simulacra, precautionary principle, projection and imagination

also, the connection between chaos theory and pomo

politicians presenting visions of complex multi-national terrorist organizations with ample resources as a serious threat to american democracy and instilling fear in the public stems from them not having anything to offer us, anything to stand for. so they create this perceived threat as a basis for their actions, for their existence.
the precautionary principle says that if there is an idea of a threat, but no actual evidence for it, you must take action to prevent the possibility of it. meaning that your guiding principles for action are based on nothing. an idea. a perception of society.
this i believe is linked with:
people having increased outlets for self promotion and identity creation means that they concentrate on creating this presentation of themselves to society, and people make judgements based on this public persona that has been so carefully constructed, and that has many outlets of formation, such as facebook, blogs, etc. anyways, this self is wholly monitored, yet these venues substantially contribute to people's perceptions of others.
this is an updated (hardly) version of baudrillard's simulation and simulacra, the idea that we have replaced all of reality with symbols and signes, which i used to take as a reduction- such as entire institutions being reduced to a swoosh- and having all its implications within that sign.
but now i interpret it as a trick of shadows- that there is no basis in reality besides one that we construct, which becomes what we perceive as reality and base our actions on- so it actually gains importance, but has no foundation besides a wholly created one.
which at the same time give us a LOT of freedom. it means that we can create any kind of illusion and if we promote it as truth enough, it will set off a chain of reactions.
if art used to be the creation of illusion, and what we do in life is now a creation of illusion, what purpose does art serve?

the culminating ideas from today's information

1. podcast on free in digital economy
2. lunch with david
a. decline of the american empire. america is a society in which the rich are protected- fannie mae and freddie mac- the shareholders make the profit when the company is doing well, but when they fail, it is the taxpayers that take the burden.
3. lecture and film on gangs and mercenaries and maquilas in honduras
a. rejection of any value placed on aesthetics or theory.
4. podcast on mill's on liberty
a. we cannot conform to society's expectations of us. we have be able to grow to our fullest capacity. we have to allow our opinions to change. we cannot live in fear of what

resulting idea: no fear.
so: keep a journal chronicling instances in which you experience fear or submission.

fear is the leading tactic that allows for control and submission. the prisoner's dilemma and dawkins' the selfish gene illustrate and helped form the idea of an individualistic and inwardly oriented society. corporations depend on personal information so that they can create products that target you and can better manipulate your desires and habits. the more information they have on your habits, the more they can control. now we have increased channels for self expression (me-generation: facebook, myspace, twitter) and this egotistical desire to share you with the world results in you being more exposed and more vulnerable.
the idea of no fear. if we all lived with no fear, would that in turn create a society of fear?- because there are fearless people- and those are the ones you should fear. or should no fear not be expressed in terms of aggression, but in terms of trust? and do we not create trust by making ourselves vulnerable? so by opening ourselves up, we are creating a more communal, trusting, free society. no self-imposed restriction of expression.
or is that a myth that makes us want to expose ourselves, by saying that we have the freedom of self expression, it is after all, the very first amendment, but is freedom to expose yourself any real freedom at all? is it an illusion of freedom created by corporations that want to stay in control of you? then again, corporation are becoming more transparent as well, by having open platforms where any person can have access to their information (or so it seems- it is selective- but maintains the illusion that everyone is open, and allows the consumer to feel like he can express himself ) but they benefit the most from these initiatives.
so living in no fear does not necessarily mean that you are constantly voicing your opinions, it means that your actions are not

so: keep a journal chronicling instances in which you experience fear or submission.

on another note:
isn't it crazy that we live in a society where we CONSTANTLY have to self regulate??!?!?
we are so overloaded with options- in terms of food, in terms of pleasure, in terms of indulgence.
everything is so widely available that we have to self impose restraint where our (natural?) impulse is to consume and take and hoard.
this creates stress and anxiety because we have to always be resisting our urges.
we create these ridiculous regulations because they aren't external and there is no implicit basis for them. such as the cayenne-maple syrup- lemonade fast. where we create the boundaries for ourselves that often are too rigid in response to the boundlessness of options- we take the other extreme. like mary-kate olsen who has too much money and success from such an early age that she creates ridiculous guidlines for herself when ordering a cappuccino.
maybe it is the launching point for obsessive compulsive disorder. trying to find (but really, create for yourself) the underlying order amidst the overflow of an increasingly complex web of society and options and indecision.

so, in the sense that we are still evolving- are the self-restricting individuals the future? it already seems that the individualistic individual is the present, which is a product of society, but who creates society other than individuals?

tibetan buddhism, modern science and borges

So I'm reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and it keeps talking about impermanence, how everything is always in flux, nothing is constant, there is no essential. So far, I am in agreement with this, even down to our cells that are constantly dying and being born. My issue is that they also believe in the reincarnation of the soul. But this would mean that we have an essential soul that remains throughout our various incarnations, which would seem to contradict the idea that nothing is lasting. Unless he is talking merely about material things not lasting, but what is immaterial other than the soul? Why would the soul be the only exception? It seems like a way out of dealing with the fact that nothing is lasting, truly. It is sort of a cop out to say that nothing is lasting, besides our essential selves, because we do no actually care of anything other than ourselves is lasting. We just want to be permanent.
So I have thought of a way of reconciling with this idea of change and lasting forever, and as a way to connect Tibetan Buddhism with the idea of modern science that we die and that is it. It has to do with biology and the cycle of life. When we die, our bodies decay, and become part of the dirt. The worms eat the dirt, and while most of it is shat out and becomes the dirt once again, some of it stays with the worm once it gets eaten by a bird, and so on through the process of eating it ascends in the life cycle, and a piece of you is once again part of life. Maybe this is a materialistic way of viewing the concept though, a way to make it tangible to me, a Western thinker. So the higher up you get in the food chain, the more of the smaller animals you have, and the wider variety of different past animals. Through this we remain part of this material world, spread out through many animals, all at different stages.
This connects to Borges' idea that All is One, in that we are all made up of each other and remain within each other and are all made up of the same essential substances and are simply different manifestations of what is the same thing. This is also evident to me in ideas- that whenever I digest a new concept, I find that I am able to apply it to everything I have learned before, implying that everything is somehow part of one single idea.
Such as the concept of infinity that I was unable to grasp. I cannot imagine how there is a single number that is never ending, I figured it was only a matter of perspective, that we were too close to be able to see the end of it. Then when I learned about impermanence, I began to think that the only way for a number to be infinite is if it is constantly changing, unstable so that it cannot be determined, rather than a single constant tangible number.

i think its very curious the timing of environmental awareness
in america, it came at a time when our supply of oil was low, and people whose high-paying jobs depend on the availability of oil began to get worried because at the rate that america was consuming oil, we would run out, and their businesses would fail.
so they created a movement that was brilliantly marketed, and served their purposes.
it served their purposes because with people being conservationist, it made companies' limited oil supplies last longer- and they can stay in business longer- we played right into their hands.
they made it seem as a reactionary thing, a liberal thing, a hip young thing- branded as new and innovative and conscientious
so that if you participated it in, you are educated and aware- something that people strive to be- as we are aspirational.
it actually created a new market whereas in theory it should have slowed down business because people would not be consuming as much, but now we have many many new companies touting their environmentally-friendly wares.
companies like whole foods, much like jewish mothers and religion, use guilt to attract and keep their consumers, and it is, after all, a business. like their reusable salad bowls, where you get 15 cents off if you use it, is marketed as something that they are doing because they are concerned about the environment, but actually it is just logical that you get 15 cents off because the bowl weighs more.
the entire movement plays at our guilt- our guilt for being on this planet and that we have to pay back for our space here- we can't get anything that is undeserved- but this is a purely human notion, a social construction that has persisted through time, dating back to the church's money collection.
so has paying back guilt always been monetary-based? is guilt a notion created by business to keep themselves relevant? what would our society be like with no guilt?
we also use guilt to keep ourselves in line, which follows the excuse idea, that we need to create excuses to do anything that is not in line with social constructions to assuage our guilt. but there is in fact no inherent reason for us to feel guilty- it is a way to control ourselves. so who is doing the controlling? is it just a notion that has been passed down through time and is adapted into current trends so that they persist?

oh dear it's been so long

and i wanted to make this a quasi-daily thing.
okay, so three topic:
our use of excuses serving as a reason to break free from socially constructed norms- drinking- our desires and how they conflict with society- freud-we have to justify our actions, even to ourselves,

how everything is a business- banks, the government-they create reasons for themselves to exist and expand and we have to keep adapting

ways in which our society is becoming less collective- dates back to the creation of paper money rather than bartering- standardizes and isolates- so does technology and the increased personalization of our lives- tivo, ipod, since we can indulge our desires so easily, we do not have to compromise- which eliminates working with other people and creating relationships- we are self-sufficient and do not have to rely on other people for favors, so the need (excuse) for building relationships disappears

the ways in which people use religion- security, obviously, not only in life but in death- so that it is not unknown- create a story for us to believe in.

instincts are social constructions- like in art, saying I don't know, I just felt like it- but it is a result of external influences. what about animals' instincts?

A Pathetic Generation

So I started wondering about the next revolution, what it would be like, and what we have to revolt against. As the government has increasingly less power, and it becomes evident that they are controlled by big guns with money, who can buy them out so that the law suits their will, not that this is anything new, but I have become more aware of it, and I don't know if that's because of external (it is more evident to everyone) or internal (I'm learning more about it) factors.
Anyway, since the era of big government is over, the people seem to think that they have more freedom. They can dress the way they want, they can travel to (almost) wherever they want, and associate with whomever they want. But in fact, we are no more free than we have ever been because rather than being controlled by an entity like the government, that we could join forces and rebel against, we have vastly increased our self-control. This has come about through isolating the individual (so that we think selfishly- game theory) and through standardizations of what it is to be normal (psychotherapy and so-called experts). We now express our perceived freedom through our consumer choices, and feel the need to consume to fill our empty selves that have less community ties. This freedom through consumption has pacified the public so that they do not feel the need to revolt against any entity, and the availability and choice of consumer goods has increased our ability to ignore the real world. What Orwell got wrong is that it's not the government that will control us, it's the CEOs of companies like Clear Channel and Viacom that have the most (money, and therefore) power. There is increased distance to where our products actually come from (sweatshops) and to the effects our behavior is having on the world (pollution of third world contries so that they have no clean drinking water) so it becomes easier to ignore. The companies give us a limited option of goods to choose from, and because of these options we think we are free. Our society is largely free from class distinctions and the way a certain type of person has to act (the poor have the freedom to move up in society and we would accept it- but even though they have this freedom, we do nothing to encourage it). We have outlets for rebellion, like being emo or hippie, but it's controlled in self-expression- we think we can be whomever we want to be and that's enough.
So, what do we have to do to rile up this apathetic generation that looks the other way and is contented with listening to angry music rather than actually getting angry?

relational society

what i have observed that people really want is to relate to each other. so we build all these increasingly complex channels to do so, such as cell phones, emails and such, (creating a wider network) and mediums such as fashion, trendy books that we all adhere to so as to have common ground. we want to relate to each other to build relationships. the widening network allows us to be pickier about the relationships we build, but maybe it sets our expectations too high about what's out there and we become frustrated.
people critsize globalization for creating a homogenous society. saying its a negative thing. but if our goal is to relate to one another, and we do this by having things in common, why wouldnt we want a homogenous society? arent we on our way to achieving what we want?
we are becoming more homogenous: we are interbreeding and looking more like one another. doesnt darwin encourage diversity? is this what drives us to be individuals? where did individualism emerge from?