The Age of Duplicity

The cultural industry defined by Adorno and Horkmeir is the thorn of pain in society today. And that same industrialized culture is however embraced by Benjamin. Therefore, if the same topic is treated by two parties on a different scale that means that now we can insert Roland Barthes and his theory about the edge of duplicity.
So far, after the many readings about theories and critical theories, I’ve come to realized that everything in this world is a double faced coin. Duplicity can be applied to all words and all works. Thusly, cultural industry has double edges. One edge which is conformist and obedient as Barthes defines it and another one which is mobile and blank.
Take for example the movies, movies can be tools for emancipation or can be as void and blank as a white page. Theatre, novels, talk shows, internet sites, articles and many others acquired this double faced coin to fit into life’s critical heritage. Even critical theory can sometimes be devoid of its content to suit the purpose of colonization of the mind for higher targets whether political, socio-economical and even personal ones.
I, hereby, am not trying to allude that our world is perfect.
Perfection is a state of mind.
Perfection is an excuse from the chaos the mind loves but the conscious abhors.
Perfection is a key word for living in illusion and lies.
Hidden karmas, lost paths, noisy and brutal circumstances make up a life, a life the wayit should be lived.
Tear off your clothes and walk naked in the sun,
Speak what’s on your mind and never be afraid of tomorrow,
For tomorrow is another day just like the one that preceded it!

notice the small font of the encrypted message above the wheel of the car(click ont he photo to enlarge)

I’ve been lately reading a lot about Marxist theory. And I must admit that I may be more into the subject than I should be. But this happens so considering my progressing rebellion against the social and economical hierarchy of society since I started growing my own awareness of my medium.
Therefore, one of the things I find myself doing lately is questioning almost all that grabs my newly formed critical eye. The other day, I was watching a movie and a sentence written on a police car hit my eye and the questions and notes started running in my head like a river of cold water.
The sentence said: “To punish and enslave”. The power to punish and the power to enslave belong only to that type of people who hold the ideas of powers; the great warriors of the world who are always there to watch you and guide your steps into their planning of your path.
Michel Foucault was one of his kind to gently, subtly and genuinely arrange and publish “Discipline and Punish”. In this book, he recounts the various ways in which human kind was restricted in his thought or actions. He studies the development and evolution of punishment from physical pain to an economy of discipline.
It is important to keep life ordered and bound to certain limits which validates the individual liberty but not freedom. However, considering the discussed matters in Foucault’s book, it is interesting enough to see the control and the manipulation over the mind and the soul. People have become trained – tamed in some ways- to follow the norms and the rules blindly and without questioning the status quo of their manipulated lives.
It is important to me to spread a kind of awareness against the power that governs our daily moves. From traffic lights to TV programs, it’s a unique manner to keep us down and move us fast. One can make a list of these surveillances and this list has no end.
Back to our case study, which involves the police motto “To punish and enslave”.
Isn’t that just the truth? The fake identity of police forces is to protect and serve but reality is not what it seems but quite the opposite. So in the mean time, we’ll have to realize that police force is just another deceptive reality, an illusion of modernism and social development. However, it has always been the same lie since it all started. Each country shows their best of evolution by annual displays of force like in Lebanon for instance although it is not qualified as a developed country.
But who has the right to assign such titles worldwide? What are the due criteria to do that? Is it the percentage of literacy? The rates of death ratios to birth ones?
This subliminal power has taken over the world over many centuries, but I call it my duty to talk about it. I have no intent to search for it, or to start a quest and pursue the reasons or causes of it. It is of no significance to do so. But my main concern is to emancipate the thought of confinement in a critical manner. No other equal force can stand in the face of the big power. But, I believe in the awareness. It is true that even the world united cannot stop the control, the surveillance, the damage that’s being done... but apprehending this calamity is a defence course that all of us, readers, writers, and workers must learn to better discern our lives and our lies.

The illusion of NOSTALGIA

Just the other day, I was at my mechanics fixing my car. The man was talking to his client telling him about this big dream of his. He'd really want to quit his job, buy a couple of cows and goats and go live far away form people, all alone. He dreams of never talking or communicating with people again.

Hence, it occured to me"What a pitiful world!"

It tooks human beings several centuries to urbanize themselves, to make ll the discoveries and all the progress but they are so sellfish and greedy. why would someone with a relatively nice job, quit it and go back to nature (as he puts it). Nature is a big lie, nothing is perfect there. eventhough this un-perfectness of nature or the old times, even if man could go back; he's d only want again to come back...

what is this indecision of the mind?'

where does this instability come from?

Do we always have to yearn for wat we had or dont have?

Reality itself is an illusion.

Nostalgia then is the greater deception in human lives....