Elissa Expression
I notice lately that all the people I admire are skilled at expressing their ideas, they don’t even have to have mind-blowing, revolutionary ideas- just that they are able to express them.
I wish I was better at verbally and manually expressing my opinions. I just know in my heart that we’re destroying our planet and default our species. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know this. Our forests are being cut down at the rate of 56 million acres a year, that desertification threatens 8 billion acres of land worldwide, that all of the world’s seventeen major fisheries are in decline and stand a decade away from virtual exhaustion, that 26 million tons of topsoil is lost to erosion and pollution every year. Maybe better communication skills will come with time- but there is such a sense of urgency, I feel that we don’t have time.
It so easy to just avert your eyes, it’s even encouraged by the media/government/corporations. The trio provides lots of other things to keep your attention; sports, fashion, movies, the latest music videos, wedge political issues… while they go about making their billions. I understand why people choose to look the other way, I sure want to sometimes. I think we all know deep down what’s going on- even the land-rover-driving-capitalist-pigs. We’re all just in various states of denial. Actually I know someone who is currently writing a book on this topic- George Marshal. I can’t wait to read it once he is done.
Before I didn’t really have a reason for our behaviour. I’ve only come to understand lately, that the reason we’re destroying our planet is because using the planets resources in a short period of time makes 350 residents of earth the billionaires, and 3 million millionaires. Their total net worth is estimated to exceed that of 45 per cent of the world’s population. They have all the power to use up the earth’s resources, market it to us as useful, create pollution and waste, and increase the enormous inequalities within and between all nations of the world. I worry that maybe I’m just pointing all the blame on someone because its easy.
Here is a really cute photo of my cousins on the Feagan side of my family swarming my grandmother on her 80th birthday.
I think it is pretty important to put a face, or at least a name to the blame. If you think its hard to think harder about what the real problem is, then how hard do you think the general public is going to think it is?
Think Bin laden. Think Lee Harvey Oslwald. Think Martin Luther King. All just faces that stood for an idea that was greater than themselves. Terrorism, Treason, Equality. So the figurehead you’re looking for may work. Scapegoat tactics for controling the masses and influencing opinion.
So here’s the dilemna: should you be using the tools of propoganda that have been misused to create the type of society we live in today, or should you be treating people in another way? Is there one?
I’m a designer and know how people assimilate messages, and know that there are plenty of ways to sell things. Hell, there’s probably one for every cause, so use em! Propoganda doesn’t always have to be bad.
your bro
-Al
sorry al, i don’t agree with using the same tools as the short-term thinking egoists just because they work (do they actually work in the long run?). i believe in change through offering positive alternatives and not directly targeting the strikes of the other side in what would become some kind of a battle. there are enough wars out there. so do not dream of the big campaign that will rescue us all. think small, think local, think swarms and networks. do not think anti, think pro! this is how this revolution is happening.
i’m into free software things, where we do not burn flags with a colorful window on it, but where a silly penguin and a gnu push aside corporations and software that just does not work for the people. what do you think?
Well,
Open source is the way of the future no doubt. I’m currently working with a few talented people on an opensource version of something you wouldn’t expect that will probably put alot of other people out of business. But trust me, its a good thing.
One thing we’re taught in design is that the pro message, is actually stronger than the anti. People tend to block out negative messages, or can’t relate to them because they haven’t actually experienced the negativity depicted. So I agree that positive messages are the best.
One campaign? Yeah right! Don’t worry, I’m not dreaming about it, because it won’t happen.
I like the additude of offering positive alternatives, because pointing out whats wrong isn’t hard for anyone and you don’t need design or propoganda to do that. I guess it comes down to this: If someone else is fighting dirty, can you beat em fighting clean? If you offer a positive alternative, but it gets slandered and slashed and you say nothing believing in your own righousness, will you succeed? How about how the republicans vs the democrats. Classic example of one side knowning how to twist a message, poke at soft spots, and regardless of how wrong they are, they do pretty well. Are there more republicans in the US? not even close. Pro-life vs Pro-choice is the same thing. The Pro-life movement has effectively argued their case by poking at soft spots and being relentless in doing so.
I can’t say either way. I just know of some examples for both sides of the coin, and know that the tools of visual communication are thousands of years old and not going away. The whole world doesn’t live on computers (as we converse here), and ya gotta talk to everyone.
ok bad ending, but I gotta get off!
-Al