Fri 05 Jul 1996 21:16
here's the rest of the junk:
Mass Communication and the Individual
The theory of human existence:
We are at first animals, all animal, both as we come in to this world
as infants and as we come into this world as human.
The infant does not know she will die. The first human may have a
vague Idea of death.
Over time we have changed. We have become more aware of
ourselves.
This happend through communication.
We can learn more about ourselves and other people now than 50
years ago.
So what's your point.
We have gone from being animals to our current state of humanness
because of communication, and a good part of it mass
communication.
I will not discount life experience, but the monk would not have
achieved her level of enlightenment without a teacher, and perhaps
there has been something written down.
We can know about all lives and choose the one we think is best.
Are we also deluded by the same communication? The information
may not be correct, the attidudes based on more animal concerns.
What is wrong with being animal? Nothing. Once the aborigine hears
of the technology of another civilization, she may be curious. We will
be curious until we see our curiousness does us no good. We tend
towards a greater separation from nature with time and experience-
that is what makes us human. The more human human is aware of
this separateness, and she asks what she can do about it. She may
realize love, and maybe she is even able to love.
What general trends do we see over time?
We have become aware of the whole world, and of worlds beyond
our own. We have become aware that there are other cutltures with
views often different from our own. Maybe, I hope not too rarely we
have become able to question our own.
What is the trend over time? Larger and larger organizations of
people, bigger countries. Bigger trade unions, etc.
What is the trend over time? Sometimes we become aware of
injustices, and sometimes we do something about them. Blacks are
not treated as poorly in the U.S. as they once were. I have heard that
Apartheid has ended in South Africa. We are no longer as
discriminatory to homosexuals and women as we once were. People
might now be able to deviate a little in small town america and still
be accepted, though I doubt it.
Some people may be able to talk openly about sex, if not there is
more info about it than there once was.
We see that over time people have become more free to be
themselves, within certain confines. Perhaps there is a black in
America who considers herself human first, and perhaps then, black.
She no longer feels that she has to fight to be herself, to have the
opportunities that should be hers, she as herself, though, with both
'she' and 'black' in there this is unlikely.
Think of even the white male, poor oppressed creature that he is.
Once perhaps, maybe still, he was afraid that if he masturbated
strange things would happen to him. Once he would not have been
free to try out 50 different religions if he wanted to, without
persecution.
Over time humans in general have become aware of other peoples
and other cultures. Over time we have become more and more
aware of our insignificance as individuals. Over time humans in
general have become more and more tolerant, even accepting of
humans who appear different from themselves. Humans in general
have become less oppressed by intolerance.
Have we become oppressed in new ways? Yes, we can be
oppressed by our cars, and most people are. Owning an automobile
is often a huge reduction in quality life. A further confinement, rather
than a liberation. We are oppressed by having large amounts of stuff
we don't really need. We are oppressed because we pollute our
environment, reducing our health, and eliminating nice places and
nice experiences that often we can only dream about. We are
oppressed by the mass communication that has helped reduce our
oppression. There are few places we can go to be with other people.
There are few times when we are with ourselves. So often we are with
television instead of with another. When you drive a car and play the
radio, you are often with the radio and not yourself, or the people
around you. Our capacity to be with others has been reduced. While
the aborigine lives in close contact with her fellow tribeswomen, the
modern city dweller may live alone with her appliances, and maybe
a pet. Her interests and conversation are dictated by the media. She
is not with herself, she is not with others. She is a an attempt at
imitation of her faviorite movie stars and musicians. Maybe a real
person on occasion. And so is everyone she knows. She is not
herself, the others are not themselves. They are not individuals, they
can never really be together.
Consider the Christian. She accepts an Ideology as her own which
tells her to help others by sharing her belief in Jesus. She is not
sharing herself, and she cannot accept the nonbeliever. She cannot
love, she cannot be with others except perhaps those who believe.
The mechanism for all this is communication, and in our society,
filled with books, periodicals, televisions, radios, computers and
billboards, this communication is often mass communication. The big
organization to the individual. etc.
Clearly the good part of mass communication is a reduction in
human oppression, the increase in the individual's ability to be
herself, the increase in her ability to love. Clearly the bad part of
mass communication is an increase in oppression, the decrease of
an individual's ability to be herself, the decrease in her ability to love.
How many people are in this position, really? How many individuals
are not oppressed, or we could say liberated from the experience of
separateness, by the animal problem of survival? How many people
are starving, dying from curable diseases, dying from cigarettes,
fighting a war of survival? I am not one of those people, probably
neither are you. Although, how many people are discriminated
against for things they are, regardless of their thoughts? I expect they
are laughing at these ideas. This kind of thinking won't help them
unless you are the oppressor and open to change, or in a position to
help them fight their oppression. If they are hungry and you can
teach them how to feed themselves, whether it be by growing food
or making money, do. If they are troubled by disease and you can
cure them, or prevent worse, do. If you can work against
discrimination, the bad kind of discrimination.
That mass cmu can be bad and good established, it both helps and
hinders us being human, how can we best use it?
Does mass communication have any place in the life of the the most
human human?
I think you can ask yourselves does the image you present break or
reinforce stereotypes? Does the image you communicate
encourage oppression of any kind whether material, consumer,
environmental, or intoloerance.
For yourself though, How do you decide what mass communication
to consume and what to not? How do you choose it such that it helps
you be yourself, and not hurt you. Do you even choose at all?
I don't have much to say here, it seems my answer is, the individual,
the unoppressed individual does not need mass communication. The
unoppressed individual only needs other individuals to love. Stop
watching TV or movies, or listening to the radio, and be with me.
Is there a such thing as an unoppressed individual? I am oppressed
by my separateness. You all have friends who you do things with like
watch movies, and I guess you feel fine; you are not crying out like
me, you do not respond to my question.
So what is the point of this paper? I see it going no where. Mass
communication has helped us and hurt us. I have told you how it
helps us, I have told you how it hurts us, should I give you more
examples? Do I need to explain more? I don't think so.
Dear Hilary Karsz,
This is my idea for a paper. I would like to explain how civilization has
developed from animal to human because of communication.
I would like to discuss the purpose of mass communication in an
individual's life for the pupose of living. Quite honestly, there is none.
Issue: can a person live without reading one book, periodical,
without seeing television or hearing prerecorded music, and without
seeing reproductions of great art?
Yes, but is this desirable? This mass communication is produced by
people. Why should we not see it?
What is the problem with this idea?
it is not realistic- not the idea is to put mass communication in the
proper place in your life.
Personally, why am I drawn to mass communication? Because I
have a message that I believe will help a certain few who may pay
attention come free?
I don't know- they say that he who knows the tao feels no need to
talk about it.
I need the other people, I want someone to love me, I want them to
feel as I do. Mistake, I need to love them as they are not desire to
change them, else no better than an evangelist. What good does it
do for me to love them as they are? Only if they love you as you are.
I am so right, I do not see what the problem is.
Here, let me write the story.
I meet a girl even crazier than I, even more sane, but I cannot
imagine her. She wants to be with just as much as I do and we are,
we are crazy and loving, and we want to love the others too.
I imagine it working, I won't write it because I don't want a blueprint
followed not that she would.
Do we have an obligation to help those still oppressed? If we know of
them personally, sure. If it's some starving irishperson, a million miles
away whom I have never heard of, then no.
I see the oppression of those nearest me and I think I can help them.
I can guess I am all wrong, but this idea seems true to me.
I think I am being a little ridiculous. Why the fuck can't I enjoy going
to the movies like every other sap? Why can't I watch sports drink
beer fuck women etc. Cause I am right.
By right actions.
Position paper:
Mass cmu and individual:
How mass communication frees the individual.
awareness of human characteristics
awareness of other cultures
leads to tolerance, acceptance
acceptance of a person regardless of physical
characteristics
ability to love. (I think I'm doing something wrong
here)
awareness of individual insignificance but significance of
individuality
How mass communication oppresses the individual.
false ideas of happiness
reinforcing stereotypes, encouraging intolerance, violence
mass conformism
preventing human to human interaction
no ablity to love if cannot love the individual
Religion,
consider the Christian who speaks of love, but cannot
love the non believer. This Christian cannot love herself, her "God" or
anyone else
why/how mass communication should be used by the producer
(a system of ethics for mass communication.)
to further human understanding
to encourage individuality
etc.
why/how mass communication should be used by the reciever
(individual)
to help answer a question
question of self or others or science
to learn what others have thought and done before
you.
expand the possibilities for yourself.
not as escape/ diversion, Ideally- but whose life is Ideal. I will
read a novel for escape, but that is in place of action. If this were
ideal world I would do nothing but to love. If life were as I dream
would I still create? Damn, it seems not. I only do this because I am
insecure, only because I have something to say. I believe I would
always do this, but what if there were not this to do? I would be
loving and loved and what else is there to do? Can we really be with
just to be? There will always be a person to help, and I can only help
myself by helping them. I could practice meditaion. Loving is a full
time job, but I suppose I only create if I have something to share,
and I would while loving, but now, wanting change, I have more.
what better things could you be doing?
loving
creating
being
the individual as the greatest manifestation of society
greater than the greatest art, how to appreciate
no other way than being with her, sharing life.
Hell, I'm clueless.
What of the great mass communication
what of the "classics"
It is so beautiful it makes me cry
Mass communication as human experience, mass communication
as life.
Who decides what is great, who decides what you will hear.
Never overlook the individual.
even then, how great are the classics compared to the possibilities
of your own experience?
The classics are great only because of your own experience.
What of a world where we pay no attention but to our own artistic?
We will see those physically around us and love them.
Is there a one who does not want to be an artist?
Everyone is an artist by what they make of their lives.
The greats help us realize what we ourselves can do, and is good use
of mass cmu. There will always be a connoisseur who helps to bring
the best to us all.
Get the celestine prophecy and check the end.
The industry of self expression.
Or everyone a lover, and that doesn't take much.
Imagine the future of the web as this, perhaps.
o What would such a society be like
the industry of self expression
the world wide web (the matrix) vehicle for mass and
person to person communication.
loving
P 78 the art of loving
The only way in which the world can be grasped ultimately lies, not
in thought, but in the act, in the experience of oneness. Thus
paradoxical logic leads to the conclusion that the love of God is
neither the knowledge of God in thought, nor the thought of one's
love of God, but the act of experiencing the oneness with God.
This leads to the emphasis on the right way of living. All of life,
every little and every important action, is devoted to the knowledge
of God, but a knowledge not in right thought, but in right action.
This attitude had several other consequences. First of all, it led to the
tolerance which we find in Indian and Chinese religious
development. If the right thought is not the ultimate truth, and not the
way to salvation, there is no reason to fight others, whose thinking
has arrived at different formulations.
Secondly, the paradoxical standpoint has led to the emphasis on
transforming man, rather than to the development of dogma on one
hand, and science on the other. From the Indian, Chinese and
mystical (superstitious also) standpoints, the religious task of man is
not to think right, but to act right, and/ or to become one with the
One in the act of concentrated meditation.
The opposite is true for the main stream of Western thought.
.