.. Over the course of 'Culture Jammers R Us' we did several culture jamming actions. The two that stand out most were post-it jamming the underground and chalking Trafalgar Square.
The post-it action was simple. Create hundreds of small post-it sized pieces of paper with our messages to the world; messages that would 'wake' people up and shake them out of the hypnosis of everyday life. A4 pages from the books 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' and 'Nineteen Eighty Four' were also printed and stuck on the inside of carriage windows and doors.
The excerpt from Amusing Ourselves to Death was the beginning of chapter 11 called 'The Huxleyan Warning' and explained the two ways that culture can be diminished; either through a prison like culture of fear - as described by Orwell, or a burlesque culture of trivialisation as described by Huxley in 'A Brave New World'.
In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman writes:
"What Huxley teaches us in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainment, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk: culture death is a clear possibility."
Written in the 1970's Postman goes on to write about America's love affair with television. I remember a gentleman in a suit reading this between underground stops and pointing out that television was loosing its popularity.
However, it is easy to see how our new love affair has transferred to the internet. Facebook feeds are full of meaningless, trivial data, constantly refreshed with more meaningless trivial data until one can't remember what pointless click-bate article they read just 10 minutes ago - this happens to me anyway.*
When Postman talks about 'spiritual devastation' I don't think he means to refer to any religious context. Instead, perhaps Postman is talking about the spirit in each of us, the human spirit or the sense of aliveness that we have a small children. To have our spirit devastated is to become numb to the sense that we are living, creative and powerful beings. It is to have our mind numbed to the point where it is just too much effort to think outside of the parametres we've been indoctrinated in to. Dazzled by the headlights of the media we are kept occupied with the puppet shows of celebrity and politics. While at the same time, advertising keeps our minds firmly occupied on the problem of ourselves. There's no time to think about philosophy or alternative currency systems when one can't stop wondering about the fine lines appearing on ones forehead and just what to do about them...
*I was a late arrival to the Facebook party. I saw it as a tool to monitor and gather our personal information and thoughts and I didn't want any part of it. As Postman would agree, Big Brother doesn't need to watch if we are coerced into telling him all our secrets. I finally gave in in 2013 when I started a real world philosophy group and have been an addict ever since.
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