meekia

Those dead poets

We are really only writing one story.

Mine, was about a young man’s search for his place whilst drifting through a Kafkaesque world.

Of course, a story has many points of view.

I remember R’s words ---

“This course has nothing to do with knowledge acquisition. It has to do with shaping your perspective on life...”

I remember him saying, “The future of Singapore cannot be built on a single reality. Because we live in a globalized world, one solution cannot cure all ills.”

Of course, ardent academics would be quick to argue against the absolution that we live indeed, in a globalized world. But R’s deconstructivist introduction to the laden values in his "Journalism Deconstructivism" module might have been just as apt a description for the learning process we went through in our mass communication degree program.

Reading the research essays I’ve written in my journey through media communication studies, I realize my ideologues have inadvertently centered on the dialectical forces at work in feminism, consumerism, and globalization.

Feminism.

Consumerism.

Globalization.

What was the common thread that ran through my research and writing process?

A search. My search. For personal identity. Both conscious and subconscious.

What does it mean to be a feminist?

What does it mean to be a man?

What does it mean to be a Singaporean?

What does it mean to be a citizen?

What does it mean to be oppressed? What does it mean to be liberated?

What does it mean to oppress?

What does it mean to liberate?

Knowledge acquisition brought me perspectives and new questions, but provided no answers.

“It all depends on how you see it….”

How do I see? What do I see?

In a post-911, tsunami-washed-out world, I tried asking myself, “who? where? when? what? how? why?”

“Who are you?” I asked myself, as I silently walked through the air-conditioned shopping malls, looking at the seductive skins I could inhabit. Listening to the Chinese New Year ditties beckoned thoughts of an auspicious and festive, rather than a bloody or Republican, red.

“Who am I?” I asked myself, as I pondered the ramifications of feminism on my gender identity; investigated how imbalances in the global media structure would affect my world view; and tried to understand how material possession and consumption was supposedly a symbolic discourse between me and my ideal self.

The Installment Plan looked scary…but also strangely beguiling.

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation,

And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.

Was he free? Was he Happy? The question is absurd.

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

But on a whim, I prayed and screamed out loud with Lawrence.

For God's sake, let us be men

not monkeys minding machines

or sitting with our tails curled while the machine amuses us, the radio or film or gramophone.

Monkeys with a bland grin on our faces.

What if it was our own life flashing before our eyes like an Oscar Awards ceremony Best Picture nominee trailer?

With vivid colours, defined contours and magnificent edits.

[F]ar more sophisticated devices have begun to appear on the scene, above all, video systems and micro-computers adapted for domestic use. Together these will achieve what I take to be the apotheosis of all the fantasies of late twentieth-century man—the transformation of reality into a TV studio, in which we can simultaneously play out the roles of audience, producer and star. . . .

Every one of our actions during the day, across the entire spectrum of domestic life, will be instantly recorded on video-tape. In the evening we will sit back to scan the rushes, selected by a computer trained to pick out only our best profiles, our wittiest dialogue, our most affecting expressions filmed through the kindest filters, and then stitch these together into a heightened re-enactment of the day. Regardless of our place in the family pecking order, each of us within the privacy of our own rooms will be the star in a continually unfolding domestic saga, with parents, husbands, wives and children demoted to an appropriate starring role.

—J.G. Ballard, "The Future of the Future"

The story has to continue, because the search continues. But what do I type in Google? (Or is there a better search engine?)

Christie Rosen tells me we have gone from Broadcasting to Narrow-casting to Ego-casting. With R.S.S text feeds, I can now read only what I wish to receive. With blogs, I can choose to write only what I choose to perceive. There is a strange possibility provided by technology --- I can customize content I consume, to the point where everything that comes in is only stuff that I believe in.

“Question everything.”

Said R, the man with a tie and a pair of glasses, our lecturer, when he introduced himself at the very beginning of his course.

“Question everything. But believe in yourself.”

Offered T, together with his pink, purple and black head of spiky hair at the end of his New Chaotic Technologies module.

But who am I?

A moderate? A left? A right? A modern man?

I see the winks.

There is a sense of play. There is a sense that I must seize the day, like those dead poets.

posted by audaciousjoy @ 1:07 PM