangers (to an extent.) I think the best way in which he presented his point, other that the quote where he discussed the Earth as kin rather than an item to be used, was the quote, "When you cut off arterial blood to an organ, the organ dies. When you cut the flow of nature into people's lives, their spirit dies."
It did not take me very long into this book to realize that we as a civilization need to seriously rethink our life choices and how we function as a society. On page xii the quote "America is a multi-trillion dollar brand. America^TM" and is a "image sold to consumers world wide." This to me was extremely scary because it makes me think of quick sand. The harder you fight being subjected to the American brand the quicker you sink into the abyss.
ReplyDeleteThe part about The Ray Ban glasses that Tom Cruise was wearing also spooked me a little bit because although I myself don't seem quite as affected as the author there are definitely aspects of my life and my characteristics that have been warped by common media images especially in the ski world. Everything that I wear skiing has been influenced by what I have seen on TV and on the professionals. It's a scary realization that affects almost everyone around us.
The part about the Environmental image in the Mind of the perfect town, USA was really disturbing because I feel that Vermont is completely subject to this theory. Many farming based towns in Vermont have all but dried up and been forgotten thanks to corporate producers and massive grocery markets. It's a scary reality that I have witnessed growing up in Vermont.