Photograph courtesy of the Pizzaonian Art Institute, Abe Straction, Curator
For our most recent posting to; http://giovanniandfranco.com
Not too many years ago we admired the great thinkers of our world. The philosophers and writers helped shape the direction of our culture. With their musings and philosophical projections, they allowed us to develop a certain maturity so we could perceive life with our relationships and understandings of our individual traditions.
Today we honor those who can create the latest app for our amusement and deluded version of information as knowledge. Instead of our philosophers and writers, we honor a group of technologically brilliant entrepreneurs with little life experience. They have created a virtual world which is now replacing our ability or desire to engage the actual world with in person reality.
What do we do about it? For many, the answer is nothing. They are perfectly comfortable with this process and engage it with anticipation daily. For others? I am not sure how many really care?
With technology being so ubiquitous, we spend more time in our cybernetic world rather than with live, individual experience. This seems ironic since never have we had more of an opportunity to share information with each other as well as with different cultures. Unfortunately, with this comes the illusion of being well-informed when, in fact, just the opposite might be happening – confusing information as knowledge is commonplace.
This could explain why the so-called sound bite has become so important. We have developed a culture that will not invest time pursuing knowledge. A quick sound bite will do nicely. Add to this a deluge of marketing experts that are paid handsomely to exploit every opportunity to advance their clients point of view, and you have our information networks of today.
When you have a culture that believes it is well-informed, when, in fact, it is not, you have a culture ripe for demagoguery. Public opinion can be changed with a well place sound bite at the right time. As the presidential political season warms up, never has this been so obvious.
Dictatorships have regularly exploited their enslaved constituencies. Democracies have invariably believed they are not vulnerable to this because of our freedoms. Good luck with this one. Till next time……
Brother Giovanni
OPD 415
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