Lipstick Jihad

Outward appearance has transcended inward understanding of our selves because our society puts a tremendous amount of value in how we look and how we are perceive by others. There’s no wonder why so many of us are lost in this world because many of us don’t understand our inner identity therefore many of us do not know where we’re going. Genocide and slavery are the cruelest form of how outward appearance can be the only determining factor whether a person lives, die or in slave. Sometimes I wonder if these values were reverse would these terms ever be infamous in our world history.

In Lipstick Jihad Mosveni recall her first day of school being uneasy by the teacher talking roll call simply because her name is different and she look different. Assuming that she couldn’t be more the five years old she already knew she was out of place and this affected her pride in her name because society has shun her because of the origins of her name and she simply reacted ashamedly instead of proudly because her inward understanding of herself was damage. As she grew older it didn’t surprise that she went back to Iran to find out who she was.

Sontag

Sontag in the opening pages of chapter 8 is trying to get at the ignorant people who think human beings are not capable of doing great harm to one another. Sontag finds it incomprehensible for a person of adult age to believe that humans are incapable of doing great harm even when provided with evidence. She refers to these people of not reaching moral or psychological adulthood.

I personally believe she right and wrong we all have seen gruesome things in our lives that one person has done to another especially our nightly news has done a good job documenting such events, so Sontag thinks this person has no excuse to be surprise when a person do something harmful to another person.

At the same time, she can be wrong to refer people as ignorant for not accepting the moral flaws some people have. She also does not take in to account people moral tolerances for such actions. I mean you would not expect a nun to have the same tolerance of a police officer when it comes to some gruesome images.

Global Warming

I plan to write my research paper on global warming and its effect on climate. I pick this topic because the evidence on global warming is overwhelming for naysayer to continue to believe that this problem does not exist. Even big oil his step up and see that global warming is real I will present both side of this argument and provide credible evidence for both.

I also plan on showing how the earth has never been hotter in the last 400 hundred years. The devastating effects it is having on our polar ice caps and the extreme weather conditions we are experiencing right now. How animal species are being wipe off the map because there habitats are endanger.

All of my sources will come from credible and reputable sources such as NPR, Accuweather.com, Scientific Consensus on Global Warming just to name a few.
I will make two significant points, one will be that humans have cause this problem and two that humans will have to fix this problem.

Sontag

After reading On photography by Susan Sontag, she let her readers see beneath the photographs by illustrating what we see when we look at photographs. Sontag also introduce the concept of a visual code which have alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have the right to observe. The perspective she provided gave me a greater appreciation of photographs, there essential and value to society is infinite.

It is amazing how far photography has come along and become so intertwine in our society given that it only been around for a hundred and fifty years. Sontag illustrate how life would be without these devices, for instances she explain that the wedding photo has become apart of the ceremony. The graduation of a child is another example of how cameras have become mandatory when taking parts in these invents.

Sontag also compares and contrast moving images and still images. Sontag believes that photographs are more memorable because”they are a neat slice of time not a flow.” I found this to be true I have old pictures and old movies, but I found it easier to throw old movies away than old pictures especially if it was given to me. I also view older pictures more than I would view an older movie I always get the feeling that the older movie leaves something out or the content leaves nothing to interpretation.

We Have a Crisis

After watching The Corporation and reading No logos I now realize that there are many issues with corporations and culture. The central theme in No logos and The Corporation is to expose the greed and corruption that these so call legal people are doing to the world. They have essentially reduce some third world nations to corporate farms where they exhausted there natural resources exploit there workers and leave a trail of pollutions just for good measure. Corporations have run amuck in the past fifty years, lobbying for favorable corporate laws to expand their powers and the list goes on forever.

For instances Naomi Klien met a young girl who was assembling cd-rom drives for IBM an impressive skill for a young girl. The girl explains to her that they make computers, but doesn’t know how to operate them. I liken this to a mechanic who knows how to repair cars but don’t know how to drive, it is just backwards to say the least. IBM has done nothing for this young girl but paying her just an enough to eat and still work. Unfortunately her and many like her lives will not change because of the strangle hold these corporations have on labor laws and the never-ending pursuit of profits. Michael Moore said it best,” how much is enough?”

In conclusion It is going to take a powerful minority yes I said minority because the majority is either unaware or just do not care for major changes to take place. What if Americans were working for food would that spark change. What if Americans were working in harmful conditions, would that spark change? What if Americans were the little girl in the third world country with nothing will that spark change? Until we as a people wake up and stand up, we will soon know what it will be like to be that little girl.

No Logos

In Klein’s book, No Logo the title was not meant to be taken in its literal sense but to tell her audience about the anticorporate sentiment rising from young people. Her hypothesis comes from her first hand experiences of large multinational corporations with big name recognitions exploiting the third world countries for profits. Her accounts of what she witness is truly eye opening, for instances she met a young girl who was assembling cd-rom drives for IBM an impressive skill for a young girl. The girl explains to her that they make computers, but doesn’t know how to operate them. I liken this to a mechanic who knows how to repair cars but don’t know how to drive, it’s just backwards to say the least. Klein wants her audience to hear about this little girl and other instances of this exploitation to spark an outrage in consumers who consume these products and give birth to the next big political movement.

Ohman and Adorno/Horkheimer

After reading both Culture Industry by Adorno and Horkheimer and Selling Culture by Ohman, both authors characterized the culture industry differently. Adorno and Horkheimer Theory doesn’t offer much rationale or plausible examples that this theory is valid, for instances in their theory it states “The culture industry claims to serve the consumers needs for entertainment, but conceals the way that it standardizes these needs, manipulating the consumers to desire what it produces.” This theory is hard to consider when the ruling class or capitalists sole purpose is to attain wealth, the cost associated with controlling subordinates is far to expensive for the ruling class as depicted in Ohman article.

Ohman explanation of the ruling class is much more rationale than Adorno and Horkheimer theory. Ohman realized mass production is needed for capitalist production any affect on ideology is an indirect outcome of capitalism. Ohman stated that”cultural experiences are bought and sold in markets, propaganda becomes an expensive luxury for its producers”. I believe this to be true capitalists main concern is not shaping ideology, but finding a mass for its products to make profit.