So I am taking this art class at Cerritos college and lets just say its not what i expected. After the first day it was obvious that we would not be doing any kind of art, we were to be lectured for three hours on the history of art and how to interpret it. I have to admit most of the class I zone out and end up making my own art on the pages of my notebook, but once we started talking about contemporary art and the actual meaning of it something in my brain clicked. Many of the ideas meant to be portrayed in these modern pieces echo the ideas of Postman and Huxley. Some of the most recent pieces branch off from the ideas started by these authors. For example one day the professor was lecturing on how commercials are brilliant pieces of art that are made to trigger all the delightful feelings the brain can experience. It reminded me of Postman's chapter on how commercials sabotage our minds. Then my professor went further to explain that we are so accustomed to these commercials, they have literally become guidelines for life. When we walk into a store and buy an item, we are not buying the object, but instead the image that having the object portrays, and that it where the vicious circle begins. Plus did you know that all of the decisions we make are based on our memories... On memories! How much do we actually remember? And how much of it is actually true?
Another idea that intrigued me was the notion that the actual definition of madness was not made up by capitalists, but strongly backed up by the capitalist ideologies. I mean everybody defines madness as crazy or weird, but then what exactly is crazy or weird? It is somewhat a circular definition. So say we define crazy and weird as some one that is not ordinary, but then there is so many different people that there is not one right definition of ordinary. So what did our government do with this ? It labeled mad people as people that are unproductive. Some one that doesn't produce anything in their life is seen as insane. Now you can't tell me that doesn't have capitalism written all over it. Furthermore, we are basically programmed to be terrified of these so called "mad" people. Just like Americans saw communism as some kind of fatal disease we now look at insanity as something to be feared and avoided.
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I agree with most of this Lilly. My only problem is where you say "someone that doesn't produce anything in their life is seen as insane". I disagree with “unproductive” meaning "insane", or mad. There are many people, especially in today’s economy, that have found themselves without jobs who aren’t insane, furthermore, children produce nothing, and yet again there is a difference between healthy and crazy. I would personally replace unproductive, with counter-productive. Counter-productivity is definitely something that we, as productive citizens, avoid. For instance, while we don't avoid the unemployed, we avoid those that ask us for hand-outs. The homeless are severely avoided by society as a whole and many are of the belief that they are insane, usually because they are on some sort of drug. I, personally, have no problem helping someone that I feel is trying to fix their situation, but refuse to give handouts. If I can tell that they are honestly trying to make some money, like offering to wash the car window, sell me a newspaper, etc, I will give the person what I can in a heartbeat. The productive give to society, the counter-productive take from it, and the unproductive are simply the grey in the middle of two extremes.
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