Author Archives: mopepsupreme

Debate between Lawrence Lessig and Andrew Keen, as promised.

As well as,

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/91639/august-16-2007/andrew-keen

This is about all the brain power I can muster towards a blog post. But here it is: http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com/2007/02/male-authors-of-romanceromantic-fiction.html

a blog about “male authors of romance fiction.

While talking about de Certeau and his ideas involving the role of the Everyman, I began thinking about the role the advertisements play in the balance between the producer and the consumer. In The Practice of Everyday Life, de Certeau defines the role of the Everyman and how the sometimes unintended usage of tools established by “The Man”. But I wanted to build off of this thought and explore a little into the power of the advertisement and how this influences that relationship. One of the examples that popped into my head I remember seeing in one of the paper proposals, along the lines of Apple’s advertising strategies. With this in mind, I see Apple attempting to disrupt this uprising of the Everyman by creating advertisements that cause desire in product, not only because of the practical, or useful appeal of the product, but they are also selling a lifestyle that is being advertised in their commercials. When Apple puts out an advertisement about their new video editing software, there is less space taken up by a description of the product and its capabilities and more of showing the viewer a vacation that was filmed and then edited using their program. One example of this is Apple’s advertisements for their new version of iMovie. They use footage from a constructed vacation that the user takes with friends. The whole time highlighting the trip with these fun, and very expensive looking activities. The message differs from the product is in the selling of a lifestyle with gaps and assumptions. Also, how does the Everyman revolt against Apple, Inc.? What I know is merely those computer users whom I talk to who say that they hate Apple, in the way Hipsters hate Urban Outfitters. Anyway, there is a group of stubborn Windows users and a few Linux users who have their reasons for not supporting Apple. It’s only thanks to the willing for sacrifice of time and money to support Linux and Windows, as an operating system for the Everyman, is circling the drain. But for the most part, any revolt against Apple, or using Apple’s operating system in a way outside of its intended purpose does little to broadcast its revolt to the world. Is this how de Certeau could be used in more modern analysis? Maybe. I don’t think I understood enough of the reading to feel strong about his ideas. Of course, any/all corrections are most welcome.

After  reading Gramsci and his writing on Organic and Traditional Intellectuals I cannot help but compare them to bloggers and other similar “intellectuals” on the Internet of today’s world. However, bloggers draw power from their anonymity, enabling them to express their opinions in a way that would not otherwise be possible. The Internet allows a type of disconnect from reality in which opinions can be presented without repercussions. Freedom of Speech allows Intellectuals to spew their opinions all over multiple websites. Organic Intellectuals have an easier time doing this, their paychecks usually don’t  feed from the blogging they do. The public opinion has little to no sway over what they choose to publish on the internet, much as I’m doing in this blog. The Internet has also allowed the Intellectual to find others whose opinion is shared with relative ease, especially if the opinion is not widespread amongst popular culture. Youtube is an example of a portal for opinions which users hold to be spewed across the screens of millions of viewers, and the only repercussion to their words are those of the next user’s comments. Gramsci’s era did not have a similar platform with which to share new ideas. A vulnerable attempt had to be made, which put ones self in the spotlight, or bull’s eye, to publish one’s beliefs.

I’m not even sure to what extent one can differentiate between Organic and Traditional Bloggers. Except for the high titles of signification, such as that of a PhD Professor, classes are no longer applicable. The Anonymity of the Internet erases classes and replaces them with a “primitive communism”. There is no longer a distinguishable difference between the Bourgeois and the Proletariat in the realm of the blog.

Williams argues that the working class shouldn’t want anything to do with the culture of the bourgeois. I would go further to say that the working class often has a different yet stronger culture, not because of the production as Marx would say, but because of their inaccessibility to other things that they cannot afford. Their lack of money allows them to look for other ways to entertain and preoccupy themselves. A family’s heritage might be one source of culture, but cultural highlights like graffiti, music, and personal culture are much stronger than the culture of the bourgeois.

Another point that Williams brings up is the connection between morality and culture. I cannot think of any arguments for or against and whether or not this is true. Does morality come from a belief system or a cultural reference? It is obvious to say that our culture presents some points of morality in certain light, but how directly does that influence the morality of the people, and of what ages.

First of all, it took a thorough investigation of Wikipedia to understand the context from which Marx was writing about the Eighteenth Brumaire. Once we get beyond the struggle between the Orleanists and the Legitimists we find that the Party of Order attempted to satiate the desires of an entire society, when Marx points this out as being quite impossible. Marx reflects on the cyclical process involved in Revolutions. Particularly, the struggle between the Proletariat and Bourgeoise and how their misconceptions of each others desires leads their causes to “lock-up” and begin this cycle of discontent. Marx is using this Revolution as an example of Capitalism’s flaws in the Political world. “The particular character of the Social-Democracy is epitomized in the fact that democratic-republican institutions are demanded as a means, not of doing away with two extremes, capital and wage labour, but of weakening their antagonism and transforming it into harmony.”(Marx, 50) Marx speaks of these two parties as an example, that can be directly used in today’s society, of how two extremes are never reached within the parties, and their stances lie somewhere in an ambiguous middle. This stance, as was pointed out in our discussion today, allows for private funds to take control and manipulate the governing parties in ways that best suit their needs, rather than the needs of the people. In the case of the Eighteenth Brumaire it took the realization by the Proletariat that the Brougeoise, with whom the Proletariate joined with in the Revolution to better their conditions, were not looking out for the best interest of the Proletariate in the way that they had originally thought, to disband from the Bourgeoise and begin a Revolution of their own. This is the Cycle of Revolution that Marx referred to earlier in the reading. I felt that starting the reading with little background in the Second French Revolution and on the third chapter of his work, it took a while for me to understand what was being talked about. Yet again, Marx brought up an appendage of Capitalism that is easily applied to our modern problems with Capitalism.