Final Blog: Presentations

The Presentations had really resigned with not only my project but with my understanding as a whole. i really liked kevin's graph of all the car companies and the explanation that Lexus and Toyota are the Same Company and that the parts for the car cost the company the same; they just are advertised and priced for the consumer at an inflated rate in order to gain more profit. this concept really relates to the idea of a consumer culture as products are no longer based on their actual value of the materials or labor used but on a made-up and ambiguous price that reflects a persons value that THEY placed on the item.

THE MONSTER AND HIS KEEPER

In the Reading "The Noble Feat of Nike," a piece by Johan Norberg he argues that the expansion and reach of nike into foreign countries such as Vietnam is a good thing he explains that now they have double the wages they would have on a farm, double the jobs available, healthcare for the workers and bicycles to ride to work. But Johan has missed many large concepts that are very important and devastating to the Globe. First off he didn't mention that vietnam has very poor air quality and as a factory zone, like in a piece by Naomi Klein, she mentions that factory zones are independent of local and state law. So air and land quality is completely devastated. Also, like in Jamaica, as presented by a piece by Dicken, the reason people can't farm and make money is because of globalization and the opening of borders, so like in jamaica, where the banana was once the number one export, now they have to compete with world established business and the WTO with Chicueta. Johan also forgets to mention that according to the HDI, the vietnamese HDI is below the world average of .68, vietnam is .59, one of the WORLDS LOWEST HDI's below the Average in Asia as well.

What is Our Limit???

"The Problem with us is not only prodigal extravagance but also an assumed limitlessness," says Wendell Berry in his article Faustian Economics. When you buy something, you feel good about yourself, and as you grow up, you here that happiness and love are limitless. From a completely neuro-science point of view, happiness and love are simply neural stimulation in the brain that causes the release of morphine in our brain to create a 'good feeling.' Therefore, our consumption is a drug, a replacement for real social encounters, releasing morphine into our brain and my point is that we feel like we can buy everything. Or moreso, we feel like we can buy just "one more thing," each time. We over-consume because a new thing makes us feel good and that feeling makes us want it more and our purchasing becomes limitless. If we continue these habit however, the movie, claims that we will begin to trully realize our waste and loss of resources by the year 2070. have we gone too far. are we there yet?

This song explains a lot about the madness that advertisments and commodity culture can bring.....

Advertisements.

"The Artistic Qualities of an advertisement are not nearly as important as the ability of the advertisement to get attention and to drive home a selling point," says John Caples in "Layouts and Illustrations." Professional Film Critic Anandi Ramamurphy says that "Advertisements....are imbued with human characteristically." And although i agree with both of these statements, that ads are no longer a simple image on a page; that they are in fact a almost living breathing and talking selling point for an argument, I don't agree that they are a as manipulative and shaping as critics have subjected them too. As in many struggles, i believe their is an equilibrium to this commodity madness; yes, their are the extremists who manipulate and the passivist who get walked on, but if people simply payed attention and took control of their consumption, this consumer lifestyle could be a healthy way of finally breaking barriers between majorities and minorities.

"There's a War Going on for Your Mind." Flobots

Is this what our world has made?From birth, ads are everywhere, we are surrounded by ads from Nike, Mcdonalds, Burger King, and so many more. Even when writing this blog, Mcdonalds was spell checked because these business' have become house-hold names in our society. In Making Connnections, Anthony Greene claims that our brains are not independent, they are actually subjective, he says they are "like a web of connections between people and things." Our minds are subjective because our memory functions as a connection between another thing. This is why these business' have become so engraved in our culture. From the time i was little i remember my mom bringing home mcdonalds for dinner, i loved the toy, i loved the fries and the most memorable was the family that i was with. My mind is subjective to all the restaurants i've been too because of who i was with and the enjoyment i got out of it. Advertisments have become the lure now, they do not force us or manipulate what already exists. I know i like these foods, i probably shouldn't eat them but the remind me of a simpler time, something everyone is nostalgic about. In "Madison Avenue and Your Brain," Blakeslee says that because of a part of our brain, our nucleus accumbens "helps animals to form pleasure related mental associations." This is our lure, our brain that makes the connection between the food and the outside.

Is There An I in Me?

Author Uwe Herwig in her scientific article, "Me Myself and I," explains that, "We begin to establish a sense of self shortly after birth. From three to five months old, babies start to gain control over their movements; they recognize themselves in the mirror at about 18 months; they grasp concepts such as “I” and “mine” at about age two; and they readily describe their own feelings at about three years old. Once children reach elementary school, they make friends and begin to draw comparisons, which further inform their self-image. Teens and young adults continue to expand their personal identities as they practice progressively nuanced social skills." She expresses the idea that as we grow older we finally begin to develop a sense of self and of who we truly are. This idea we take for granted is later compared to the ideology and feelings of people with mental disorders, such as Mrs. K and Mr. M who have different diseases, depression and mania, that distract and harm their identity as one complete self. We need this healthy idea of a singular person to be stable throughout our days, this mindfulness, this oneness that is needed to be an active member of postmodern society. Anderson in his piece says that, "stable societies need stable people," therefore, the only way to have stable society is by having people that see themselves as an individual, contradicting Andersons later thought on a multiphrenic self that has multifaceted personalities. One way society promotes this singular self, even a singular body of people is through things like religion. Everyone needs to be on the same page and aware of the same things that everyone else is on to provide a stable community. From the body to the globe, on the inside, to the rest of the world, we must be on the same page in order to have a healthy, functioning world.