Sunday, January 18, 2009

Yellowdaisy4, 1/15/09

I found the quote about postmodernism being “an aura not an era” very enlightening because it is true that the concept is more than just a time period. The many events listed such as the atomic bomb, the riots in the 1960s, the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 to be great examples of how postmodernism came about. It was events like these that changed our culture over time. The concept of “fear is the aesthetic du jour” really connected well to these events. I definitely agree that our culture now is completely paranoid and obsessed with what can kill or hurt us. The news, commercials, magazines and even popular movies like SAW all deal with the concept of what can kill us, what can fix us or any worst case scenario situations. New drugs are being prescribed everyday to treat diseases that people don’t even know they have just so they can make themselves feel safer even though if it’s a false sense of security.

This leads me to the concepts we discussed about analgesia and anesthesia which was about how our culture doesn’t like to feel pain. People will take anything they can for the slightest ache or pain or diagnose any different kind of behavior of something that needs to be treated with drugs. An example of this is how a lot of parents or doctors are so quick to prescribe some kind of depressant drug to a child who may be a little bit of a handful and label them with any disorder before really diagnosing them with anything.

I also found the idea of speed being an aesthetic very true in that our culture sees faster as not only better but the only way for things to be. If a computer doesn’t load something in two seconds it must be broken or if someone takes too long to do something they must be stupid or if an event takes too long to start it must be not worth staying for. It’s sad that our society needs everything quick and now because you lose appreciation for a lot of things or miss out on something because you were too impatient. I’ve always agreed with the famous quote “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”

1 comment:

CMC300 said...

Good post Yellowdaisy4. I think the obsession with the movie series SAW is a great example of how our culture has become obsessed with fear. I also liked your example for analgesia and anesthesia and how doctors are quick to prescribe children with medication even if they do not need it badly.

-Starfish