Indoctrinated Consumerism

[.Kafka]

Indoctrinated Consumerism

A desperate urgency,
an intimate understanding of irony,
an underlying despair
laced with a trace of humor,
macabre dreams.

“As a child I was told to string words.
As a child I was taught to lace, and wait”

It was only later I learned how to undo the knots,
gentle subtleties of the depraved language
crass-crossed ropes that hold us, it, together.

It began, quite ordinarily in the rain.
Trembling with tenderness, damp eagerness
shoes brought down thump, clump.
Robes were a flying.
Muffled, shivering under the umbrella.
I remember once.
At the storefront, the Façade of the neighborhood
making a request for one, Mr. Clause.
Promptly handed a brochure entitled
‘Intricacies of English Grammar’,
3rd Edition.

"Ho Ho and a bucket for tomorrow's snow."

It was December, you see. And I was young.
I was told a man with a quantum engineered sled would descend.

Now that I’m old, rather sinewy
and far too lewd
I’ve stopped waiting.
No white man in red
will steal my dreams from me tonight.
Turning the curtains, lighting the stove
I am able to create and burn
in the solace of my memory.

[Delta40]

well I am impressed in an abstract way as I feel this is a stab at the dreams we weave as children which unravel over time = thanks to our parents and the communities beliefs. its here and there but apt all the same.

[.Kafka]

well I am impressed in an abstract way as I feel this is a stab at the dreams we weave as children which unravel over time = thanks to our parents and the communities beliefs. its here and there but apt all the same.

The notion of an 'archetype' is generally acknowledged today, from psychoanalysis, socio-cultural theory, to mythology; I have also read that there are only 3 core literary formulations. The human soul is broken into a pattern of emotions, the mind into a series of conflicts, and our identity into systems of action/thought. I wonder to what extent human behavior is predictable. If someone were to ask me about collective behavioral tendencies, I would say, it is completely random as it is also absolutely predictable. 'Individuality', I am sure, is a contrived idea that originated when 19th century Europe required a division of labor. If the 21st century, the most 'individualized' century, is so very individual, how is it that marketing agencies and advertisement companies tame our great populations with trends....

[Delta40]

I'll just go to uni and get a degree so I can answer your question! we are consumed by mass culture which promotes individuality

[hillwalker]

I'm sorry but I will have to disagree with D40 here - mass culture stifles individuality to such an extent that we are being moulded into predictable consumer units at the mercy of the advertisers and the media.
Their aim is to gain maximum profit from minimum effort by serving the lowest common denominator, and most consumers are happy to fall into that bracket (which is what I believe this poem may be alluding to).

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

The last verse is the one that affected me most.

[Virgil]

I'm not usually into abstract and didactic themes, but I think this was pretty good. The anectdotes make the poem more tangible.

[Delta40]

I'm sorry but I will have to disagree with D40 here - mass culture stifles individuality to such an extent that we are being moulded into predictable consumer units at the mercy of the advertisers and the media.
Their aim is to gain maximum profit from minimum effort by serving the lowest common denominator, and most consumers are happy to fall into that bracket (which is what I believe this poem may be alluding to).

H

I was misunderstood. one of the things mass culture promotes is individuality, which is an irony given that it promotes everyone to follow suit - but to combat that it promotes all in the pursuit of individuality. I'm not making sense here. suffice it to say. like everyone on this planet, we are all individual...

[hillwalker]

And a good job too.... let the 'sheep' follow those advertisers and hard-sell salesmen who would have us think otherwise.

[.Kafka]

And a good job too.... let the 'sheep' follow those advertisers and hard-sell salesmen who would have us think otherwise.

I wonder if it can be expressed in such terms. The word 'individuality' like the word 'freedom' is a linguistic illusion. These concepts usually accompany non-conformity. But to subvert and retaliate against? These words are representations indicating...To what extent can one be an individual when one expresses oneself in a language that develops historically and is the abomination of collective minds? When I write, 'history', there is a mutual understanding of what is generally meant by history. Language, in its universal sense, is social as it requires association for communication to be possible. Reason through association. Understanding by association. Semiotics, the combination between the word-image and its manifestation, requires a basis. Mustn't it? Or there would perpetually be linguistic storms and upheavals - every philosophical question is a linguistic anomaly. Perhaps the basis of semiotics is human emotion. Even Reason, that glorious atrocity of the Enlightenment, is a perversion and metamorphosis of a certain emotion. Emotions, are archetypal, hence how can a human be an individual when he/she is bound by body, mind, and nurture, by human nature?