<nettime> Re: terrific post / cranky's cabin digest [Mandl, Elloi]

["nettime's_senior_bastard" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

   Re: <nettime> terrific post from slashdot ...                                   
     David Mandl <dmandl@panix.com>                                                  

   Re: <nettime> cranky's cabin digest [rosler lukens taiuti assange irving]       
     Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@yahoo.com>                                          



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Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 10:25:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Mandl <dmandl@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> terrific post from slashdot ...

On Sun, 9 Jun 2002, Drazen Pantic wrote:

> Am I the only young person who notices that the only people who
> express their dissent at stupid things in this world today are old?

I don't agree.  For one thing, I see plenty of radical political stuff
from young people here on Nettime.  But I'll say this: One important
tactic that The Man uses is to try to effect paradigm shifts by
conditioning new generations of people to accept the unacceptable.
This is relatively easy to do to people who don't remember that things
used to be different simply because they weren't alive yet.

There are lots of examples of this: Food gets worse and worse and
worse, and no one remembers what real food tastes like.  (There's the
well-known fact that there used to be dozens of varieties of apples in
the U.S. and now there are three.  And there's a famous quote from a
"food scientist" saying that the artificial-flavoring companies can
define "cherry" taste because soon no one will remember what the real
thing tasted like.)  Another big problem is consumer rights/customer
service.  The number of people who remember calling a company and
getting someone on the phone right away gets smaller and smaller.
Eventually no one alive will remember that things were ever different.
It's just "always been that way."  Huge paradigm shift.

Similarly, when there are advertisements plastered on everything and
everybody in the world, some older people will grouse about it, but
the growing population of younger people will (in theory) be
desensitized because that's the way the world has "always" been.  And
the media will try to breed new generations to think it's cool.

This was a very important element of Stalinism as portrayed in "Animal
Farm."  All the pigs had to do was keep the strong, intelligent, older
generation from disturbing things just long enough till they were dead
(or brought to the glue factory), and then they were home free with a
new generation that were raised as slaves.  I don't necessarily think
that's going to happen now, but I do think it's really important for
young people to be aware of the tremendous changes being slipped
through--in the U.S., the suspension of the Bill of Rights,
destruction of the food chain, etc.  Will kids born in 2002 grow up
thinking that "of course" Arabs shouldn't have the same rights as
everyone else?

   --Dave.

- --
Dave Mandl
dmandl@panix.com
davem@wfmu.org
http://www.wfmu.org/~davem



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Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 13:28:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> cranky's cabin digest [rosler lukens taiuti assange irving]

> Bowie addresses also indidicate that the rock star is about as
> significant now the horse and buggy were in the 1950s. In a world where
> any bastard with a firewire port and the inclination can be a pop-idol,
> who gives a fuck about interviewing a pop idol? What happens when
> celebrity is disconnected from $?, and will $ be all about celebrity and
> not about units sold, or will something we dont expect happen? Stay
> (de)tuned.

Maybe there is a limited "celebrity space" in our brains, so each can consume
maybe 5-10-20 celebrities of assorted flavours ? So then there is a fierce
competition between various (con) artists, government thugs and other
intellectuals to enter your celebrity space. So globalisation *reduces* total
number of celebrities, and I finally realise now why many free-speech
pro-freedom open-source anti-war celebrities oppose globalisation - they are
being squeezed out.



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