links

A clip from a new movie Margin Call, whose premise is to let the businesses win, or at least be seen as human. More on why evil executives bring people to the theatres, and a list of recent examples-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203476804576612901107211570.html?fb_ref=wsj_share_FB&fb_source=tickerdialog_oneline#project%3DSLIDESHOW08%26s%3DSB10001424052970203914304576629231148319052%26articleTabs%3Darticle

Why Hollywood uses the idea of the little guy beating big business to increase its audience-

http://www.businessinsider.com/business-is-hollywoods-favorite-bad-guy-2011-10

Why negatively portraying business can serve to drive ticket sales for the average American, and a list of 2010 movies that utilize the big corporations as villains-

http://www.bnet.com/blog/business-news/why-business-is-hollywoods-go-to-villain-especially-now/3898

Where "Overcoming Bias" speaks briefly on why America is so taken with CEO villains and offers some possible alternative bad guys-

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/06/ceo-movie-villains.html 

True Enough 3.)

People are given a choice of which news they want to subject themselves too, because they are bombarded with mass media and somehow have to sort through all of it. People are not, however, given a choice of which reality they believe in. We are all choosing what media outlets we trust, and thus what reality we trust to be broadcast to us. We must selectively consume media out of necessity, but we perceive one single reality in the media we keep track of. Farhood Majoo's True Enough explains that the more people “trust those who are like themselves… the more they distrust strangers” (226). The more we trust our selected outlets to bring news to us, the less we trust sources that are less agreeable to our own search for facts. The more we trust our selected outlets for news, the more we unconsciously trust them to bring our reality to us, as well.

 News has come to depend on a kind of deception, in that it relies on our “prior connections” (228). Our biases cannot be undone, but we are not necessarily conscious of them to the extent that we can actively choose news that confirms our beliefs. News, like marketers today, wants to “sell to you without appearing to sell” (202). News wants to appeal to its niche of customers, but without revealing their hand. They are aware of the existence of a niche group. They know that you belong to the niche group, but that you are most likely unaware that you are in a group based upon some common system of beliefs on certain subjects. In such a fashion, mass media has conceivably “mastered a new way to lie” (193). Our news is actually lying to us, and we do not even seem to mind. By utilizing personal biases, and the need to sort through the abundance of available information, so-called “propagandists” can manufacture a reality through which people process information. News creates its own reality without informing its audience that they are actively “engaged in persuasion” (192). We are unaware that our own notions are persuading us to choose certain media, and we are also unaware that our media is persuading us, in turn. We are in a cycle of reconfirmation.  I have a notion of what I desire to be true. Whether I am consciously aware of that desire does not affect the fact the lacks of disconnect between desired reality and reality. What we perceive is our reality. We cannot “see” things that our personal bias has not programmed us to be aware of. We claim to crave objective news, but we are really on the hunt for stories that “corroborate [our] point of view” (150).  The so-called “real” news that we want is the news slanted in such a way that we find it favorable to our own beliefs. We already choose sources that attempt to do this for us. The bias we see in the news “isn’t strategic. It’s real. It’s real to us, at least, and that’s as real as it gets” (158). Our perception of news is our perception of reality, and our perception of reality is the only reality that we know. We cannot remove ourselves from our own reality in search of an Archimedean Point from which to regard everything completely objectively. We assume that our own views are already “essentially objective” (155). We consider ourselves essentially objective. By choosing the news sources that we do, we perceive ourselves as unbiased, and thus the sources that we keep up with are unbiased, also, as they are in line with our own perceived objective views.

The lens through which we see the world transfers over to the information that we ingest. So although the news might be lying to us, it is just as real as we can perceive it. True Enough makes me think that I am only a victim of the news that I subject myself to.

True Enough 2.)

The idea of “news” is quickly becoming unimportant. I think the most critical aspect has become the media, regardless of what is being represented. True Enough speaks a bit about how news personalities are just that, personalities. The fact that they might be playing an idiot on television does not mean that they are, they are just trying to appeal to their audiences. Appealing to specific targeted audiences, in fact. Apparently, people are responding to the polarization of “news”, if we can even thus label the constant surges of information. Our bias never leaves us, then, and the lens through which we see the world also carries over to the information we ingest.  The idea of selective exposure is not limited to the public sphere, I think its influence is felt everywhere. I see myself out in the real world, consuming, shopping, however you want to qualify it, looking at entire shelves of items, and somehow only being able to see brands/items I’ve been thinking about before- items that perhaps I see myself buying for the simple fact that I’ve been told about them, maybe, or want to be the sort of person who buys such items. Media is overwhelming. The possibility for so much information causes many people to shut down, I think, and this further encourages the fact that people stay in their media comfort zones. It isn’t so much that everyone makes a conscious effort to not consider another view point, but we make an effort to focus on what we easily see ourselves interested in. 

True Enough 1.)

True Enough discusses the importance of experience, and how no one can ever remove him/herself from any situation. Two people may be able to watch the same football game, but the account of the event afterwards will never be exactly the same. People are shaped by everything around them. Every image, dialogue, emotion, etc. is catalogued for future reference. Nothing can be felt or seen objectively.  The past never leaves us. The idea of not having an identical reality is frightening, I think, when first confronted with it. I admit that having first read about the jumbling mess of realities was disconcerting. But my reality is never exactly the same anyone else’s. Every experience in someone’s life changes him or her; they cannot erase any experience in order to inhibit subjectivity in the future. I think True Enough is a little heavy, and I am rather sick of reading about the Swift Boat Veterans, but I think the premise is a valid one. Every truth is true, probably, but not every truth belongs to everyone else. We can watch the same football game and none of us will come away having seen the same game. Our truths are true enough for us.

Humanity’s Thought Death: A Meditation on George Orwell’s 1984

It is by holding onto the individual thought, the idea that my single mind makes a difference, which makes me human. Because my mind is my reality, my reality is real. I have a past that exists because I remember it. I remember that I am alive and thus legitimize my reality. However, without words needed to express the idea that I have my own reality and my own thoughts, I cannot share my personal reality. I cannot affirm that it exits.

In George Orwell’s 1984, O’Brien and the Party wield the power of language. If no one has a way to express his or her individual thoughts, the thoughts cannot exist. The existence of the thoughts themselves, which could be arrived at in ways besides words, would not matter, because nothing could happen because of them. The power exists in the individual, because the individual is capable of turning thoughts into actions. However, those thoughts need a method to be understood. Looks and glances do not suffice as knowledge.  The Party’s control of language is one of an “almost foolproof instrument” (319).  Words are needed for action- to order, to command, to understand. Without words, without the proper words to execute the proper actions, nothing can happen. The Party can control the actions of the masses by limiting the ways in which they can communicate within their own ranks. People cannot revolutionize or rebel if they cannot share their ideas. If they cannot share their thoughts, they can never become actions.

O’Brien explains that the Party controls matter by controlling the mind. “Reality is inside the skull,” he tells Winston (274). The mind controls reality. Reality is arrived at only because of thought. When the mind is not given the proper tools, it does not grow. It cannot support ideas other than those of the Party. The Party controls the mind by controlling the language. Ingsoc butchers not only words, but also the thoughts that accompany those words. Simplification of language is also the simplification of thought through the limits placed upon word interpretations. Winston reasons that in order to keep a secret, you must “hide it from yourself” (291). Ingsoc enables you to hide secrets from yourself, in that they can remain in your “inner heart”. However, those thoughts are also trapped there. They can never be expressed, and thus they can never be acted upon. They may as well not exist, since one would not know how to explain the stirrings in his or her own skull. The limits of language in Winston’s society, and in the future, also limit thought. Thought requires a construct. Thought needs a manner in which to be understood. The limited thought results in limited action, and the Party remains in control. They cannot be challenged because there are not any words for what they are doing wrong, or how they have altered anything like memory or thought. The flaws in the society they have built cannot be pointed out, because the appropriate language does not exist.

In the beginning of the novel, Winston thinks pro-Brotherhood thoughts. He is in favor of an anti-Party establishment. Winston can remember remembering things. He has the mental capacity for such memory because he has the vocabulary in which to explain himself. His reality is inside his skull, but he can formulate opinions and deduce things from his environment and what he sees because he can think in words. The thoughts he has will continue to exist after his death, but it will become more difficult for those words to become actions. The words will not exist any longer. There will probably not be another room above a shop to escape telescreens. There will be no rebellious Julia, because even though she is fonder of rebellious actions than rebellious thoughts or words, she will not be able to act out any of her rebellious thoughts. She would not be able to explain them, even to herself, and therefore could not turn rebellious thoughts into rebellious actions.  The inner heart will be safe, for a while, until the mind convinces the heart that what words it does have access to are all that matters. The mind knows nothing else, and thus convinces the inner heart. The Party’s influence will be seen in thought, not only in mindless action and following.

Winston originally agrees with the sentiment that remembering is real, that memory legitimizes reality. He remembers his mother and sister. But later they become classified as “false memories, products of self-deception” (288). O’Brien violates him by damaging the sanctuary of his mind. For a while, he still hopes that his heart will stay uncorrupted. “In the old days,” he said,” he had hidden a heretical mind beneath an appearance of conformity. Now he had retreated a step further: in the mind he had surrendered, but he had hoped to keep the inner heart inviolate” (290).  The Party’s use of doublethink convinces Winston that things have never happened. What is has always been. The past was exactly like the present. He cannot go unnoticed any longer in the eyes of the Party. The appearance of conformity is not enough. He must think as the Party. The Party is so all-encompassing, that the Party will eventually be all that exists. Since it is all that can be remembered, it must be all that exists. The only words that exist are products of the Party. The language is a product of the Party. Therefore, thoughts become products of the Party, as well.

The Party’s influence on humanity will eventually be that the individual reality no longer matters. Instead, the collective thought will control the manner in which the individual is able to think. The Party sets the terms, and the personal reality changes with the limits placed upon it via language control. Ingsoc kills the human drive by eliminating the need to remember. The Party alters the past and controls everything in the past through changing it. Memory does not exist any longer, except through the Party. What is has always been. The Party controls language, and thus the reality present in individual thought.