Quasimodo of the Multiplex

[alexanderscttb]

It’s faster than a mind can think

Comments

[pigshitpoet]

yes, i agree, we're back in plato's cave, never to see the sun again..

[alexanderscttb]

And yet maybe it takes an apogee of illusion before it can reach its nadir and we all step out into the reality sun.

apogee of illusion

[pigshitpoet]

maybe,
but i see it more as a zeitgest, some hideous strength, an invisible force to be reckoned with
in our human frailty, but that's me, you be different
carry on courageous son!
; '

i can't imagine what this is like for you, i grew up in the late 50s and 60s so i've seen things you maybe haven't
anyway, i'm certain you can imagine..

Re: apogee of illusion

[alexanderscttb]

I spent the majority of my early adulthood looking back to those times, trying to figure it all out. Needless to say it, truth may always be stranger than fiction as a general rule. Stratagem one of "hideous strength" is to make itself "an invisible force." Once you call the shots on what constitutes reality as opposed to the imagined, you're one step closer to controlling what people may and may not take for what's true. "Whoever controls the media, controls the mind," (Jim Morrison).

Re: apogee of illusion

[pigshitpoet]

"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind," (Jim Morrison) ...and marshall mcluhan and guy debord and cnn and new york times.. )))

Re: apogee of illusion

[alexanderscttb]

I agree with Debord’s analysis, especially with his concept of the Society of the Spectacle. I think he was right to point out that in late capitalism, direct experience becomes mediated through the commodity form. “[Completing] its colonization of social life,” whereby the history of society can be understood as “the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing.”
This is the world we were born into, one in which images and commodities so fully mediate our experience of reality, that it was very easy to control our perceptions and trick us into believing that Freedom was Slavery, to return to our dear friend Orwell.

Re: apogee of illusion

[pigshitpoet]

my words are too long for one comment, i'll have to spell it out in three on one thread.. so, here we go

2-Re: apogee of illusion

[pigshitpoet]

for instance, in spite of some global or national or even local social institution, where i become one of many, i rather look from an inward perspective and build out from there. first there is you, then those you live with, family or friends, then the collective, then community, city, province, country, etc. it goes out from a self-centric awareness. in all this, i was drawn to find connection in a local art community, through life drawing for the past 25 years. that allowed me to interact with like minded individuals with similar interests, instead of only talking about the weather, and houses and cars, and jobs and other unchosen relationships

3-Re: apogee of illusion

[pigshitpoet]

it's funny. when i was a kid i could sing all the ad jingles from tv commercials by heart or learned the words to pop songs from repetitious play on top forty radio, mainstream stuff, and so that is social conditioning. then i rebelled against all that mainstream when i went to art school, looking for eclectic, cult and avant garde, outside the box thinkers. that's when i felt like a man without a country. nobody with whom to easily associate, unless i talked news and politics or carpentry. i also wrote about this back then. that which was familiar. i've been writing journals of sorts for the past 25 years

Re: 3-Re: apogee of illusion

[alexanderscttb]

I’m very much in agreement with you here. The kind of social conditioning that you speak of is very real. It’s also very controversial to speak of it, for no less than the fact that it’s power comes from it’s very invisibility, the plausible deniability of its existence. It’s again the power of convincing people that “freedom is slavery.” I believe George Monbiot has said, “the most powerful ideologies never announce themselves as ideologies. That is where their power lies.” Once you see through a certain illusion, it’s nearly impossible to go on seeing things in the old way. The genie can’t go back in the bottle. For this reason I’m optimistic that the control society in its presence form will fall, leaving nothing behind but a “sneer of cold command […] Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,” to quote Shelley. But we must also make it fall. And what is the best way to counter the illusions of a control society, the Society of the Spectacle? As you mentioned, through the power of individual artists, writers, photographers,

RE: social conditioning

[pigshitpoet]

[ it’s power comes from it’s very invisibility, ] - that is very well stated

Re: social conditioning

[alexanderscttb]

I remember not hating but not exactly loving English either in school, but can remember the day specifically that I first read “Ozymandias.” For some reason it was the first time I really connected with literature that was “old.” Later I had to take a class on Romanticism in college where we focused on Keats and Shelley. The professor preferred Keats probably because of how he was apolitical-especially compared to Shelley-and I found myself needing to frequently come to the defense of Shelley in that class. I became very impressed with Shelley at that point, making it my goal to try to read everything he ever wrote. This would be the most in depth I’d ever gotten with an old-timey poet

Re: social conditioning

[pigshitpoet]

ok

Re: social conditioning

[alexanderscttb]

Of course! Again I feel very honored

Re: 2-Re: apogee of illusion

[alexanderscttb]

And I certainly agree with you here about the importance of community. I would merely add that I also think proximity is an essential part of community. This is of course relative in the sense that everyone on this planet is in proximity of each other, by virtue of living on this same planet, and indeed this is why we so desperately need to evolve a sense of planetary community, else we are all doomed. But this also ties into what I find to be problematic about the internet. Because I do feel everyone has flocked into these digital communities, while the communities that are in direct proximity to us, my relationship to city, state, country, world, etc., to use an example, these communities have been and continue to be undermined by neoliberal governmental power that is also corporate and tied intimately to the control society mechanism. In short, from my point of view, it’s necessary to take back the communities that are in direct proximity to us, otherwise we will become even further psychologically and “spiritually” colonized the

Re: 2-Re: apogee of illusion

[pigshitpoet]

yes, certainly for the global picture, that universal unity becomes imperative to helping interpret our own experience

i find it sad that so many have abandoned blogging and turned it into twitter talk. word rapier. think of all the content and context we have lost in the process of that fallout. what once was glorious and joyous has become vapid and trite.

ugh. government. authoritaaay!!... bleh! goes back to that bullying, “sneer of cold command […]

i am a practitioner and believer of learning through experience, although i am such a dreamer, i find if i don't ground myself, i end up going in circles..

yes, i too like that the internet affords us a broader perspective. yes, giving ourselves permission to live and think as we are. yes, instead of control, creativity and freedom to explore. that is necessary as human development. making robots is for auto mechanics. you need a pilot to keep it on the road.. that requires not just an engineer or administrator, but the actual operator. you sir, are the pilot of your own ship!

; )