Postmodern Condition

The following is based on class notes taken from March 17, 2009 on Chapters 7 and 8 of Grossberg’s We Gotta Get Out of This Place. Modernism, to one degree, is the belief in God and the belief in truth, postmodernity is the death of God and the evacuation of the churches. The postmodern condition is the break from the modern, it is an expression of fragmentation, it is where the image becomes more important than the meaning. A great example of postmodernism is the picture by Rene Magritte, Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

Clearly the image becomes more important than the meaning. Because by meaning of course that is a pipe, but really that is not a pipe, it is a painting of a pipe.  “Postmodernity, then, points to a crisis in our ability to locate any meaning as a possible and appropriate source for an empassioned commitment” (Grossberg 1992, pp. 222). Although Grossberg may overstate his argument, his initial point makes sense. We have a crisis in meaning; the church, political parties, and social groups are all getting smaller. These institutions are going down because believing and belonging go together.

When we live in a society where meaningfulness is gone, in a manufactured world, differences do not matter if we cannot believe in them. In a world with no meaning, there is no difference.

On page 224 of We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Grossberg describes the postmodern dilemma, which means that we need to make anything matter.  But we cannot make anything matter in a postmodern world where nothing matters. To find something meaningful you have to go outside the social system of difference.

As people we need to find meaning in something, where will people go in a place where nothing matters and there is no difference?

Chapter 9 and New Conservatism

According to Grossberg there are a few characteristics of new conservatism; “First, and perhaps most important, the new conservative formations seem to have broadly based popular and emotional appeal. Second, this appeal is often quite distinct from popular support for the specific programs and positions of the new conservatism, although such support is often mobilized and orchestrated. Third, there is often an obvious contradiction between the new conservatism’s explicity stated projects and its actions… Fourth, this formation is able to win teh electoral support of class fractions which would seem to have strong reasons to oppose the interests and policies of the new conservatives” (Grossberg 1992, pp. 243).  This new conservatism is anti-statist.

In class we discussed the problem of hate speech; Canadians have the most laws against hate speech and Americans have the least laws against hate speech. In Canada, we put the rights of the individuals under those rights of the group. Your rights are second under the group’s civil rights. At this point in time people are using politics and economics to suppress civil liberties, which bring us back to the problems from the 1950’s (see previous blog entry for more info). The religious rights got imbedded into institutions, which is not where they should be, religious rights come from the church, not the institutions.

At this point in time many politicians have to use popular culture when they speak because it makes them more popular and relatable. This use of popular culture occurred under Reagan particularly, he had to use allusions and metaphors to popular culture, this made him a more popular candidate and President. Now popular culture is integrated and imbedded into politics.

Did this use of popular culture in politics lead to the depoliticization of the population and the disinvestment from politics?

Even with the last American election there was a great involvement with popular culture, particularly after Sarah Palin had been ridiculed on Saturday Night Live and then later in the campaign she actually appeared on the show.

Grossberg Chapter 9

The following are notes taken from class discussion on March 20, 2009 about Chapter 1o from We Gotta Get Out of This Place by Lawrence Grossberg. In this chapter he talks about 4 different times in history and discusses the differences between them.

First, he talks about the 1950’s. During the 1950’s we were run by the white consensus. This means that the people who were normal and were the ones who were taken seriously were the white, male family. At this point in time it was the white male who was dominant and who made the rules and who made sure people followed the rules. Everything was for the benefit of the white male.

Then times changed in the 1960’s, to the cultural revolution. At this time people moved away from the white consensus because they realised the only person who could benefit from it was the white male. They moved to sex, drugs and rock and roll. This was the time when birth control was made available to women. At this point people were fighting for Women’s, Black’s and Gay’s rights. This was also the first time that disposable income was available to families.

This change in history caused the displacement of the white male from power. The power was now shared with other groups for the first time. There were regulations in place to make sure that people were equal for the first time.

Then came the 1980’s which was defined by neo-liberalization of the economy, and deregulation. This time was dominated by Thatcherism and Reganism. Deregulation means that the market rules, there is no regulation for the market, they have no control. Therefore, big corporations were given permission to buy out smaller companies because they did not have any rules. Conservatives hated regulation so they believed that the market had to be free. People wanted everything else regulated, even a woman’s womb had to be under the control of others.

At this point in time Republicans were using racial coding to have more support from the South. They used racial, and gender biases to gaim voters, and cause fear. These racial bias programs can cause havock to people who they are marketted at.

Then finally Grossberg talks about 2000-2008 and the Imperial Presidency. At this point President Bush was in office and the whole goal was to create a permanent Republican Majority. Grossberg states on page 252 in We Gotta Get Out of This Place  that the Imperial Presidency “has also been successful through secret, if not illegal, executive orders and actions”(Grossberg 1992, pp.252). 

Who knows what the future holds and what sort of social changes will occur in a few years.

Is this a promotional video?

So the following video is currently on YouTube. It features Pharrell, a very popular singer, song writer and performer. The set up for this video is as follows “On a connecting flight home from Malaysia, we stopped in Paris. At 6am, Pharrell tries anything to get McDonald’s to open up early. Maybe a little song and dance might do the trick. or maybe not…” (taken from the explanation of the video on the site). Let’s watch:

Alright, now when I first watched this video I thought well he must really want a Big Mac. But then when I thought about it I realised that maybe this could be a promotion for McDonald’s and Pharrell. Most people who like Pharrell might say “If McDonald’s is good enough for Pharrell then its good enough for me”. And he clearly goes there a lot because he knows exactly what he wants, and he wants McDonald’s so much that he tries to get them to open early in order to serve him.

Then if you listen carefully during the video Pharrell sings a jingle over and over about the McDonald’s food; could this be a promotion for McDonald’s? Companies make jingles as a memory aid, maybe Pharrell was hired to sing this song in the McDonald’s and then post it on the Internet. This would be a great advertsing tactic, because people wouldn’t really think they were being advertised at.

And the way he dances and sings this song out of no where and with no hesitation makes me think that it was rehearsed. And although i do not know if this actually is a promotional video or not it does raise some questions. Is this kind of advertising (if it is in fact an ad) ethical? Should people be able to distinguish between an advertisement and just a fun video?

There is another such video that raises these questions, and that video is “Why every guy should buy their girlfriend wii fit”.

This video is by a guy who was actually paid by Nintendo to post this on YouTube. To the average YouTube viewer this does not look like an advertisement, it just looks like an amateur video.

So next time you think you are just watching some random video on YouTube, think about what you are really watching.

Bullsh*t

In class on March 24, 2009 an interesting topic came up, Bullshit. According to Dr.Strangelove bullshit is not the same as lying, because when you lie the intent is to deceive someone and for the person to not know that they are being deceived. So lying is when one person knows that there is deception and the other is unaware. But bullshitting is when the person knows that they are BSing the second person, and the second person is aware that they are being bullshitted. In other words you know you’re BSing me, and I know you’re BSing me.

The reason we talked about this in class is to realise that we are in an age where the amount of bullshit we hear, see and put up with everyday is huge. Today is the high age of bullshit. We are deceived by advertisements, politicians and even public relation, and what is worse is that we know we are being deceived by these people and we still put up with it and do nothing about it. We know they are lying to us, and they know that they are lying to us.

Everybody knows that the system is off, but how do we explain the system and how do we fix it? The answer is that we can’t. Advertisements would not work if they told the truth, they would make no money for the company. Politicians wouldn’t win if they told us the truth; that they needed to raise taxes or that the economy is failing. The country would never elect someone who told the truth. This leads to a loss of political will which means that people are feeling instead of acting.

Even We Gotta Get Out of This Place by Lawrence Grossberg talks about bullshit. On page 274 Grossberg quotes The New York Times who quotes Lee Atwater, a past chairman of the Republican party, “Bull permeates everything”. Even the politicians know that they are bullshitting everyone, yet they continue to do it.

Why do we put up with being fed all this bullshit all the time? Probably because there is not much we can do about it. Not everyone will take a stand together and that would be the only way to stop it, but there is no possibility of getting everyone and their grandmother to work together and take a stand against bullshit.

And maybe I’m bullshitting you right now…. But what are you going to do about it?

Grossberg Ch. 4&5

The following are notes taken from class on March 13 from Dr. Strangelove about Chapters 4 and 5 of Grossberg’s book We Gotta Get Out Of This Place.

The popular conception of rock and roll is that it is the music of rebellion. Our society makes the mainstream ideas, beliefs, etc. But these are not real, they are wrong, but theses ideas are there to keep the system in tact. Rock and roll music goes against these ideas and beliefs of the society.

Grossberg talks about the rock ‘formation’, in other words the rock ‘culture’, and it is all the aspects that make up rock and roll. Grossberg also talks about the politics of rock (p.137), the politics of rock don’t come from the song itself, there are many things that make up rock. On page 144 Grossberg states one of his theses, “the postwar context shaped the political possibilities of rock culture”. Rock and roll music came out of a conservative period in time in history.

The rock community became politicized, because of its different views and beliefs everyone wanted to know what was going on in that community. People wanted to know everything about what was going on in the community. Rock legitimized sexuality for women. Rock and roll celebrated the body, sexuality and sensuality.

The rock and roll community came under attack for the values it was projecting to people. It was seen as radical because it challenged the consensus of the society of that time.

In summary; on its own rock culture has no essential political disposition. Rock’s culture, in the beginning, its nature was largely a result of its context. America created rock, and rock was predominately conservative.

Fair Use vs Stealing

In our Popular Culture class on March 17 we had a discussion about fair use. The definition of fair use is the creative reworking of other people’s work to parody it, or to learn something from it, etc. One of the most important things in our culture at this point in time is when we appropriate other people’s material to make it our own.

The corporations believe that the only legitimate position of the audience is to watch paid for advertisements. This means that the people on YouTube who are watching videos that are made by the Average Joe who uses some clips from a corporation. The laws have always been biased towards the corporations, this means that the laws that are made to benefit the corporations. Many corporations have tried to use laws in order to hurt the Average Joe or to get their video off the Internet. Most times however, the videos are posted again because of fair use. Most times these videos are protected under fair use, therefore there is nothing the corporations can do about the use of their name, images, videos, etc.

YouTube owns the online audience and they trample over fair use. Because of the way that the videos on YouTube are  monitored now most times they will get deleted or removed if there is evidence of the use of corporate material. Most times the monitors remove the videos before they can be examined for fair use. At this point it cannot make the differentiation between fair use or not.

Most people don’t even think that fair use exists at all let alone on the Internet and YouTube.  People are allowed to use copyrighted material as long as it has value. There is nothing the corporations can do if they do not like you using their material as long as it ads value.

For example, many people think that Disney movies have subliminal messages. Many people have made videos that outline these messages. This is one of them:

Now Disney may see this and want this video removed from the Internet, but because under the idea of fair use it shows value to people so it cannot be removed.

2 girls, 1 cup

Alright, now I’m sure most people have heard about the 2 girls, 1 cup video. I first heard about it in my popular culture class the other day, and as we were talking about it many people were completely disgusted. I had never heard of the video before so I didn’t even know what happened in the video. And when i asked people all they said is that it is the most disgusting thing they’ve ever seen. Now this video has been banned on YouTube, so I couldn’t see it for myself.

So I went home and I did  a quick google search to find out what happens in the video. I completely understand why people do not want to talk about the video now, and although I do not want to explain what happens in the video I will provide a link for the readers who do not know what the video is about. Don’t worry this link will not open a video, its just an explanation.

http://www.maniacworld.com/2-Girls-1-Cup.html

First of all I don’t know why people would want to watch this video, but maybe it’s just me who doesn’t  have any inclination to watch this video. But apparently most everyone has seen this video, most of the people who are in my popular culture class had seen it.

One of the things that has happened with the coming of this video, is showing other people the video and recording their reactions. People show the 2 girls 1 cup video to friends, family members and even a grandmother.

This girl shows her grandmother the disturbing video, I don’t think I would ever show my grandmother a video like this, she would have freaked out and probably never be the same again. But honestly why would you force someone you love to watch such an awful video.

There are so many video reactions on YouTube to the 2 girls 1 cup video. According to a YouTube search there are about 23,200 video reactions. Apparently, a lot of people want to watch the people they know to be grossed out and to post these reactions to YouTube. Even television shows have started to make fun of this video and the reactions of people.

What is the great pleasure in seeing people react to this video? Apparently many people want to see the people they know react and think that this reaction is funny. But is it really funny to make someone watch a video that they would not want to watch normally?

“We Gotta Get Out Of This Place”

The following entry is based on the notes from the March 3, 2009 Popular Culture class. Although the class assigned book We Gotta Get Out of  This Placeby Lawrence Grossberg is quite difficult in the first section there are  a few points that are important to note.

Canadians are moving away from the patriarchal way of the family. This means that the government will change, politics will change, and most everything will change with the evolution of the family.We live in an economy that is based on consumption, and that means that the economy is continuously growing and changing as well.

In our society we are bombarded everyday with advertisements, to buy more, to spend more, to have more. When we are continuously told that we need to consume no wonder we have this economy based on consumption.  Currently, the commodities that we are told to buy are stripped of their meaning. This means that a shirt, doesn’t have the meaning that someone made this piece of clothing for much less that what we will pay for it in the store, and that it is just to cover up the human body, or keep you warm.  It is filled with artificial meaning, like if you buy this 100$ sweater you will be unbelievably popular and gorgeous. Consumption is a depoliticizing funtion because products are stripped of meaning of production.

Maybe if you buy these clothes from American Eagle you will have cool friends like this and have fun with them all the time.

So, really what our society and what our economy is telling us is to spend more money and everything will be fine and you’ll be happy. As long as you’re consuming and spending money, the economy will improve. But is this really true? Does spending an outrageous amount on clothes really make the economy better?

“David” gets his 15 minutes of fame

So, I’m sure by now most people know the infamous 7 year old David. He got some teeth pulled and he was feeling the effects of the anesthesia and his dad decides to pull out the video camera. Now David will live forever as the little boy who “has 2 fingers”.

Ok, I’m not going to lie I laughed at this video and watched it a few times…. But what will happen when David wants this video removed maybe when he becomes a teenager? First of all once a video or picture or anything is posted on the Internet, there is no getting rid of it. And on YouTube there is bound to be some parodies, well a quick search and there already are….

There are already many more videos that parody the original video, but I’ll leave you to your own searching. what would happen if David were to do a quick search of YouTube to see himself on the Internet, and perhaps click on one of these parodies. Although they are funny, they are quite inappropriate for young children, I know I wouldn’t want my nephew or neices to see these parodies.

“David After Dentist” has had 14,863,348  views in its short time of being on YouTube.  But something we talked about today in class is about this 15 minutes of fame. Now that David has been so funny in this video, I’m sure all the viewers are waiting for the next funny video to come out. There are a few more videos of David, obviously he isn’t drugged up in them, but he is telling jokes and obviously encouraged by his parents. But these videos only have a couple hundred thousand views. Obviously, the mass audience is drawn to the dentist video but the mass audience disappears when the new videos are being posted.

We need to realise the consequences that will happen to David when he grows up, sure its funny now, but what about when he becomes a hormonal emotional teen? And what about these parodies? Also, are the parents forcing him to make more “funny” videos or does he really want to do them? These situations all need to be examined.