Is US culture outsourced? Can we make our own culture?
Can we control our own culture? Me, me, me, I know that one. YES, we can!
Every day I react to the news I read. When this blog is more about pointing out what's going on instead of pointing out what we CAN DO differently, I'm at best, giving myself therapy, raising awareness of issues, providing a unique perspective, highlighting or making a specific criticism or motivating someone.....to do what? Anger without action...what good does that do? Am I creating something new or am I just tweaking the wake from the motorboat of mainstream media?
We can change ourselves and others by improving, creating and defining our own culture. This might be the most under-appreciated tool we have. It may be the most powerful tool we have.
So how does one change their culture? Via improved consumption, creation and advocacy. Give good stuff more attention and bad stuff less attention. Good and bad are of course subjective but without subjectivity, there'd be no diversity. Advocate that good stuff and don't advocate or give power to the bad stuff (via attention) -- ie, tell people about stuff. Create something if you can, and that can be anything from writing a comment on a blog to making an independent movie. All three of these are powerful. Pick any and go!
What do YOU think?
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We live in a stacked set of petri dishes. Workplace culture, street culture, coffee house culture, art culture, shopping culture, road culture... bike culture. Most people have a hard enough time affecting one culture, let alone the whole stack. There's carryover. Spillover. Runoff. We let the bad people/culture/pathways fester, or reward them (both are as evil) and we get some bad germs/memes infecting the stack. We go the other way, and we get some kind of antibacterial cleansing. Nasty! But to embrace the notion that there's any kind of short term balance between these two may lead one to abandon the idea of cultural change. We're making the cultural poisons as we consume them, adapt to them, jam on them. They kill us; others take our/their place. Stronger, weaker, weirder. But are we weird enough? I think not.
ReplyDeleteHere's a new take on an old story:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y54ABqSOScQ
Enjoy :)
Check this article when you get a chance...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice