The myth of the information age is based upon the myths of the technological optimist. With more people developing more advanced types of technology it is believed that we will overcome the society’s problems. One sect of this mindset places an emphasis on computers as form of personal liberation and empowerment. They feel that computers represent a form of personal liberation and empowerment. As computer use becomes a more common element of modern existence average people will find that they will have more power in their lives. People with computerized modern technology at their disposal will become revitalized and decentralized. This will make them feel more effectively empowered to change themselves and through that their worlds. The traditional elite-mass relationship will disappear with the flick of a switch of the modern computer age and we will find ourselves liberated by technology.
Corporate brand name legitimization functions as a way that we accept treatments, processes or ideas as valid. The modern society reifies those things that are outside the corporate and the marketplace of ideas and makes them acceptable to the mainstream if they adhere or meet certain criteria.
When outside the corporate mainstream this so called alternative energy is ridiculed by the mainstream until it is that the corporations see this energy as threat to their hegemony that needs to be incorporated into their product lines.
The outside or underground way of life clings to rebellion in mode of resistance against the corporate model. The corporate model is said to have significant effect on determining the way the normal or conventional society works.
Corporations have adapted the language and style of rebellion in an effort to co-opt the energy and vitality of alternative ideas. However in the process of incorporation into the corporate or mainstream model this whole process of alternative thinking is usually drained of its significance.
The economic imperative of getting people with serious and powerful alternative, ideological ideas also tends to reduce significant antithetical ideas from congregating into a formidable alternative culture of resistance.
Mindlessness must be encouraged so that people are not aware of the implications of the “culture trust” upon their lives. The culture trust is a grouping of large media conglomerates that control much of what we see and hear in the mass media. This industrial entertainment monopoly consists of coporations such as Disney, Time-Warner, Geffen, Seagrams, GE,
Minimize dissident and activist groups. Make them irrelevant within the serious discussion of society’s problems.
Many activist groups played into the mainstream agenda of minimization by making outlandish or silly statements that can be used to create stereotypes about dissident groups and thinkers. Groups wanting to change society often play into the stereotypical assumptions which defenders of the status quo can use to misrepresent the intentions of these idealists in the public eye.
Most people give little thought to the implications of their actions in relation to others. People are conditioned to see consumption firsts and foremost above all other things in life. The word mindless is often used to refer to the world view and accompanying behaviors that result from this social conditioning. The removal of belief systems that once worship nature and spirit make it hard for most people to grasp the impact of their activities on the larger world that surround them.
Most people feel deep down that they have no choice but to give little ecological thought to the implications of their activities. Really the high stress of our age demonstrates that regardless of income and status that many in our world have difficulty and are struggling to deal with the modern reality. So we despite having an incredible amount of affluence are simply surviving in this world. We allow ourselves to be defined by the postmodern age of mass consumption, because our economy is growth oriented, because in truth our free will is actually very weak.
Economic growth has not only become a panacea to all our problems, but it has become an end in itself.
When the Sacred in Society becomes the Worship of the Perverse
With the death of spirit and community, the totality of life is ripped apart and becomes wholly defined by the accumulation of stuff; the domination of others within the institutional spheres of influence in society and in the global economy. These activities become sacred in a materialist excessively decadent capitalist society, because they create quantitative success in the modern society. Quantitative success of course is how we define happiness, quality of life and how we measure contentedness. Luxuries become necessities within the process of rapid economic expansion and technological change. It is these amenities which become necessities of which we feel are vital to our existence. Although the modern world has brought us things which are indeed quite useful to our fulfillment of life, it has also led to the creation of many frivilious creature comforts whose only real necessity is based upon the need to get people to consume more stuff. The lingage here is probably obvious, that economic growth is dependant on getting people to focus on consuming things without really considering the implications of their lifestyles as to how it affects the world around them.
I remain convinced we live in a age of vast suppression like ages past despite the fact that we seem to have so much freedom to do what we want. This is a great puzzler, since there is so much evidence that the last imhibitors to freedom and expression have been obliterated in the United States and the West. The United States however continues to be self-righteous in its self-proclaimed assertion that it is the freest nation on earth, much as it was in the past when racial intolerance florished in a environment of racial apartheid.
What is the missing link that would illminate what I see as the truth of the lies ties that falsely substanciate the present age of corporate neoliberalism with a air of legitimicy?
An interlocking matrix of interests congeals around the modern institutions of power. A major hidden theme of public relations is to cloak the true intentions of society or of those who control the society. This is based on the idea that the true is intent of these players is less than altruistic and even less than savory. The truer more subconscious intent of the powerful to use often sinister means to dominate the people of that society, is a threat to the legitimiacy that those people need to rule. The fear is that revelations might emerge that would make a significant portion of the population emerge past cynicism and into outrage.
The massive complex of society and it glaring contradictions make it hard to see things with a clear mind. Public relations spreads disinformation keeping a core group on the Right brainwashed and as many people as possible confused keeping the public’s perceptions within a safe band or spectrum of cynicism. It is a balancing act that is based on the understanding that a little cycism is good in that people lose the hope that life can be made better for others within the vast human community through individual self-sacrifice and dedication to high moral and ethical values. The reason this is important is that cynical people particpate in public life less and therefore has less need to be informed (informed as beyoond what the mainstream media tells us) about