In our time, a ”meaningful” life has become only superficially meaningful, as our values are so greatly conditioned by the media, popular culture, and the premium placed on success and sex appeal. With the tremendous concern for materialistic things such as monetary gain and social status, physical appearance, and power, the core from which we derive “meaning” has become warped and depleted. The truly “meaningful” life, it would seem would comprise of peace, love, happiness, community, friendship, family.
Sarah Palin symbolizes the death of the in choosing Sarah Palin as the representative of the Republican Party, we see that a telegenic candidate is more valued over a competent one. She was miss Alaska back in (get year) and she was the Governor of Alaska. She could have been the vice president of the Untied States of America. Who are we to even judge a woman on her looks.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Exhibition Type Paper
People are so blinded by what mainstream media tells us is a good and meaningful life, that we can’t even see the real meaning in our own lives.
In our time, a ”meaningful” life has become only superficially meaningful, as our values are so greatly conditioned by the media, popular culture, and the premium placed on success and sex appeal. With the tremendous concern for materialistic things such as monetary gain and social status, physical appearance, and power, the core from which we derive “meaning” has become warped and depleted. The truly “meaningful” life, it would seem would comprise of peace, love, happiness, community, friendship, family. Corporate media such as Rap music, Reality shows, and Commercials, warp reality to the point in which you don’t even know what YOU want. You know what the media wants you to want and you end up getting sucked into that idea of a “good” life.
Sarah Palin symbolizes the death of the conservative intellect. In choosing Sarah Palin as the representative of the Republican Party; we see that a telegenic candidate is more valued over a competent one. She was miss Alaska back in (get year) and she was the Governor of Alaska. She could have been the vice president of the Untied States of America. Who are we to even judge a woman on her looks?
In mainstream media—the premium placed on good looks and wealth as the basis for the “good” life.
Music—rap music; good looks, money, sex
Lip Gloss: Lil Mama
I believe that the song is saying that to live a good life, you need to have good looks. As soon as she put that lip gloss on, she was part of the "cool crowd". The boys wanted to hang out with her, even the principle wanted to know where she got the lip gloss.
The lyrics that i thought spoke to that perspective were how Lil Mama said to her mom at the end "Yo ma, this lip gloss is Poppin', Look at me! ". Also throughout the whole song, after she put on the lip gloss she was like "My Lip Gloss is cool, my Lip Gloss be poppin', I'm standin' at my locker, and all the boys keep stoppin". Those quotes show that all she needed to do was change her appearance, and her life improved dramatically.
A reoccurring image in the video is the Lip Gloss shining on her lips. It wanted to reinforce the fact that all of this happened (the dancing and the boys and the popularity) because of the Lip Gloss; because she changed her appearance. I notice that there is a lot of dancing and that no one in the video is "ugly". there are only two people in the video that are old: the principle and the mom and you don't even see her face in the video, and the principle is all disoriented and in need of the lip gloss.
Magazines+Fashion
Consider the fact that fashion is an industry, or the development of cosmetic plastic surgery—suggests that natural physical appearance is a commodity worth paying for to enhance
The distinction between good and meaningful.
“Good”
cheating on a test, compromising work ethic, compromising creativity for money—artists, musicians and the like often themselves in conflict between perusing their creatively creative or intellectual goals, and having to please their audience sponsors.,
vs
meaningful
How do maintain a life that is both good and meaningful?
Do the things you love, sincerely
Compromises can bring meaning to one’s life
Sometimes people have to give up doing one thing that they love doing for another.
How does one maintain a balance between what one “should” do and what one “wants” to do,
Wal-Mart incident.
Human life devalued entirely, in favor of consumerism
Thanks giving anecdote
Colonialism, Genocide
Family
The media presents two things
The perfect family, a happily married couple, a couple of kids, its nice
On the other hand, the less marginal message is the fucked up family, where the dad is having an affair and the kids are fucked up.
Why do people desire to emulate what they see on tv? Plus, tv is not even about you! Why would you want to watch something so much about other people’s lives that you don’t even know and have never and most likely will never meet. Why do you want to be like someone else? The principal that advertising is based on is that people are not happy, with what they are doing, eating, look like.
Why do we want to be like celebrities? They themselves are not who w think they are. Why do we want to emulate ACTORS? They are fake. People who should be commemorated-heart surgeons, astronauts—people that are shaping our world. The average teenager knows who Paris Hilton is and wants to be like her.; ask them to point Australia out on a map and they have no answer.
Love
People seek affection, attention, intimacy. Everyone want to be cared for, and care for.
Instinctual?
Sexual
Platonic
Professional Life
Education
Why is it cool not to care about school and doing homework? Does it not make perfect sense that one should be enthusiastic about school given that one’s education is for none other than oneself?
Why is school so much more about one’s social life than one’s education
It seems counterintuitive to resent learning. Yet I too sometimes hesitate to answer a question in class, or appear interested in my homework because I think I will seem uncool.
Career
Money, greed
Body Image
Girls are supposed to have big breasts and big butts and small figures and look pretty, while boys are supposed to be tall with big muscles and good athletes. Little do people realize that outside the photo shop-ed, video-edited, spray-tanned images off silver screen or the glossy pages of a magazine, people do not look like that. Yet young people are tremendously insecure about how they look. Girls always think they are too fat…..
In mainstream media—the premium placed on good looks and wealth as the basis for the “good” life.
Music—rap music; good looks, money, sex
Lip Gloss: Lil Mama
I believe that the song is saying that to live a good life, you need to have good looks. As soon as she put that lip gloss on, she was part of the "cool crowd". The boys wanted to hang out with her, even the principle wanted to know where she got the lip gloss.
The lyrics that i thought spoke to that perspective were how Lil Mama said to her mom at the end "Yo ma, this lip gloss is Poppin', Look at me! ". Also throughout the whole song, after she put on the lip gloss she was like "My Lip Gloss is cool, my Lip Gloss be poppin', I'm standin' at my locker, and all the boys keep stoppin". Those quotes show that all she needed to do was change her appearance, and her life improved dramatically.
A reoccurring image in the video is the Lip Gloss shining on her lips. It wanted to reinforce the fact that all of this happened (the dancing and the boys and the popularity) because of the Lip Gloss; because she changed her appearance. I notice that there is a lot of dancing and that no one in the video is "ugly". there are only two people in the video that are old: the principle and the mom and you don't even see her face in the video, and the principle is all disoriented and in need of the lip gloss.
Magazines+Fashion
Consider the fact that fashion is an industry, or the development of cosmetic plastic surgery—suggests that natural physical appearance is a commodity worth paying for to enhance
The distinction between good and meaningful.
People are so blinded by what mainstream media tells us is a good and meaningful life, that we can’t even see the real meaning in our own lives.
In our time, a ”meaningful” life has become only superficially meaningful, as our values are so greatly conditioned by the media, popular culture, and the premium placed on success and sex appeal. With the tremendous concern for materialistic things such as monetary gain and social status, physical appearance, and power, the core from which we derive “meaning” has become warped and depleted. The truly “meaningful” life, it would seem would comprise of peace, love, happiness, community, friendship, family. Corporate media such as Rap music, Reality shows, and Commercials, warp reality to the point in which you don’t even know what YOU want. You know what the media wants you to want and you end up getting sucked into that idea of a “good” life.
Sarah Palin symbolizes the death of the conservative intellect. In choosing Sarah Palin as the representative of the Republican Party; we see that a telegenic candidate is more valued over a competent one. She was miss Alaska back in (get year) and she was the Governor of Alaska. She could have been the vice president of the Untied States of America. Who are we to even judge a woman on her looks?
“Good”
cheating on a test, compromising work ethic, compromising creativity for money—artists, musicians and the like often themselves in conflict between perusing their creatively creative or intellectual goals, and having to please their audience sponsors.,
vs
meaningful
How do maintain a life that is both good and meaningful?
Do the things you love, sincerely
Compromises can bring meaning to one’s life
Sometimes people have to give up doing one thing that they love doing for another.
How does one maintain a balance between what one “should” do and what one “wants” to do.
Wal-Mart incident.
Human life devalued entirely, in favor of consumerism
On the one hand rich people buy cars that they might not ever drive when the money they spend on a car could feed a village in Africa for months. On the other hand it’s their hard earned money they can do what they want with it. Why spend it on people they have no connection to other than a common humanity (philanthropy). Why are we so keen to buy, and more over to buy for less? People fight over the last item left at a store. We are so eager to purchase things, better still on sale, even better free. So what if we trample a couple of sales person in the bargain, huh?
Thanks giving anecdote
Why do we thank god, eat food, and get together with our family, on a day when a whole race was slaughtered. They were the original inhabitants and we took it from them. Imagine the message we are conveying to kids who find out what really happened on that day. We eat, sing, party, etc. on a tragic day. What is that telling our younger generation? On the one hand we pride ourselves for being so diverse and welcoming immigrants and what not, but at the same time consider the controversy that surrounded the election, thanksgiving, everything!
Ageing;
Why do people fear old age? It's the most natural thing in the world. Although one may look at old age as deterioration, its inevitable.
When do family members start to feel that the "old person" in their lives become a burden?
When is a person considered old?
How do men and women age differently?
what one lives for, and what one is obligated to do in life.
Beliefs:
Religion, Politics, Nationalism Morality
While you may have all the material possessions in the world,
Human evil
Human life-why revered above all other life forms?
Does our universe have an ethical realm built into it? Are certain actions inherently good or evil, or is morality simply a man-made construct that enables society to function? Is morality convenient.
Death
Suicide
While most people try to do all they can to escape mortality—to live, others willfully terminate their lives.
Guilt, feel
Legacy: Martin Luther King. His meaningful life lives on.
What is more important? Other people seeing your life as meaningful or you seeing your life as meaningful?
Everyone seeks recognition, validation.
Contending with Mortality:
Producing offspring is man’s most accessible means of attempting immortality.
Does one have to be a public hero to have a meaningful life?
The creation of art—art lives on
Colonialism, Genocide
What are the aspects of one's life? your role as a member of your family, and ones professional life.
Identity: What is the self? Do we have a soul?
How much of you is nature and how much of you is nurture?
Education:
In our time, a ”meaningful” life has become only superficially meaningful, as our values are so greatly conditioned by the media, popular culture, and the premium placed on success and sex appeal. With the tremendous concern for materialistic things such as monetary gain and social status, physical appearance, and power, the core from which we derive “meaning” has become warped and depleted. The truly “meaningful” life, it would seem would comprise of peace, love, happiness, community, friendship, family. Corporate media such as Rap music, Reality shows, and Commercials, warp reality to the point in which you don’t even know what YOU want. You know what the media wants you to want and you end up getting sucked into that idea of a “good” life.
Sarah Palin symbolizes the death of the conservative intellect. In choosing Sarah Palin as the representative of the Republican Party; we see that a telegenic candidate is more valued over a competent one. She was miss Alaska back in (get year) and she was the Governor of Alaska. She could have been the vice president of the Untied States of America. Who are we to even judge a woman on her looks?
In mainstream media—the premium placed on good looks and wealth as the basis for the “good” life.
Music—rap music; good looks, money, sex
Lip Gloss: Lil Mama
I believe that the song is saying that to live a good life, you need to have good looks. As soon as she put that lip gloss on, she was part of the "cool crowd". The boys wanted to hang out with her, even the principle wanted to know where she got the lip gloss.
The lyrics that i thought spoke to that perspective were how Lil Mama said to her mom at the end "Yo ma, this lip gloss is Poppin', Look at me! ". Also throughout the whole song, after she put on the lip gloss she was like "My Lip Gloss is cool, my Lip Gloss be poppin', I'm standin' at my locker, and all the boys keep stoppin". Those quotes show that all she needed to do was change her appearance, and her life improved dramatically.
A reoccurring image in the video is the Lip Gloss shining on her lips. It wanted to reinforce the fact that all of this happened (the dancing and the boys and the popularity) because of the Lip Gloss; because she changed her appearance. I notice that there is a lot of dancing and that no one in the video is "ugly". there are only two people in the video that are old: the principle and the mom and you don't even see her face in the video, and the principle is all disoriented and in need of the lip gloss.
Magazines+Fashion
Consider the fact that fashion is an industry, or the development of cosmetic plastic surgery—suggests that natural physical appearance is a commodity worth paying for to enhance
The distinction between good and meaningful.
“Good”
cheating on a test, compromising work ethic, compromising creativity for money—artists, musicians and the like often themselves in conflict between perusing their creatively creative or intellectual goals, and having to please their audience sponsors.,
vs
meaningful
How do maintain a life that is both good and meaningful?
Do the things you love, sincerely
Compromises can bring meaning to one’s life
Sometimes people have to give up doing one thing that they love doing for another.
How does one maintain a balance between what one “should” do and what one “wants” to do,
Wal-Mart incident.
Human life devalued entirely, in favor of consumerism
Thanks giving anecdote
Colonialism, Genocide
Family
The media presents two things
The perfect family, a happily married couple, a couple of kids, its nice
On the other hand, the less marginal message is the fucked up family, where the dad is having an affair and the kids are fucked up.
Why do people desire to emulate what they see on tv? Plus, tv is not even about you! Why would you want to watch something so much about other people’s lives that you don’t even know and have never and most likely will never meet. Why do you want to be like someone else? The principal that advertising is based on is that people are not happy, with what they are doing, eating, look like.
Why do we want to be like celebrities? They themselves are not who w think they are. Why do we want to emulate ACTORS? They are fake. People who should be commemorated-heart surgeons, astronauts—people that are shaping our world. The average teenager knows who Paris Hilton is and wants to be like her.; ask them to point Australia out on a map and they have no answer.
Love
People seek affection, attention, intimacy. Everyone want to be cared for, and care for.
Instinctual?
Sexual
Platonic
Professional Life
Education
Why is it cool not to care about school and doing homework? Does it not make perfect sense that one should be enthusiastic about school given that one’s education is for none other than oneself?
Why is school so much more about one’s social life than one’s education
It seems counterintuitive to resent learning. Yet I too sometimes hesitate to answer a question in class, or appear interested in my homework because I think I will seem uncool.
Career
Money, greed
Body Image
Girls are supposed to have big breasts and big butts and small figures and look pretty, while boys are supposed to be tall with big muscles and good athletes. Little do people realize that outside the photo shop-ed, video-edited, spray-tanned images off silver screen or the glossy pages of a magazine, people do not look like that. Yet young people are tremendously insecure about how they look. Girls always think they are too fat…..
In mainstream media—the premium placed on good looks and wealth as the basis for the “good” life.
Music—rap music; good looks, money, sex
Lip Gloss: Lil Mama
I believe that the song is saying that to live a good life, you need to have good looks. As soon as she put that lip gloss on, she was part of the "cool crowd". The boys wanted to hang out with her, even the principle wanted to know where she got the lip gloss.
The lyrics that i thought spoke to that perspective were how Lil Mama said to her mom at the end "Yo ma, this lip gloss is Poppin', Look at me! ". Also throughout the whole song, after she put on the lip gloss she was like "My Lip Gloss is cool, my Lip Gloss be poppin', I'm standin' at my locker, and all the boys keep stoppin". Those quotes show that all she needed to do was change her appearance, and her life improved dramatically.
A reoccurring image in the video is the Lip Gloss shining on her lips. It wanted to reinforce the fact that all of this happened (the dancing and the boys and the popularity) because of the Lip Gloss; because she changed her appearance. I notice that there is a lot of dancing and that no one in the video is "ugly". there are only two people in the video that are old: the principle and the mom and you don't even see her face in the video, and the principle is all disoriented and in need of the lip gloss.
Magazines+Fashion
Consider the fact that fashion is an industry, or the development of cosmetic plastic surgery—suggests that natural physical appearance is a commodity worth paying for to enhance
The distinction between good and meaningful.
People are so blinded by what mainstream media tells us is a good and meaningful life, that we can’t even see the real meaning in our own lives.
In our time, a ”meaningful” life has become only superficially meaningful, as our values are so greatly conditioned by the media, popular culture, and the premium placed on success and sex appeal. With the tremendous concern for materialistic things such as monetary gain and social status, physical appearance, and power, the core from which we derive “meaning” has become warped and depleted. The truly “meaningful” life, it would seem would comprise of peace, love, happiness, community, friendship, family. Corporate media such as Rap music, Reality shows, and Commercials, warp reality to the point in which you don’t even know what YOU want. You know what the media wants you to want and you end up getting sucked into that idea of a “good” life.
Sarah Palin symbolizes the death of the conservative intellect. In choosing Sarah Palin as the representative of the Republican Party; we see that a telegenic candidate is more valued over a competent one. She was miss Alaska back in (get year) and she was the Governor of Alaska. She could have been the vice president of the Untied States of America. Who are we to even judge a woman on her looks?
“Good”
cheating on a test, compromising work ethic, compromising creativity for money—artists, musicians and the like often themselves in conflict between perusing their creatively creative or intellectual goals, and having to please their audience sponsors.,
vs
meaningful
How do maintain a life that is both good and meaningful?
Do the things you love, sincerely
Compromises can bring meaning to one’s life
Sometimes people have to give up doing one thing that they love doing for another.
How does one maintain a balance between what one “should” do and what one “wants” to do.
Wal-Mart incident.
Human life devalued entirely, in favor of consumerism
On the one hand rich people buy cars that they might not ever drive when the money they spend on a car could feed a village in Africa for months. On the other hand it’s their hard earned money they can do what they want with it. Why spend it on people they have no connection to other than a common humanity (philanthropy). Why are we so keen to buy, and more over to buy for less? People fight over the last item left at a store. We are so eager to purchase things, better still on sale, even better free. So what if we trample a couple of sales person in the bargain, huh?
Thanks giving anecdote
Why do we thank god, eat food, and get together with our family, on a day when a whole race was slaughtered. They were the original inhabitants and we took it from them. Imagine the message we are conveying to kids who find out what really happened on that day. We eat, sing, party, etc. on a tragic day. What is that telling our younger generation? On the one hand we pride ourselves for being so diverse and welcoming immigrants and what not, but at the same time consider the controversy that surrounded the election, thanksgiving, everything!
Ageing;
Why do people fear old age? It's the most natural thing in the world. Although one may look at old age as deterioration, its inevitable.
When do family members start to feel that the "old person" in their lives become a burden?
When is a person considered old?
How do men and women age differently?
what one lives for, and what one is obligated to do in life.
Beliefs:
Religion, Politics, Nationalism Morality
While you may have all the material possessions in the world,
Human evil
Human life-why revered above all other life forms?
Does our universe have an ethical realm built into it? Are certain actions inherently good or evil, or is morality simply a man-made construct that enables society to function? Is morality convenient.
Death
Suicide
While most people try to do all they can to escape mortality—to live, others willfully terminate their lives.
Guilt, feel
Legacy: Martin Luther King. His meaningful life lives on.
What is more important? Other people seeing your life as meaningful or you seeing your life as meaningful?
Everyone seeks recognition, validation.
Contending with Mortality:
Producing offspring is man’s most accessible means of attempting immortality.
Does one have to be a public hero to have a meaningful life?
The creation of art—art lives on
Colonialism, Genocide
What are the aspects of one's life? your role as a member of your family, and ones professional life.
Identity: What is the self? Do we have a soul?
How much of you is nature and how much of you is nurture?
Education:
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Election Thoughts...
Throughout my life, there has only been two presidents. I can remember only one, and the
only one that I can remember eighty-one percent of 415 historians think is a failure as president. (http://hnn.us/articles/5019.html)
only one that I can remember eighty-one percent of 415 historians think is a failure as president. (http://hnn.us/articles/5019.html) So the winner of this election I was really hoping would be a good one, and according to almost everyone I have talked to in the last 24 hours think that America has definitely made the right decision. Barack Obama is not only the first Black President, but also the first "good" President that I have had in my life.
America made history last night, and I am truly honored that I was alive and that my parents were actually part of history. I wish i could have voted so I could actually be a part of making history but at least I can say I was alive when the first Black president was elected.
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