Culture Jam Free Write

“Honor your instincts. Let your anger out. When it wells up suddenly from deep in your gut, don’t suppress it- channel it, trust it, use it. Don’t be so unthinkingly civil all the time. When the system is grinding you down, unplug the grinding wheel.” (xv)

I think this book has been overwhelmingly cynical, which is sometimes a drag to have to read. Luckily I found my state of affairs to be going in a very different direction than that of the demographic that Lasn was discussing. However, I think that Lasn makes a lot of good points, which hold so much relevance in the way our society functions today, and his ethics are in line with what I agree with, therefore it was pretty captivating. It made me feel a deeper aversion to corporate culture and over-consumption of Americans than I felt previously. Going back home and seeing old friends made this aversion much clearer in terms of how my ideas have evolved, and the different directions that all of my old friends have gone in, in terms of their basic way of life. I found myself to be a singular minority in most of my views and actually got into a couple of heated arguments with some of them who dismissed environmental issues and openly immerse themselves into American consumer culture with full trust and loyalty. Although I have known these people for a long time, I never discussed these things in particular, and got to the root of the problem with them. Most of the conversations ended in a pathetic effort to assure themselves and me that when they “grow up” they are going to be wealthy on their own, as well as marry rich, have happy children, own a nice house and country house, indispensable money, cars and clothes…and hoes. I was pretty blown away by their solid self-assuredness that this was all going to work out for them. And they don’t care about the consequences, and admit to not knowing enough about it, and using that ignorance to make up for their not caring. Not to say that these are my closest friends, because it had been a long time since we had hung out, but no matter my protests at their blind commercial desires, they weren’t making up their mind. Damned hipsters!! I guess that’s what you get in NYC, where everything is so fast paced that no one bothers to think twice, or even once, and rely on being incredibly self centered. I just found it frightening because when growing up together I felt that we all had so much in common, but now, we are all specializing in completely different things and being self-centered in that way too. Which is why I think in some ways its important to be generally skilled in many areas, which would probably require me to drop out of college or at least take some time off to sharpen different skills. I realized that feel much safer in VT somehow, which is funny because I have always been so attached to NY, but it’s my own sense of self-preservation in surrounding myself with like-minded folks and in an environment that I can enjoy outdoor activities in and around. One of these arguments was with a close friend since elementary school who is now a business major and was completely denying the fact that global warming is a pressing issue.

The part about Princess Diana was intriguing as well, and reminded me of a time when my friend from elementary school cried because the singer Aliyah died in a plane crash. I remember being very curious to the reason she cried, because she wasn’t much of a crier, and I thought it was a little much for someone she didn’t even know when there was actually a whole plane full of people who died and tons of other random people who die every instant, and yet she was only crying for her. It strikes me almost every time a famous person dies, and people everywhere are devastated, and I wonder is it because of their inability to produce more pop music or be hunted down by paparazzi any longer? Why are they crying? I guess it’s the romantic image that they had gotten so used to adoring and caring for, and idolizing, and death in general is scary especially for something that you follow in a cult-like manner. That was another really interesting part of the book, which I agree with completely. Even though its an extreme correlation, all methods of persuasion use the same tactics, and its just the extent to which these tactics are used that make them different. I also agree that a lot of this corruption in our ethics cannot be uncorrupted, which goes to show how deep we have gotten ourselves into danger, and that action needs to be taken.