So this weekend, my sisters came in town and we decided to go to Disney World, so I figured it was an appropriate topic for today’s blog. Let me premise, that my eldest sister had not been to the most ‘magical’ place on Earth in 10 years and lets just say, she was more than looking forward to this trip. I, on the other hand, have spent the past two years studying Disney World and its effect on society so there were quite clashing perspectives. On Thursday, we talked about education and whether or not it is an ISA or RSA and it was really hard for me to come up with a definite answer, especially after this past weekend. Education is a perfect way to liberate people from ideologies because we are taught to question the “ruling force” but aren’t the teachers within our classrooms the “ruling force.” So with that being said, how do I know to believe everything I learn in a classroom as the truth? This did not really come to me until I tried to explain the negative effects of Disney World to my sister. She had a very different view point because of her education and passion toward the beauty and happiness within the park. So, who was right? Weren’t we both just following what we had learned? Education makes us question but we still follow what we are taught. I still do not know if education is an ISA or RSA, but what I do know is that in order to become closer to an RSA, we as students should question what we are even being told to question!
My second connection with Disney World and Thursday’s class was when I was walking through Epcot experiencing “Around the World.” In class we were shown an image of a Guinness and asked to explain what it represented to us. Our answers were fairly stereotypical: “Irishness,” clovers and St. Patrick’s Day. These came from the associations we had with that image. So, when I went to Ireland at Disney World, I ordered a Guinness…
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It's interested to read about your experience at Disney with your sisters and the conflicting ideas about the theme parks. You are right in question who is in fact correct about the effect of Disney, and you also bring up the point that Althussar does in that with you think you are outside ideology you are in fact just within another one (it would have been good to identify this though!). Education is a factor of the ISA and its control over the people, but then at the same time if you take the type of learning we do in CMC how is that sustaining certain ideologies of consumerism? Does this not bridge onto Baudrillard and whether or not fiction outstrips reality? Which is fiction and which is reality? As Althussar says we have an imagianry relationship with the real world through ideology...so many directions you could take this blog into! For your next one really think about these paths to take your blog beyond just a review of the material. :)
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