Ah – men!
S P E C
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T R U M S P E C T R U M S P E C T R U M
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Wazza’s
Trans-Tasman tales (cont.)
Trans-Tasman tales (cont.)
Furthermore, if we look
at all this existentially we see a preponderance of individuals eking
out their lives in tenuous ‘meaningless jobs’ to afford
the mostly unnecessary products and services whose purchase is driven
by competitive conspicuous consumption towards a monstrously rising
debt-mountain. And do we balance this menial material existence culturally?
No, we watch violent fantasy movies, bare-knuckled fights, mindlessly
moronic participant tv shows on relationships/cooking/home improvement.
Even news programmes are now unashamedly tainment-info.
I’m very conscious of this sounding awfully like a diatribe,
but in my defence I’ll turn to José Saramago, Nobel Prize
winner and staunch defender of humanity and its culture. This is what
he wrote in his 2009 book The Notebook: “Every day species
of plants and animals are disappearing, along with languages and professions.
The rich get richer and the poor always get poorer…. Ignorance
is expanding in a truly terrifying manner. Nowadays we have an acute
crisis in the distribution of wealth. Mineral exploration has reached
diabolical proportions. Multinationals dominate the world. I don’t
know whether shadows or images are screening reality from us….What
is already clear is that we have lost our critical capacity to analyse
what is happening in the world. We seem to be locked inside Plato’s
cave. We have jettisoned our responsibility for thought and action.
We have turned ourselves into inert beings incapable of the sense
of outrage, the refusal to conform, the capacity to protest, that
were such strong features of our recent past. We are reaching the
end of civilization and I don’t welcome its final trumpet. In
my opinion, neoliberalism is a new form of totalitarianism disguised
as democracy, of which it retains almost nothing but a semblance.
The shopping mall is the symbol of our times.”
Saragamo wrote this almost a decade ago and everything he noted
then continues to crash even further towards catastrophe – aside
from the shopping mall – which is being rapidly ousted by Amazon.com.
He was an atheist.
at all this existentially we see a preponderance of individuals eking
out their lives in tenuous ‘meaningless jobs’ to afford
the mostly unnecessary products and services whose purchase is driven
by competitive conspicuous consumption towards a monstrously rising
debt-mountain. And do we balance this menial material existence culturally?
No, we watch violent fantasy movies, bare-knuckled fights, mindlessly
moronic participant tv shows on relationships/cooking/home improvement.
Even news programmes are now unashamedly tainment-info.
I’m very conscious of this sounding awfully like a diatribe,
but in my defence I’ll turn to José Saramago, Nobel Prize
winner and staunch defender of humanity and its culture. This is what
he wrote in his 2009 book The Notebook: “Every day species
of plants and animals are disappearing, along with languages and professions.
The rich get richer and the poor always get poorer…. Ignorance
is expanding in a truly terrifying manner. Nowadays we have an acute
crisis in the distribution of wealth. Mineral exploration has reached
diabolical proportions. Multinationals dominate the world. I don’t
know whether shadows or images are screening reality from us….What
is already clear is that we have lost our critical capacity to analyse
what is happening in the world. We seem to be locked inside Plato’s
cave. We have jettisoned our responsibility for thought and action.
We have turned ourselves into inert beings incapable of the sense
of outrage, the refusal to conform, the capacity to protest, that
were such strong features of our recent past. We are reaching the
end of civilization and I don’t welcome its final trumpet. In
my opinion, neoliberalism is a new form of totalitarianism disguised
as democracy, of which it retains almost nothing but a semblance.
The shopping mall is the symbol of our times.”
Saragamo wrote this almost a decade ago and everything he noted
then continues to crash even further towards catastrophe – aside
from the shopping mall – which is being rapidly ousted by Amazon.com.
He was an atheist.
* ‘Under his eye’ is the catchphrase from The
Handmaids Tale that reinforces the omnipresent male surveillance
of all women.
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I K E R U D D B I L L P U T T . C O MM M
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M I K E R U D D
I K E R U D D B I L L P U T T . C O MM M
I K E R U D D B I L L P U T T . C O MM
M I K E R U D D B I L L P U T T . C O MM
M I K E R U D D