Writer's Block: Revolutionary Thought
Nov. 8th, 2008 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumelia[Error: unknown template qotd]
Teevee.
Television.
As a sampler and some-times addict of that potent drug I can't help but try and explain.
Commencing academia babble now:
Benedict Anderson wrote about Imagined Communities, the idea that through a non-existent or imagined commonality we establish the community in which we live.
He speaks mainly about the print and literature in order to exemplify this, because News papers are the most reproduced form of literature in the world today - think of those scenes in 1940's and 50's movies in which the frame is filled with men in fedoras and all of them reading the New York Time or the London Times, etc. Are they looking at one another? Do they communicate with each other? Most likely they can barely recognize each others face, but they are reading the same thing and they imagine or consider what they think about they are reading to be social consensus, despite the fact that they most likely would never talk about what they are thinking to another person.
That's an imagined community.
Television takes it one step further in my opinion.
News papers are relevant until the next edition and it takes conscious thought to read and absorb the information and data printed on a page.
Television by its nature, allows you to switch off your cognitive operations and just sponge in what is going on as you watch the screen.
Television has replaced religion when it comes to values as well.
Once in order to know what was right and wrong you listened to pulpits to tell you who was good, who was evil and what one should believe.
Now television tells us who is vilified, what is beautiful, how we ourselves can be like the idols which we worship on the flat screened alter.
Instead of family prayer, a family will congregate around the television and watch the episode of whatever programme we are addicted to at the moment.
And we obsess about it, no less than people used to obsess about god while those who control and create the discourse make some kind of profit off us "sheeple".
Teevee.
Television.
As a sampler and some-times addict of that potent drug I can't help but try and explain.
Commencing academia babble now:
Benedict Anderson wrote about Imagined Communities, the idea that through a non-existent or imagined commonality we establish the community in which we live.
He speaks mainly about the print and literature in order to exemplify this, because News papers are the most reproduced form of literature in the world today - think of those scenes in 1940's and 50's movies in which the frame is filled with men in fedoras and all of them reading the New York Time or the London Times, etc. Are they looking at one another? Do they communicate with each other? Most likely they can barely recognize each others face, but they are reading the same thing and they imagine or consider what they think about they are reading to be social consensus, despite the fact that they most likely would never talk about what they are thinking to another person.
That's an imagined community.
Television takes it one step further in my opinion.
News papers are relevant until the next edition and it takes conscious thought to read and absorb the information and data printed on a page.
Television by its nature, allows you to switch off your cognitive operations and just sponge in what is going on as you watch the screen.
Television has replaced religion when it comes to values as well.
Once in order to know what was right and wrong you listened to pulpits to tell you who was good, who was evil and what one should believe.
Now television tells us who is vilified, what is beautiful, how we ourselves can be like the idols which we worship on the flat screened alter.
Instead of family prayer, a family will congregate around the television and watch the episode of whatever programme we are addicted to at the moment.
And we obsess about it, no less than people used to obsess about god while those who control and create the discourse make some kind of profit off us "sheeple".
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-11-08 12:37 pm (UTC)I love Chuck Palahniuk. Thought the movie adaptation of "Fight Club" was very loyal to the book.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-08 12:44 pm (UTC)I actually thought Fight Club the movie was... better than the book, lol. I think the book was... too cluttered, he tries to put too much stuff in there, whereas the movie focused on a few things and tossed other things out and made it PERFECT. I saw the recent adaptation of Choke and it's... less good than Fight Club, lol. My favourite book of his is Survivor.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-08 12:46 pm (UTC)No, the only other thing I read of his Diary, which I found disturbing... then again, what else do you expect from Chuck. hehe.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-08 01:07 pm (UTC)Yeah, see Diary is when he was already going for... something entirely different than what say, Fight Club was about. Fight Club, Lullaby, Choke, Invisible Monsters and Survivor are all books of more or less the same caliber. They each tackle a certain array of social subjects, combined with Palahniuk's blend of crazy disturbing characters/humor/situations, but they are all, at the end fo the day, commentary on social issues, among other things. VERY broadly, I would classify Fight Club as Daddy Issues, Chocke as Mommy Issues, Lullaby as his commentary on media, Survivor as commentary on religion and Invisible Monsters his commentary on gender.
Diary is heavier on the crazy-disturbing and much lighter on the social commentary (People Are Mean isn't really a Chuck-worthy level of commentary, you know?), which is why I liked it a LOT less. But then, I can't stomach horror in any way shape or form, and the only reason I'm totally cool with it with Palahniuk is because he makes it clear that the horror is serving a purpose isntead of being just randomly disturbing for its own sake (whcih is fine! just not for me), and starting with Diary Chuck went further and further into disturbing and left social commentary behind. Whiiiich, really turned me off, lol. So, I'd say to get a picture of the kind of Chuck you get in Fight Club, read something written earlier than Diary, if you're ever so inclined :D