I have been wanting to write this post for weeks now, but I simply had such a bad feeling that I kept putting it off, like a brain operation.
But a few moments ago I heard a snippet of news on the local channel about some assassination plot on Obama. Is this a surprise? Not exactly. The barrage of images and video of Paling shooting high power rifles with a telescopic sight, alongside invective abuse of power and misinformation are very suggestive to the inbred, broad redneck base that finds her so appealing under her disguise. After all don't they say it is our right to bear arms as if this was the wild West? And what would they be for but to enforce our ideas? Vietnam, Irak..., a black man, a dog, our teachers, our neighbors?
The majority is not silent anymore, it feels threatened and shouts kill! kill! at the least prompting, and there is plenty of that. Who orchestrates this aspect of the campaign? who is in charge of the not so subliminal massaging of weak, ignorant and impressionable brains? Who is the new Cheney? the new Rumsfeld? have they ever gone away? Will they?
Television is a powerful medium, producing a mild seizure effect that we have grown accustomed to, but which comes very handy when in the hands of advertisers and marketeers of every bent.
Unfortunately at this point in time with inmmeasurable stakes at play there is no need to resort to mafia connections or intelligence operators (although the knowledge of subliminal control is their domain), but simply to seed the minds of halfwits to execute random and irrational acts of violence, hoping that one of those hits the target, never mind the catastrophic global consequences of such power grab by those who think of nothing else but their own glory under their abominable god.
The author of this message makes the same mistake as those who mistakingly attribute the tragic shootings at Columbine and other schools to video game violence. If video games in which the user participates in killing on a massive scale do not cause violence (and indeed, research seems to back this claim), then neither can simple photographs and video of a vice-presidential hopeful shooting a rifle be "subliminal massaging of weak, ignorant and impressionable brains."
ReplyDeleteWithout this comparison, this argument falls apart. It also is based on an assumption that the vast majority of people in the world today are uneducated, ignorant, primitives who are unwittingly manipulated by a power-hungry elite. All of this makes one wonder about the author’s beliefs about humanity in general. If most are ignorant and easily led, and a small minority are greedy for power, then humanity must not be very good to begin with. The only logical conclusion to this argument is that humanity is (at best) ignorant and impressionable at birth, and the only hope we have as a species is to be one of the few who can raise themselves up enough out of their ignorance to obtain glorious greed and power.
Is this really what you want to communicate?
It is very naive to ignore the power of the image, specially when delivered by mass communication which simply multiplies its effect, without even mentioning the technical reasons for this effect.
ReplyDeleteIf it were not so, publicists the world over would not spend trillions of dollars to associate images with ideas to impress, yes, impressionable minds. I absolutely agree with some of your comments. The majority of the people in the world are indeed uneducated and ignorant, particularly of the power that controls them, the power-hungry elite that you mention.
Being ignorant and educated is no sin, it is a scourge, but a reality. And there are reasons why there is widespread poverty and ignorance, it is by design, not by chance. And of course humanity IS ignorant and impressionable at birth! Or have you ever heard of an educated newborn? How else could it be?
It is up to parents to raise their children, to educate them and teach them how to be critical and to develop strong minds that are not easily swayed by an environment that strips away their humanity to convert them into "consumers" (of images I must say), a moniker that we accept as normal in today's world.
Finally, no, I don't think our hope as humanity is to raise ourselves out of ignorance to obtain "glorious greed and power", that is simply fascism.
We raise ourselves out of ignorance to become conscious, responsible humans that help others raise out of their ignorance as well, so that we can look forward to a more just world.
Images do matter.
Images no doubt impact people who see them, though they may not be initially conscious of this. I am reminded of the words of Edward Bernays, who was one of the first to study how to manipulate the public opinion through the use of the subconsious.
ReplyDeleteWhether you agree with Bernays' opinion of democracy or not in the excerpt below, his words speak to the fact that those in power do use means to manipulate and form public opinion. Images in and of themselves play a large part in this.
From wiki...
In Propaganda (1928), his most important book, Bernays argued that the manipulation of public opinion was a necessary part of democracy:
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.
The invisible government, the mental processes and social patterns of the masses, and the public mind.... Hmmm. How will this be translated in the 21st century? What role will immersive virtual realities play?