I found the two passages in Culture Jam to be a bit more than mildly irritating. Lasn generalizes entirely too much. The picture he paints of Americans as a whole perfectly depicts certain aspects of our culture including: our greed, self-absorbed attitude and blaming nature. From there, the picture gets a little messy; he forgets to mention that we give into the environment around us.
On page 12 Lasn is quoted, "So gradually is the dosage increased that we're not aware of the toxicity." He is referencing our exposure to mass media. But don't we have the right to say "no" and turn it off? If exposing yourself or your children to our relatively new "virtual environment" is something you feel strongly against, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Sitting back and complaining does not stop the world that is going on around you. It would be similar to protesting Obama's inauguration if you didn't vote for either candidate. If no action is taken, no words should be spoken.
On page 18 the author says, " A TV or radio station "pollutes" the cultural environment because that's the most efficient way to produce audiences." Lasn goes into detail in a paragraph following this one about how "prevalent" and "toxic" all the advertisements coming from these devices are. A few paragraphs down from that he hops up on his soap box again and preaches how the effects of these advertisements on us are largely ignored AND unknown! When a few sentences before he bashes Corporate Advertising as "the largest single psychological project ever undertaken by the human race"; how can he say that if the effects are unknown?! What project is he alluding to, if there is no evidence proving either way?
On page 23 Kalle Lasn says, "We pretend not to care as advertisers excavate the most sacred parts of ourselves, and we end up actually not caring." By pretending, if you believe that as a society we do, we are giving these "corporate jerks" blanket permission to play with our emotions and shape our opinions in whichever way they please.
...The point is: The reading we did last week was entirely opinion based and lacked factual backing. The author has all of these ideas as to how horribly eroded our sense of self and quality of life, yet presented no solutions. His attack on "advertrosities"personally stuck in my side. I mean he's just knocking my future, no big deal.
I began reading Feed a few days ago and find it interesting that M.T. Anderson seemed to share my opinion. Through Titus, her main character and narrator she expresses, " Of course, everyone is like, da da da, evil corporations, oh they're so bad, we all say that, and we all know they control everything. I mean it's not great, because who knows what evil shit they're up to. Everyone feels bad about that. But they're the only way to get all this stuff, and it's no good getting pissy about it, because they're still going to control everything whether you like it or not. Plus, they keep like everyone in the world employed, so it's not like we could do without them." This represents my opinion almost perfectly. Of course corporations could do many things differently and everyone would offer up a different set of solutions; but, you can't please everyone. Corporate America provides goods/services according to the demand of consumers. If we respond to advertising and continue to want more, they will take it and run with it. Why shouldn't they? It provides many jobs and consumers are provided the items they desire. The fact that consumers are uneducated and fall "victim" to corporations is no one's fault but their own.
I love that you responded so strongly to the reading Callie. I see that Lasn is in many ways "treading on your sacred turf." You make some valid points of your own. But is it really that easy, as you say, to simply "turn it all off"? I'm not sure that it is...and, well, isn't it your future job to make sure that we *don't* tune out?
ReplyDeleteJust sayin... :)
I agree that Lasn uses generalizations, however I also think that it is too hard to just "turn it off". Advertising and the media run the average American's life. The advirtising tells people what to wear, how to wear it, and when to wear it. And I do not think that is going to change anytime soon. My point is, although he made a large generalization, much of what he says is true.
ReplyDeleteI disagree that it is the uneducated person's fault for being so. It is the duty of society, and as a country, to establish a system which produces educated individuals. If someone can't read above a 9th grade level is it their fault tha their school was too busy campaigning for federal funding to buy books that help them do so?
ReplyDeleteIn modern day America we have a system that produces individuals that bow to marketing schemes and fall prey to the media. This system was put in place by corporations. It is not the citizen's fault.
To say we should allow corporations to continue with their current ways because we need corporations for things to run smoothly, even though the way they operate is detrimental to society, seems unconstitutional. The founding fathers broke off from Britain because they were an oppressed faction of the 'British people'. People didn't necessarily have American jobs to go into because of this but that didn't stop them.
To conclude, I love your opinions on not sitting back and complaining about the current state of our society but doing nothing about it. There are certainly people who do this. However, some people like myself, do want to bitch and moan about it but I don't know what actions to take. Would it be better for me to shut up and do nothing as well? I also agree that the reading in Culture Jam so far lacks professionalism in that it is quite vague and does not support it's claim with much scientific evidence. I would like to see some numbers.
Dr. Mortimore and Missy I believe you make good points, I also agree that you can't just "turn it off." It would be great if we all could just do that, but the stuff that we are trying to "turn off" or take out of our lives is a big part of our lives. We are creatures of habit and I think its really hard for people to eliminate things that are in their lives and have been for a while. Some of us complain about the animal shelter commercials, you know the really sad ones, yet I know I just sit there and watch them. Should I turn it off if it bugs me or should I be lazy and just wait it out? I choose to just wait it out, its much easier in my opinion and we all know people like doing things that involve little to no work.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with missy's point that although he does make some generalizations I believe what he said was based on the truth. Also I don't think just because he states his opinion on something or states how something is wrong means he needs to find solutions for those things. In fact maybe the point of all the complaining is not so he can give you an answer to all the problems but so that he can give you a head-start in figuring out your own solutions. Plus if he said a clear-cut solution like "I think we should limit ourselves to one hour of facebook a day" for example, Would you listen? I know I probably wouldn't but if he explains what facebook is doing to me and explains the things wrong with facebook, I may formulate my own opinion and limit the amount of time I am on it. Also I feel that in later chapters he is going to give us some of his ideas on what he thinks we should do. The author says on pg 6 "Someone has gotten into our brains. Now the most important task on the agenda is to evict them and recover our sanity." This sentence gives me the inclination that he is going to explain later on his opinion on how we are to go about "evicting them."
Altogether I agree with you Callie that we shouldn't just sit around doing nothing, but what exactly do we do? I certainly don’t know a solution that would fix it all, not even in my own life. Also I don't feel it’s right to criticize the author for not proposing things to do (or at least not yet) when we ourselves do the same exact thing we complain yet do nothing about it.
I agree he is making a generalization about a lot of the things he's saying. But I think it is semi-factual towards some people who do let the media control them. I disagree with the point of just 'turning it off' because its not that easy. Televisions are almost in every room in each house. It plays a big part of this generation.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree 100% when you stated that we have the right to turn off the TV. I think that we agree completely in saying the "toxicity" is being leaked into our brains because of a lack of will power. I started Feed also and I understand what you are saying in how you feel that Titus' quote represented your exact feelings, but my personal opinion is that they are both extremes on the spectrum. I definitely stand closer to M.T. Anderson's view as opposed to Lasn.
ReplyDelete