once again, sarah struggles with the shoddy hampton inn internet. oh well, it’s better than nothing (and nothing is what i may have for the next two nights in lexington and nashville, so we’ll see…).
i finished “culturejam” a few days ago and feel like i should just post the entire book cos it’s just so freaking good. but i lack the time and a stable connection. so i’ll post a few gems that hopefully will stick in yr head and shake up yr brain a little…
from the chapter, “the cult you’re in”:
Cult members aren’t really citizens.� The notions of citizenship and nationhood make little sense in this world.� We’re not fathers and mothers and brothers.� We’re consumers.� We care about sneakers, music and Jeeps.� The only Life, Freedom, Wonder ad Joy in our lives are the brands on our supermarket shelves.
Are we happy? Not really. Cults promise a kind of boundless contentment– punctuated by moments of bliss– but never quite deliver on that promise.� They fill the void, but only with a different kind of void.� Disillusionment eventually sets in– or it would if we were allowed to think much about it.� Hence the first commandment of a cult: Thou shalt not think.� Free thinking will break the trance and introduce competing perspectivs.� Which leads to doubt.� Which leads to contemplation of the nearest exit.
Dreams, by definition, are supposed to be unique and imaginative.� Yet the bulk of the population is dreaming the same dream.� It’s a dream of wealth, power, fame, plenty of sex and exciting recreational opportunities.
What does it mean when a whole culture dreams the same dream?
From the chapter, “The Unofficial History of AmericaTM”
Then came the legal event that would not be understood for decades (and remains baffling today), an event that would change the course of American history.� In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, a dispute over a railbed route, the U.S. Supreme Court deemed that a private corporation was a “natural person” under the U.S. Constitution and therefore entitled to protection under the Bill of Rights.� Suddenly, corporations enjoyed all the rights and sovereignty previously enjoyed only by the people, including the right to free speech.
This 1866 decision ostensibly gave corporations the same powers as private citizens.� But considering their vast financial resources, corporations thereafter actually had far *more* power than any private citizen.� They could defend and exploit their rights and freedoms more vigorously than any individual and therefore they were *more free*…
We, the people, have lost control.� Corporations, these legal fictions we ourselves created two centuries ago, now have more rights, freedoms and powers than we do.� And we accepted this as a normal state of affairs.� We go to corporations on our knees.� *Please* do the right thing, we plead.� *Please* don’t cut down any more ancient forests.� *Please* don’t pollute any more lakes and rives (but please don’t move your factories and jobs offshore either).� *Please* don’t use pornographic images to sell fashion to my kids.� *Please* don’t play governments off against each other to get a better deal.� We’ve spent so much time bowed down in deference, we’ve forgotten how to stand up straight.
The unofficial history of AmericaTM, which continues to be written, is not a story of rugged individualism and heroic personal sacrifice in pursuit of a dream.� It is a story of democracy derailed, of a revolutionary spirit supressed, and of a once-proud people reduced to servitude.
0 Responses to “culturejam”