Constructing Terrified Citizens
Reading through The Best of Philip K. Dick for the first time in years, I was struck by how much the cold war stories resonate in these times. An early story from around 1963, "Foster, You're Dead," tells of a young boy who goes to a school where the curriculum focuses on survival tactics in case of a nuclear holocaust. This is presented as a normal, American school - Althusser's ISA of choice, as it were. It is also a world of rampant capitalism - individuals have to purchase their own bomb shelters, protection grids, etc. Foster's father refuses to buy into what he sees as the manipulative marketing of products there is no definite need for, with fear used to push constant upgrading. Because he is too young to resist his society's dominant ideological indoctrination, Foster lives in constant terror that he will die. In the end, he huddles in a showroom bomb shelter knowing the salesmen will make him leave, but unable to move.
Remind you of anything? How about the rhetoric used by Cheney and Co. before the 2004 Presidential Election: 'If you don't vote for us, you won't be safe.' When Americans actually take the time to think about the situation since 9/11, the Madrid bombings, the London bombings, etc. (which they might not - as Baudrillard proposes, all of this is seen on TV and carries a sense of unreality), most are a Foster. Those of us who are Foster's father may or may not continue to resist - in the story he tries to give in to make his son happy, only he can't afford the shelter. But even if a few of us hold on to our skepticism, while attempting to see the world as stripped of illusion as we can, there are all those Fosters.
It’s easy to sympathize with a fictitious young child, but for the American voting public, I sometimes feel only disgust. I mean, yes, we're all socially constructed, but there are places of counter-hegemonic resistance as well. And extrapolating on Raymond Williams’ work in Marxism and Literature, I believe you can find them via your actions (instead of counter-hegemony being purely the purview of art).
Remind you of anything? How about the rhetoric used by Cheney and Co. before the 2004 Presidential Election: 'If you don't vote for us, you won't be safe.' When Americans actually take the time to think about the situation since 9/11, the Madrid bombings, the London bombings, etc. (which they might not - as Baudrillard proposes, all of this is seen on TV and carries a sense of unreality), most are a Foster. Those of us who are Foster's father may or may not continue to resist - in the story he tries to give in to make his son happy, only he can't afford the shelter. But even if a few of us hold on to our skepticism, while attempting to see the world as stripped of illusion as we can, there are all those Fosters.
It’s easy to sympathize with a fictitious young child, but for the American voting public, I sometimes feel only disgust. I mean, yes, we're all socially constructed, but there are places of counter-hegemonic resistance as well. And extrapolating on Raymond Williams’ work in Marxism and Literature, I believe you can find them via your actions (instead of counter-hegemony being purely the purview of art).