Wednesday, September 9, 2009

January 2007

essaay piece originally published in January 2007:

The basic construction of a tragedy...

Recently I saw a movie called Idiocracy that I really enjoyed but also really had to stop and think about when it was over. The basic premise of the movie is that an average guy name Joe Bauer (played by the often hilarious Luke Wilson) is chosen for an army hibernation project where he's supposed to be placed in stasis for a year. Things go a little haywire and Joe ends up hibernating for 500 years, and the society he wakes up to is vastly different from the one he remembers. This new culture has been so dumbed down by mass media and over commercialization that "Average Joe" is now the smartest person on the planet. The hilarity ensues from there as Joe tries to get things back on track and it was enjoyable to watch but it really got me thinking about the current state of our own society and culture.

We live in an era where everything is progressing at a rapid pace, sometimes too rapid. Our televisions and radio stations and the internet are saturated with Ads of every sort clamoring for your attention and more importantly for every dollar they can get from you. They all advertise the next big thing or the newest advance or the ultimate version of whatever is being sold and they'll use just about anything to sell it. This mass commercialization of everything eventually breaks everything down to some catch phrase or cliche that seems to makes you forget to wonder what their product or service really is. This process, if left unchecked, would lead to what those in big business would probably love to see; a society that consumes every single one of their products without questioning what it is, what it's good for, or why they need it. A society and culture that can be led around by the nose, waiting for whatever they're told is what's good or necessary. I'm not saying that the consumable products we have in our culture are bad or evil, but I do think that we need to think about the products we're choosing to buy. How are they being made? who's benefitting from the sales? If they're being produced in another country that's less developed than ours is the labor force being treated fairly? These questions and more can often lead to some uncomfortable silences or political hem hawing by those at the top and it's worth thinking about. Thinking..really thinking..about anything in life needs to be encouraged at all costs.

This brings me to another point. what are we teaching the younger generations? How is this mass media overcommercialization influencing them? I would venture that the younger generations are already being sucked in. I remember being a kid and when school let out for the summer I couldn't wait for those days I could spend outside all day long in the woods or at the park or the ballfield, only coming home for lunch and then inside for the night when the streetlights came on. Those were days spent with friends playing whatever game we could think up and just enjoying being outside. These days it seems like the outdoors is like a punishment, with kids wanting to spend all their time in front of their computers or video games or the TV. I don't think any of these things are bad and good things can come from all of them, but it seems like we're encouraging them not to think...to just accept whatever they're told as being the only way it is. When I was younger, and even now still, I loved to read and loved to hear a good story. Now I just seem to hear the response "I'll wait til they make it a movie."

Where am I going with this? I don't really know I guess....I just don't want to see our society make all of these advances in technology and science only to forfeit it's creativity and artistic imagination....I don't want to wake up one day in a culture where Thinking is a crime or a long forgotten antiquity...

So I'll keep exploring these imaginations and asking the questions that might seem trivial....please keep reading and looking at things beyond just their slick presentation....seeing may be believing...but you don't always see what you truly get....above all...Think for yourself....never let anyone tell you how or what to think....

see you where the sidewalk ends....

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