Culture Jam

I was immediately grabbed by Lasn’s description of the disillusionment and contradictory passion that plagues this generation of activists. Surely feminism, environmentalism and even concepts such as social justice have been used to such excess that they carry little weight anymore. I agree that a realization of the true American consumer driven culture, and proliferation of this awareness, is the task at hand for people who wish to fight the good fight.
The scariest and most motivating aspect of media culture is how unethically invasive it is. The book referred to the mass media as the “largest psychological experiment ever undertaken by mankind” and the results are startling. The paradoxical disease of plentitude, which robs citizens of that hard-earned, self-motivated deeply personal reward, has led to startling statistics of psychological illness in this country. Seventy percent of adults experiences some sort of psychological dysfunction. Compare this with developing countries who are constantly failing to provide safe drinking water, food and a safe life to their citizens and our sources of “pain” seem quite insignificant.
I’m nauseated by the way the media blunts our capacity for empathy and makes social issues, such as objectification and sexualization of women and violence, trivial or commonplace. Our perceptions of the world are corporately controlled and even once we recognize this cloudy lens we are force fed, it is a continual emotional struggle to live on the fringe.
Lasn introduced a concept that truly shook up my personal paradigm: the death of the American dream. We are no longer free individuals who can expect reward for dedicated hard work and fair treatment from the government. It all began to slide down the tubes once private corporations were elevated to the status of “natural citizens” and awarded the same constitutional rights as you and our neighbor. Corporations become a new sort of citizen that has excessive wealth and resources, which by this countries standards, means the can manipulate power and essentially the shape values and functioning of our government.
My hope is that since Lasn has put forth the issues so eloquently and comprehensibly, he will provide inspiration and fuel the activists fire with ways we can muster ourselves against these absurdities.