With every major invention, every technical ratcheting forward human history has been irrevocably altered. Some of the most pivotal alterations have been the result of the least dramatic and perhaps least glamorous discoveries, such as the toilet and interior plumbing. Massive changes followed the introduction of those little white bowls in the average home, most notably the decrease of acute epidemic disease and the increase in the human life-span, which, in turn has had a ripple effect on everything we think and undertake.
If we have 80 years to live instead of 40, well, then we have more time to get educated, we can wait to be married, we can pursue more than one career. Perhaps the most notable effect of our recent longevity has been the illusion that somehow life can (even should) go on indefinitely if we can only get a hold of that slippery little gene or remember to take that new antioxidant.
Bomb Game
This dynamic - technology permuting culture - is pervasive throughout our collective experience. As our technology has changed, our lifestyles have changed. And as our lifestyles have changed our expectations, our strategies for living and our psychologies have changed. War has been no exception to the rule. The way we wage it and the battles we choose to fight have been similarly transformed. However, this time not only has the nature of war changed, but our very battlefields have been moved and we barely noticed.
New Terms of Engagement: Media-Driven Battle Grounds
For thousands of years, when one group wanted to conquer another (for whatever reason - land, power, revenge or pride) the protocol was for one group to ride, walk or run over to the desired territory and storm the castle or plunder a village. Whatever the strategies, whether the generals chose to fight with one standing army confronting another standing army or it was a surprise attack in the middle of the night, guerrilla-style, it always resulted in hand-to-hand combat of some kind.
Even the Roman armies with their chariots, horses and war dogs (e.g., mastiffs) eventually met their enemies face to face. Killing was personal. Even if it didn't start out that way, a soldier sooner or later had to use a spear, a knife, a fist or a club. The implement of death had to be wielded by hand and in almost all cases the person wielding it had to confront the grisly death of the other.
Then came gun powder and the laws of physics changed the rules of war. now balls of lead could be hurled over or even through walls, traversing long distances to explode and expose the viscera of once impenetrable fortresses. War was still a bloody mess and a last resort for any society that valued its own, but it was now feasible to conduct one with substantially less personal involvement.
Not too long after that came the bomb. Not just the bomb, but all bombs that could be dropped from airplanes, fired from rocket launchers or detonated on delays. This once again changed war. Populations that had once been protected by flanks of soldiers who were prepared to give their lives to defend their women and children were now as vulnerable as our most primitive ancestors. We could be reached by air. There was nothing that could stop the invasion any longer.
now, there is the danger of invasion by organism and bio-technology. We can't see it, smell it, or fight it. But there it is, knocking on our collective unconscious, silently altering the psychological and eventually the genetic make-up of our entire culture.
The War of Words and Ideas
Which brings us to the state of war in which we currently find ourselves: the war of information in which the primary weapon used is viral fear. There are other weapons used in the information war that are no less serious, of course, such as identity theft, cyber-viruses, misinformation, EM pulses etc... But the war the average civilian is engaged in is tragically one of which he is wholly unconscious.
The war is fought in our living rooms, our bedrooms, subliminally in our movie theatres, on our phones, in our cars, on highway billboards and in shopping malls. We are utterly surrounded.
By What are we Surrounded? What's the Enemy?
First and foremost the enemy is our own sedation. We are unconscious, made so and kept so by endless entertainment, comfort and complacency. From its inception, televised entertainment, which is intricately enmeshed with corporate and product advertising, has taken many if not most families from having dinner together at the table to dinner in shifts on the couch. We don't face one another for after-dinner conversation or sit down for a game of chess over which we can proclaim our own world-politic. Instead we go each of us to the privacy of our own rooms, to the cyber-reality of our own headsets, to the seclusion of our own i-pods. We connect less to one another and more to electronics, conducting our lives in varying degrees of dissociative trance. We see the world (to some degree) but we are not fully there.
This is a wholly non-partisan issue. Whether one is radically right, lopsidedly left or somewhere in between, real national security is at risk and our missions will never be realized if we do not become minimally aware. And where there are real threats, America has become a sitting duck.
Secondly we are surrounded by an innumerable quantity of messages both subtle and gross given to us by the media. "Media" as I am using it here includes everything that is transmitted via newsprint, air wave, film, radio wave and optic cable. All of it, without exception, is involved in promoting an agenda. Most often it is a corporate one, even if it is embedded or disguised. (Mind you, this is not any sort of blanket condemnation on self-promotion or vigorous sales efforts. It is a commentary on our state of thoughtful awareness, or lack thereof.) Whether it is corporate or not, whether it is intentional or not, it is almost invariably fear-based and promotes a pathology of inadequacy.
In this last season, how many advertisements did you see where happy families opened lavish and glamorous gifts, where meals were presented in soft candlelight as though Martha herself were in the kitchen? I couldn't even begin to count the ones I'd seen, not to mention the ones I didn't. If there were one single message coming through loud and clear it was that happy families are made happy by constant and creative consumption. The irony of the way these holidays are presented is that millions are left feeling lost and lonesome. And even those who have intact families and multitudes of friends with enough money to buy gifts the way they do on television, they never, ever reach the level of perfection they see in the media. Whether we have family or not, we can never measure up. Which is both the promised land for advertisers and the problem for us.
I would like to clarify something for those who think I have an issue with shopping besides personally not loving the process of walking from store to store, sifting through too much stuff and hauling bags for hours. Philosophically speaking there is absolutely nothing wrong with shopping. So long as we exist in a complex society, we will have producers, traders, and consumers. We will always have wants and need money to do that. Awareness limits the impact of the messages that bombard us. If a sentence in an advertisement starts with "could," "would" or "should" we can safely assume there's an incoming fear missile. "Could it happen here?" "Could there be a bomb on New Year's Eve?" "Should you get the vaccine now?" "Would you know what to do if..." Grammar is an extension of intent. Listen to what's being said critically.
We can then remind ourselves that the way products and services are presented (as image, as icon, as identity or extension of self) is illusory and speaks to our fears and inadequacies more than our good judgment. They will never satisfy us in the way we are told they will. Be conscious of the truth and you will recognize the lies.
2. Do the obvious. We can limit the amount of time we (and particularly our children) spend with television, i-pods, game-boys or cyber-tennis and make a conscious effort to spend more time with one another. I do not for a second imagine that Americans will all start taking up Buddhist meditation, but having a few minutes a day without having our senses assaulted might be a good idea. The other day I met a friend at a place called the Hyatt Tamaya. It is a resort of sublime beauty, filled with roaring fires in handmade kivas, Native American artwork, sensual flute music and captivating views from every angle. I had to wait for her a while and sat near one of the fires when a man and his wife sat across from me. Presumably they'd come to the hotel together, but she sat in one corner of the couch reading a book and he sat in a chair with earphones blasting percussive music I could hear from more than 10 feet away. Why bother spending 0 a night to tune out the place you're paying a fortune to be in doing what you do at home?
3. Ask yourself: What drives you? And spend some time with that question before you answer it. Think about what motivates you to buy, what you buy and when you buy.
4. Spend time doing things that are diametrically opposite to what is promoted in the media, such as being still, being with your family without electronic accessories, pray, walk, think, read. Live slowly, breath deeply, linger.
5. Be present. Don't pursue anything. Especially happiness. It's a waste of time and will only serve to make you frustrated. The only place you can really have what you long for is where you are right now with exactly what you've got.
Protecting Ourselves From the Media and Viral Fear - Psychiatric therapy and Cultural AwarenessSurprise! Britney Learns 'Gangnam Style' from Psy! Tube. Duration : 2.92 Mins.Korean pop star and YouTube sensation Psy gave Britney Spears a surprise visit on the show, and taught her his famous horse dance!
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