Comments on: The Challenge of the Postmodern Approach to Consumerism http://metaminus.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/24/ Minus as a Metanarrative of Modern Thought Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:22:28 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Pēt http://metaminus.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/24/#comment-28 Pēt Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:15:08 +0000 http://metaminus.wordpress.com/?p=24#comment-28 Relevant to this topic: http://xkcd.com/451/ Ironically, if you hit your neumann boundary conditions with a log, your log will act as a heat sink... Relevant to this topic:
http://xkcd.com/451/

Ironically, if you hit your neumann boundary conditions with a log, your log will act as a heat sink…

]]> By: Rettaw http://metaminus.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/24/#comment-21 Rettaw Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:05:41 +0000 http://metaminus.wordpress.com/?p=24#comment-21 In my oppinion the ballonman is really an interpretation of the ruling class, handing out pre-approved ideologies to the masses, in this case represented by minus a common citizen of good standing. We see first how the ballonman hands minus a green balloon, reminding us of the feudal era when the common citizen had no life but work on the green fields and woods that are natures domain. However this part of history came to a close, and so too does the life of the green balloon. Still, this change of eras was a time of great pain for the common citizen as is apparent from the expression minus carry as she passes trough these times of hardship. Then the balloonman hands out a blue balloon representing the era of capitalism in the hands of the nobles, thus the blue is not only the colour of the capitalistic ideology, but also of the blood in the veins of those who profited on this new ideology. This is also why the balloonman is so happy to hand this balloon over, for this is the time when he will profit as most. But as history teaches, capitalism cannot sustain itself for ever, and this balloon too pops. Contrary to the exit of feudalism, this was not an unwelcomed change, but a opportunity for the masses to take power for themselves. Having exposed the agenda of the ruling class, the ideologies still in their hands fail spontaneously when faced with the emboldened public who does not become saddende by the departure of this balloon. Further the oppressed proletareat demonstrates its considerable power by further taking down the ideologies in the hand of the balloonman, this being represented by the stone trown on a impossible jorney. This winding path of the stone as it tears trough the ballons reminds of the journeys that socialist leaders faced in the times of the revolution, from the great march in china to the motorcycle travels of el che. Faced with the destruction of his soft influence, his ideological balloons, the balloonman lashes out with harsh yet impotent words at minus, who responds calmly by reshaping him with the powers of the organized masses into the red balloon, symbol of the socialist victory. In the second to last panel we see the state of the world at its height, the broken balloons in the background falling like confetti to indicate the celebration of the population at the victory of their struggle. Then, the author ends with an omnious warning, that even socialism must fail... In my oppinion the ballonman is really an interpretation of the ruling class, handing out pre-approved ideologies to the masses, in this case represented by minus a common citizen of good standing.

We see first how the ballonman hands minus a green balloon, reminding us of the feudal era when the common citizen had no life but work on the green fields and woods that are natures domain. However this part of history came to a close, and so too does the life of the green balloon. Still, this change of eras was a time of great pain for the common citizen as is apparent from the expression minus carry as she passes trough these times of hardship.

Then the balloonman hands out a blue balloon representing the era of capitalism in the hands of the nobles, thus the blue is not only the colour of the capitalistic ideology, but also of the blood in the veins of those who profited on this new ideology. This is also why the balloonman is so happy to hand this balloon over, for this is the time when he will profit as most.

But as history teaches, capitalism cannot sustain itself for ever, and this balloon too pops. Contrary to the exit of feudalism, this was not an unwelcomed change, but a opportunity for the masses to take power for themselves. Having exposed the agenda of the ruling class, the ideologies still in their hands fail spontaneously when faced with the emboldened public who does not become saddende by the departure of this balloon. Further the oppressed proletareat demonstrates its considerable power by further taking down the ideologies in the hand of the balloonman, this being represented by the stone trown on a impossible jorney. This winding path of the stone as it tears trough the ballons reminds of the journeys that socialist leaders faced in the times of the revolution, from the great march in china to the motorcycle travels of el che.

Faced with the destruction of his soft influence, his ideological balloons, the balloonman lashes out with harsh yet impotent words at minus, who responds calmly by reshaping him with the powers of the organized masses into the red balloon, symbol of the socialist victory.

In the second to last panel we see the state of the world at its height, the broken balloons in the background falling like confetti to indicate the celebration of the population at the victory of their struggle. Then, the author ends with an omnious warning, that even socialism must fail…

]]> By: Pēt http://metaminus.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/24/#comment-20 Pēt Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:50:10 +0000 http://metaminus.wordpress.com/?p=24#comment-20 Although the entertainment of the idea that this strip is an allegorical reification of the relationship between the consumer and the capitalist agenda is entertaining, I would like to highlight a certain temptation integral to Postmodernist thought. As Postmodernists, we pay proper homage to the power of perception, and notice that what is true in the eyes of some may not hold true in the eyes of others. Unfortunately, our golden apple is the tendency to concentrate on a single perspective alone, to the exclusion of other perspectives. For example, a contemporary Postmodernist observes the similarity in visual elements between modern depictions of Satan and Pan and concludes that these entities are the same. In actuality, when Satan was first invented, he was not the ruler of Hell... the Afterlife itself was not canonized in Judeic theology until the Pharisees beat out the Sadducees. Satan's original incarnation was as The Accuser, and plays his archetypical role perfectly in the "Book of Job" (he's probably closer to the Egyptian Ammut than anything I can think of). In contrast, Pan arose from Greek theology, and was the god of shepherds. This would put Jesus, the "great shepherd", as Pan's Judeo-Christian counterpart, and in fact, the Greek historian Plutarch records that Pan died shortly after Jesus dies. Satan's current depiction probably arose from after Constantinople's conversion, when artists may have read "The Book of Revelation"'s description of the Roman Empire as a "horned beast" and misinterpreted it as a description of Satan. As a Postmodernist myself, I can see how a contemporary might argue that Pan evokes Satanic imagery, but when attempting to communicate with a Historian or Theologian, mass confusion will ensue (CSLewis uses a fawn to bring the children of "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" to God, and he obviously uses Pan as a shepherd rather than as Satan). Thus, I would argue that the primary tenant of the effective use of Postmodernism is to use more than one perspective (like how the movie "Pan's Labyrinth" uses a fawn to invoke caution of Satanic guile, but in the end reveals his true identity as a guiding shepherd). If you sandbox yourself into only one point of view, you will come up with a set of truths that are dissonant from everyone else's and a failure to communicate will quickly ensue. This is the reason why Postmodernists are so frequently misunderstood. Many say that the primary tenant of Postmodernist thought is: "There is no such thing as absolute truth" If this statement is parsed on an absolute scale, it is false. Anyone who knows anything about either Math or Symbolic Logic will know that: 1) since this statement is not conditional, it is an absolute statement 2) if this statement is true, all absolute statements are false 3) since the assumption that the statement is true causes a contradiction, it must be false So are we dumb enough to believe that "There is no such thing as absolute truth"? No! Any Postmodernist worth his salt (or "worth his blood" if you still deny the influence of the Roman Empire on literary expression) will explain that it is not the "truth" of absolute statements that we question, but the "relevance". Let me give you an example: computer monitors cannot produce the color yellow, they can only produce the colors red, green, and blue. Fortunately for computers, humans cannot see the color yellow either, everywhere they would see yellow, they instead see a combination of red and green. Thus, if I were to address a red-green triangle on a monitor in front of a bunch of humans, they would know exactly what I was talking about: the triangle is not absolutely yellow, but who really cares? In this situation, the absolute truth is irrelevant. Now, if I were a physicist doing spectral analysis, then the absolute truth matters as the photons corresponding to the quantum states had better be oscillating at a yellow frequency for constant displacements between the emitter and the receiver. I believe that the primary statement of Postmodernism is that "The set of tenants derived from two perspectives are not always congruent". I acknowledge that there probably is some definition of Postmodernism from an absolute perspective, but guess what? It's probably not the same as mine, and I'm okay with that. That being said, let's take a look at what this "Minus" strip says about consumerism. There is no evidence that Minus purchased any balloon. We see what is probably a balloon vendor, but we should be sceptical about classifying him as a dog of the capitalist agenda, since that occupation gets none of the capital rewards and all of the capitalist shaft. He gives the girl a balloon, the balloon pops, and out of the kindness of his heart he gives the girl another. That balloon pops as well, and the girl (obviously entertained by the destruction of the balloons) picks up a stone and pops all of the balloons. When the balloon man chastises the girl, she turns him into a balloon before popping him. How is this relevant to consumerism? Well, Minus obviously does not have a sense of property and sees no difference between something that was given to her and something that belongs to someone else, she just destroys everything. Furthermore, Minus obviously does not believe in the sanctity of life, as she turns a living human into a non-living mass of stretched latex. Thus, Minus is not a consumer in the classical sense, she is more similar to a force of nature, a manifestation of the unholy union of the Law of Thelema and Childish Innocence. Although the entertainment of the idea that this strip is an allegorical reification of the relationship between the consumer and the capitalist agenda is entertaining, I would like to highlight a certain temptation integral to Postmodernist thought. As Postmodernists, we pay proper homage to the power of perception, and notice that what is true in the eyes of some may not hold true in the eyes of others. Unfortunately, our golden apple is the tendency to concentrate on a single perspective alone, to the exclusion of other perspectives. For example, a contemporary Postmodernist observes the similarity in visual elements between modern depictions of Satan and Pan and concludes that these entities are the same. In actuality, when Satan was first invented, he was not the ruler of Hell… the Afterlife itself was not canonized in Judeic theology until the Pharisees beat out the Sadducees. Satan’s original incarnation was as The Accuser, and plays his archetypical role perfectly in the “Book of Job” (he’s probably closer to the Egyptian Ammut than anything I can think of). In contrast, Pan arose from Greek theology, and was the god of shepherds. This would put Jesus, the “great shepherd”, as Pan’s Judeo-Christian counterpart, and in fact, the Greek historian Plutarch records that Pan died shortly after Jesus dies. Satan’s current depiction probably arose from after Constantinople’s conversion, when artists may have read “The Book of Revelation”’s description of the Roman Empire as a “horned beast” and misinterpreted it as a description of Satan. As a Postmodernist myself, I can see how a contemporary might argue that Pan evokes Satanic imagery, but when attempting to communicate with a Historian or Theologian, mass confusion will ensue (CSLewis uses a fawn to bring the children of “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” to God, and he obviously uses Pan as a shepherd rather than as Satan). Thus, I would argue that the primary tenant of the effective use of Postmodernism is to use more than one perspective (like how the movie “Pan’s Labyrinth” uses a fawn to invoke caution of Satanic guile, but in the end reveals his true identity as a guiding shepherd). If you sandbox yourself into only one point of view, you will come up with a set of truths that are dissonant from everyone else’s and a failure to communicate will quickly ensue. This is the reason why Postmodernists are so frequently misunderstood.
Many say that the primary tenant of Postmodernist thought is: “There is no such thing as absolute truth” If this statement is parsed on an absolute scale, it is false. Anyone who knows anything about either Math or Symbolic Logic will know that:
1) since this statement is not conditional, it is an absolute statement
2) if this statement is true, all absolute statements are false
3) since the assumption that the statement is true causes a contradiction, it must be false
So are we dumb enough to believe that “There is no such thing as absolute truth”? No! Any Postmodernist worth his salt (or “worth his blood” if you still deny the influence of the Roman Empire on literary expression) will explain that it is not the “truth” of absolute statements that we question, but the “relevance”. Let me give you an example: computer monitors cannot produce the color yellow, they can only produce the colors red, green, and blue. Fortunately for computers, humans cannot see the color yellow either, everywhere they would see yellow, they instead see a combination of red and green. Thus, if I were to address a red-green triangle on a monitor in front of a bunch of humans, they would know exactly what I was talking about: the triangle is not absolutely yellow, but who really cares? In this situation, the absolute truth is irrelevant. Now, if I were a physicist doing spectral analysis, then the absolute truth matters as the photons corresponding to the quantum states had better be oscillating at a yellow frequency for constant displacements between the emitter and the receiver. I believe that the primary statement of Postmodernism is that “The set of tenants derived from two perspectives are not always congruent”. I acknowledge that there probably is some definition of Postmodernism from an absolute perspective, but guess what? It’s probably not the same as mine, and I’m okay with that.
That being said, let’s take a look at what this “Minus” strip says about consumerism. There is no evidence that Minus purchased any balloon. We see what is probably a balloon vendor, but we should be sceptical about classifying him as a dog of the capitalist agenda, since that occupation gets none of the capital rewards and all of the capitalist shaft. He gives the girl a balloon, the balloon pops, and out of the kindness of his heart he gives the girl another. That balloon pops as well, and the girl (obviously entertained by the destruction of the balloons) picks up a stone and pops all of the balloons. When the balloon man chastises the girl, she turns him into a balloon before popping him. How is this relevant to consumerism? Well, Minus obviously does not have a sense of property and sees no difference between something that was given to her and something that belongs to someone else, she just destroys everything. Furthermore, Minus obviously does not believe in the sanctity of life, as she turns a living human into a non-living mass of stretched latex. Thus, Minus is not a consumer in the classical sense, she is more similar to a force of nature, a manifestation of the unholy union of the Law of Thelema and Childish Innocence.

]]> By: Jacob http://metaminus.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/24/#comment-16 Jacob Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:13:59 +0000 http://metaminus.wordpress.com/?p=24#comment-16 you rock. you rock.

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