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by Micheal Sunanda
efn.org/~ecozma/sunergy
“Media Is the Massage” & “Medium is the Massage”, - McLuhan clichés means the technology controls us with hypnotic messages from past = ‘rear view mirrorism’ = living in the past icons. So lets analyze how mass media makes culture addicts unaware of present moments, causes & effects, awareness of creative needs to emote, relax, open up, share, argue, tease, trust & test to cooperate here now.
These 3 McLuhan (Mic clue in) cliches tease us how media controls populations since print began to freeze language with culture wars Church Vs Luther’s new Bible Vs Catholics who then printed their version, but in Latin only priests could read. McLuhan explains how all mass-media influences, invades & molds our experience by extending our nervous systems & amputating natural abilities buy depending on technology. All media smothers, uses & forget the damage to sell better or cheaper versions of new & improved, sexy, clean & fast. So ads are factory-made art to convince us attracting more subconscious that conscious. Now many YouTube videos show McLuhan describing pop media functions with jokes about lame politicians “corporate & private” ego styles of talking empty jive.
McLuhan’s challenging advertizing psychology, politics & education are brainwashing, with some pop-drama movies to illustrate how our ‘conditioned reflexes’ from programs & just watching, reading or talking thru electronics. News & ads give us or expose problems they will solve, prevent or save us time & money. The sensory impacts of images & sounds replace natural feelings & needs of viewers, motivated to want, buy, use & own goodies. TV became the 3rd parent of post WW2 ‘baby boomer’ generation of electric zombie fun. We think, it doesn’t effect us? Ha! George Carlin used media to trash it. We use it for politics & education, still printing to save forests, animals & pure waters.
We chop down forests & mass media chops up our attention of space, nature, long & short-term memory, so we only respond with programmed clichés to by taste & fun. Even rebelling is sold since 1800s Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn, legends of pilgrims, pioneers, US Revolution, civil war, & cowboys, now crime shows, Bond & sexy pop stars & gorgeous escape models to copy?
Mass- media is creating “Culture in our Business – War Equals Education, Violence is the Quest for Identity” - clichés become archetypes of believers - McLuhan, ‘70.
He asserts no judgment, critique or position about the effects of mass media, just a reporter, describing how it works on our nerves & subconscious for new desires & taste. Madison Ave ‘ad men’ run global-industry of culture-splash for cash, pushing attraction to better fantasy for buying taste, approval & status of dirty or poor folks.
In Calcutta, India, I saw 10 poor folks ina small room watching TV for entertainment. They were too uptite to play, the adults just talked & watched kids play in dirt & trees.
Public schools & universities are another media industry of big business now enforced by state pushing big science & empire history, language & competing in sports for fun.
TV is a third parent & now cell phone connect talking heads who rarely touch each other.
All this speeds up living faster, growing up to be adults or escape them dominating? Pop illusions of freedom watching, listening & owning technology made 1000 miles away dumping vast pollution into – air, land, water & food – > ‘delusion is the solution to pollution’ – hiding toxic waste invisible to media addicts zapping ourselves, with cell phone microwaves also numbing brains.
Natural is simple, free, healthy & beautiful! We don’t see or care that all our using paper, cardboard & wood are killing forests. So we won’t stop total logging until we reduce consuming them for cleaning, reading, over-building & packaging.
McLuhan’s inspiration of art as rebelling conscious art was “Finnegan’s Wake” from James Joyce – no-one seemed to understand his stream of consciousness in 20th C. The multi meanings, paradox, contradictions, pun, jokes & absurd ways neurotic people act & think in Wake is so alien to western private & public ego styles, like absurd comedy: Jonathan Winters, early Robin Williams, George Carlin, Lilly Tomlin, & others now? The novelty effect of attraction works to sell crap to bored people seeking new sensations, images or trips for pleasure, not massaging each other in bed or water. So we miss wild nature form crib to play pen to TV to school & clean vacations, or just watch cute animals on TV channels? Once a year camping in a campground?
The best movie, TV & ad-makers know people crave better & faster RC power, because we’re amputated by play-pens then ‘prison desks’ in school ‘day jails’ 10-15 years. Growing up fast to be an adult, getting grade & respect, for good ‘wage-slave job or manager’. Ones career is destiny to prove oneself values & rent a techno box home to escape the rat race soft consuming daze. The ‘culture war’ losers become clerks in depts. & happy-shoppers in debt, pop addicts, pro slacking fans, military, criminals or cops. Now no-one has true civil rights, too depressed, sad, busy or rich to care o r admit how big business runs government – ‘corporate socialism’ – R. Nader.
So how can we desire, need nature or remember years of media thrills now to digging up told emotions & fears buried in childhood, school, games & competing to grow up like parents expected. They gave us 100s of reasons for every fear, jobs, clean up, work hard, plan good, be nice or smart, smile for approval & learn adult real world, with enuf rewards to distract us from wild nature, ‘bad’ drugs or sex taboos like crimes.
Our sensory awareness were media zapped to watch, want & bond with brands. All designed to make us nice & polite, predictable & work for credit, ego reputation &
Job-skills we can work-sell for better life. We know war is good for business, fears & wanna be heroes to kill the enemies of rich.
“Rearview Mirrorism’ & Living in the past – story telling as defense or new potential fro winning, escape or sexy thrills?
McLuhan call it Bonanza-land TV heads, or Disneyland of fantasy fun, 1000 name for studio reality to buy media hits. TV & movies are 4-D marketing 2-D images, that move & plus sound = 4-D, more fun, safe & exciting than parents, school & neighbors? Fiction, new & documentaries blend together for viewers, plus hot interactive computers all hypnotizing indoors, no touching friends or dirty nature?
Past-media replaces our body impulses to explore, feel, learn, share & cooperate with our real human nature here now. So our primal instincts are banned from hospital birth & baby bottles, cribs & playpens, baby carts & car seats. We think that doesn’t effect us now, we’re older & smarter, shy & adultish. But since 1970s the hippy revolutions of natural home birth, bonding & breast-feeding are still a secret to 90% of Americans, tho more common in Europe, Asia, Africa & island cultures, Japan I don’t know.
So soft-porno can sell anything you want to have. Because we didn’t bond with mother from natural home-birth & baby bottles like sweet drinks & sucking smoke, I did for 10 years growing up more stupid till 25 years old.
Then I began searching, feeling & mediating to learn what I missed the first 25 year in fears of people & nature. There’s 100s of addicting drugs for pain, safety, sickness or stimulants fun now forgetting our childhood needs & dreams still inside depressed sensitive inner child magic spirit of trusting Mother Nature, curiosity & learning how universe works free from fears & craving?
Many of us are growing more aware, natural, flexible, sensitive, open, deeper & more creative than allowed in school, jobs or public ‘disturbing the peace?’ Even if we play free in park, dark, yard, hotub or wilderness, we don’t have civil rights in cities, except to watch pop media stars to thrill, maybe laff, scream, dance or copy how they’re newage idols of kids lost from childhood joys? However we now forget we forgot our childhood experiences before?
Big business began taking kids away form families during industrial revolution to work in factories, schools & sweat shops, like now in poor nations. Even the word “country” now means “nation” not “natures country” - we have to buy to protect form industry in nature preserves? But all our consuming resources keeps us extracting them for goodies – see The Story of Stuff’ 20 min video on You-Tube explains in charming & alarming ways how we’re extracting, consuming energy of natures gifts thru factories, mass transit, advertizing, polluting & waste, etc. Our industrial culture is all chopped into specialized depts with professional experts we need to sell & fix our technology. “Stuff” exposes how whole consumer economy constantly works thru 6 stages from “Extraction to Disposal & Alternatives” are growing faster now with depressing war economy of failed dreams, mortgages, dept & corrupt bankers, politicians & corp heads.
Also shocking is the 100s of addicting things we make to sell & buy, for profits, taxes & crimes like ‘anti drug wars’ & monopoly against HEMP & marijuana by 10 US industries in 1937, when Hitler was rising fast. He was first mass radio leader with soft FDR & charming Reagan, another media cartoon. Did you get sucked into politics of conflicts of: Right/left, lib/con, red/blue, green/war, vegan/meat, cars/bikes, drugs/religion, TV or cards? Media still surrounds us, being creative or addicted, we need what sources of experience now?
We have 100 movements now crating our Eco-Cultures of green living with Nature at home or on vacations & spendy Eco-tourism. 1000s of us got foreign to see taste & learn how natives live with or without TV dominating life with money games. So how can we clear up our deep & long term memory & natural feeling needs now to learn creative patterns, emotions & real trusting friendships cooperating more than competing in human race for goodies? The spirit of natural free-dom is always calling us form within our hearts & guts. There’s a dozen needs now we can volunteer to learn, enjoy helping out with local democratic life cooperating together.
But we learned to feed our heads with fantasies & sweets growing up. Now can we reverse the hypnotic school & media trends into growing younger here now, without the past props sucking & pushing into culture wars against real freedom, Mother Nature & our instincts still denied by big science? Leaving our ‘couch potatoe’ fears & cute social-roles behind, risking our body adventuring in nature, biking around, feeling rain, voluntary helping people, animals & lifelong learning, creating new waves of loving, art & growing food not lawns with awareness is so healthy – youthing for free.
Mass media is big brother, dumb heads, or our local made reality exposing & teasing, playing or reporting on creative potentials. We can influence any movements even using media for democracy, cooperating & creating waves of beauty, equality & efficiency reversing old trends. How about a open hearted local community brainstorm on how we need to live creating democratic groups to fill our needs with awareness of how energy flow thru our bioregions toward balancing we are using.
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