Summer Message - 2015

For many the internet's wholesale consumation of critical consciousness means invariably an increasingly 'perceived as received' world.

This should not be the case.

More now than ever, one should be 'en guard' about the effect of content, and critically, conscious interaction versus subordinated action-reaction coalescence.

It is understood that our everyday environment has subtly, incrementally yet powerfully altered over the last two decades. And as the accompanying diagram illustrates, with it has also come a dramatic social shift; as the overtly 'Fabricated' Post-Modern in nearly all aspects of life swallows Enlightenment Period 'Rationalism', its analysis and critical understanding.

Obviously, the internet is the new global religion, the opium of the masses, whereby McLuhan's words regards the very medium having become the defining message.

Yet that not so subtly changed mass consciousness, together with decay of the once estimable 'Grande Narratives', also open the doors to often invisible yet increasing social manipulation.

It is an age in which, whatever your personal viewpoint, increasing social liberalism is seen to be happening (eg LGBT, body modification etc) but also where adopted trends can lead ever further down a dangerous path if one leads an unexamined life.

Of prime influence is the orgiastic proliferation of pornography, the once fringe now bordering mainstream.

Recently a British TV show sought the UK's adoption of a 1970s Dutch sex education mentality - to balance sex with respect and love - very good and well, but today older children and young adults can access a myriad of overtly fetishised tumblr images and video born from global production sources. What was once the preserve and output of California's San Fernando Valley's pornographers, is today replicated by far more young and old amateurs than professionals. Thus sex itself has become hyper-real and commoditised, whereby respect and love appear almost anachronistic.
     
But more concerning for the teenage demographic is where trends can end?

A young person's obsession with trendy body embelishement (large tattoos and piercings) may lead to new fascination for (badly conducted) BDSM , when post-thrash bruisings are seen to be badges of honour akin to large artistic abstract tattoos.

Obviously, the real dangers of such possible avenues are psychological.

To have been intentionally manipulated and truly 'mind-f**ked' over a long period is an abhorent experience; far worse than the psycho-physical damage of momentary physical assault (rape and otherwise).

Unfortunately, with this substantial re-alignment of boundaries across the personal and mass consciousness, comes an increase in the disingenuous fabrication of 'reality' for advantage; monetary, material or otherwise.

It ranges from the overtly biased re-writing of open-source Wikipedia entries (in the Orwellian manner of Winston Smith) so as to favour certain 'his-stories', to the massive increase of con-artists' false official identification and documentation presented on the door-step; typically with aligned demands and threats.

Both young and old, and all between, must recognise just how much the everyday has shifted - and how possibly prone they are - as much has become far too hyper-real. This so both regards initial attraction to an opportunity or mind-set, and in the ongoing convincing and so sublimation.

Inside today's information age, the credible and incredible have blurred, so many now open to manipulation and abuse.

Whilst no person should be limited in their personal expression if it do no harm to others, it should also be recognised that the belief concepts and systems which held society together are being (seemingly intentionally) heavily eroded.

Be a trans-gender truck driver (of whichever sex) if you so wish, just do so being as aware and astute as Grayson Perry. But likewise a far liberal left will inevitably generate a counter-balance mentality amongst many - especially the older demographic - so there should likewise be social room for the opposing viewpoint. So, similarly become a member of what is presently deemed a 'far right' movement, but only if personal reason prevails.

Do what you believe is right for personal freedom or social stability, just do so without being brainwashed by those pushing specific social agendas on the net.

The man-made creations and possibilities of the web have indeed filtered down, to make the once virtual or very marginal increasingly mainstream, soaking into the physical world, to become an ever shifting, fragmented social milieu and palette.

Just don't be taken for a ride in this world of ever more new possibilities, generated by ever more 'pyscho-babble' issues and supposedly humanistic ideologies.

Think for yourself before being drawn-in.


[NB. All should recognise that those who do harm to others, through scheming, treachery and/or victimisation, will rightly and justifiably be hated].

Summer Respite

Today we live in a world where all but the most authentic of people unfortunately 'act' their way through everyday life, where Shakespeare's "world as a stage" has become ever more hyper-real, because of the detrimental influence of merged worlds: of 'idiot's TV', social media 'trolling' and  "hipster-consu[meme]rism".

Inside a frenetic world of layered visual and aural semiotics, programming much of humanity's own mass and personal consciousness, time must be made to metaphorically 'buzz-off' for much needed rest and recuperation.

Feed the pigeons, ducks and swans, stroke a dog or cat, look up to the sky and into the trees. Take precious moments for oneself, and stop adhering to the ridiculous, often meaningless, socialised diktats of modern life.

Envisage what was truly a slower time: the era of 'Drive-In' movie theaters on the outer fringes of suburbs, from Cherry Hill, New Jersey to Blacktown, New South Wales; and in a reversal of the idiom: the laden "magic-lantern" trucks of the mobile village cinemas, across India and beyond.

A time when the (silver) screen - Hollywood to Bollywood - relayed moral tales of respect and righteousness, honour and decency.

So for just a short while, stop, stare and muse at what might be termed the 'B-movie', 'flip-side' of life ...

...Thankfully still available 'off-line'.