[rumori] simulacra nation

Thom [rumori] simulacra nation
Thu, 8 Oct 1998 15:00:19 -0400 (EDT) (00907873219, Pine.LNX.3.96.981008144407.15710A-100000atcornea.retina.net)


> process. Do you think cereal manufacturers really are aware of
> exactly what they are doing? Use of symbols is pretty basic. Yes,
> most children's institutions are simulation, but what is the function
> of this? Why not reality instead of simulation? Does this prepare
> the 21st century children for an increasingly digital/VIRTUAL world?

maybe our easy acceptance of a virtual world is because of a
common life pursuing and celebrating illusion and fantasy. Maybe our
desire for a fantastic world is a reaction to the horrors of war, famine
and disease. I think cereal manufacturers do use social research when
designing a product. Maybe someone out there is conscious of the
implications. They certainly employ a wide range of tools to get market
share and user acceptance.
>
> > > People are discussing now that children cannot seperate reality from
> fiction. That is why we have the V chip right? And a TV ratings
> system.
I think the V chip has nothing to do with children. and the
ratings system only acts as a guide. I think children are more apt to be
involved in the lives of fictional characters and not understand that say
"ally mcbeal" is not a real person, but a character in a show. But what is the difference between playing a role on stage and playing a role in Real
Life. Children learn what you teach them, and they learn from what you
don't teach them. I think a lot of children find the ways of adults
confusing and mysterious. I know a few adults who find the ways of other
adults confusing and mysterious.


>
>
>
> All over the press in the Washington DC area are stories about a 4th grader
> who is facing expulsion for bringing a toy gun to school. They ARE
> trying to teach that there is no difference between fake/symbolic and
> REAL. We haven't progressed any further really beyond the Ancient
> Egyptian scribes who would place arrow over certain characters (the
> snake, for example) to pin them down and keep them from leaving the
> carved stone wall. Does anyone believe in magic?
>

Children most definitely have a magical conception of the world.
Because they dont' see the inner workings or back stage processes of the
world that surrounds them or the things that affect their lives. I suppose
this is one of things about childhood worth protecting. The whole thing
about the toy gun is based more on adult paranoia than any intent of the
child. But while most children have seen people get blown away in movies,
I dont' think any of them are prepared for the reality of a gun shot
wound. I don't think many American Children understand death, or humanity,
or the larger issues of the implications of their actions. Is this a
failure of a society, or have we been successful in helping children
dissociate from reality to live in a world of imagination and inspiration?
After all, we inherited a complex and often ugly world with challenges
unimaginable to previous societies. And people of my generation thought we
had a bad shake and shaved our heads and pierced our faces and moved into
the cities and made violent music and took drugs and railed against
society. The next generation, it seems, will not have to deal with the
shock of the real because they will learn to create a personal illusion,
not change our collective reality.

I think a marxist critique of breakfast cereal would expose the ideology
implicit in the design of the product as well as the method for creating a
desire for it. I'm not a marxist, but I like they way some of them think.
or a Post-Modern cultural critique, which is really marxist criticism in
disguise.

-Thom



> > > -dan > > > > > >
>
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