Final Exam
According to Stephen Duncombe, cultural resistance is “a haven in a heartless world”. In other words, cultural resistance is the broad use of arts, literature, and music that helps reclaim our humanity. It inspires people to own their lives and invest in their communities. Moreover, it helps people save this world from extinction as mentioned in the book, the 6th extinction. Philosophers and theorists, such as Gramschi, believe in that the present culture is created and maintained by the dominant body, and thereby discourage autonomy. The governing bodies manipulate culture to create a situation that reinforces their power over society. *The philosopher’s strategies of praxis can not sufficiently counter the 6th extinction, but support
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They affect our ability to think freely, which has a negative impact. According to Hakim Bey, “No more pirate islands! In the future the same technology freed from all political control could make possible an entire world of autonomous zones” (Duncombe 114). The government is neglecting to inform people about the truth and essentially controlling them. When the president, Donald Trump is working towards the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency, people may believe that his actions are correct. People will not be able to focus on what they believe due to corruptions. Gramsci indicated, “Or, on the other hand, is it better to work out consciously and critically one’s own conception of the world and thus, in connection with the labours of one’s own brain, choose one’s sphere of activity, take an active part in the creation of the history of the world, be one’s own guide, refusing to accept passively and supinely from outside the moulding of one’s personality” (Duncombe 59)? It is much better to make decisions without the negative influence of others. Starting to think independently makes you see the world a different way. The 6th extinction states how humans are the cause for a mass extinction. This correlates to cultural resistance, which states that humans are not thinking independently, therefore damaging the environment without realizing. The sixth extinction is rapidly approaching because people’s minds are brainwashed and don’t know what is happening around them. The government shifts our minds away from important events so we do not rebel or make a change in our society. Another way the government manipulates people is through a major advancement in
In the words of Ayn Rand, “A culture is made or destroyed-by its articulate voices.” (Ayn Rand). “Articulate voices” found in Animal Farm by George Orwell, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and Anthem by Ayn Rand all create or destroy his or her culture. In all three novels, the “articulate voices” inspire change, take actions that affect his or her surroundings, and cause revolutions.
Marwick, Arthur. The Cultural Revolution of the Long Sixties: Voices of Reaction, Protest, and Permeation. International History Review 27.4 (2005): 780-806. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 16 Feb. 2011.
They influence the way people think, vote, dress, buy, how much TV they watch, and
“Cultural identity is not something that is easy to manipulate by acting on the mass media, nor does it seem to be much influenced by media culture. It survives and flourishes in many a form, and the general expansion of television, music and other media have added some widely (internationally) shared cultural elements without evidently diminishing the uniqueness of cultural experience in different nations, regional and localities of Europe” (McQuail, 2000, p. 237) Cultural imperialism thesis has also lead to many cultural protectionism policies, designed “to defend indigenous cultures against their corruption, pollution or destruction by foreign elements” (Morley,2006, p.36). Problems arise when trying to understand what is meant by foreign (and to who) and also when trying to examine and define the purity, originality and indigenousness of one’s culture that needs to be defended. Cultural imperialism tends to assume that the most countries from the global South had indigenous, pure and authentic cultures before the Western influence came along via transnational corporations. One could argue that this view tends to be a romanticized perspective of the Third World which disregards the complex relations between countries and their former colonial powers while also ignoring the fact that most cultures are hybrids. There is a problem with the inaccurate presumption that the phenomenon of cultural mixing is recent, when actually all cultures have, to certain extent, absorbed elements from another cultures through history. Therefore, the complexity of intercultural flows must be acknowledged, along with the ambivalence of their meaning when being brought into new
---"Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor." Outlaw Culture:Resisting Representations. New York: Routledge, 1994. 431-37. Print.
“The various disciplines that make up the arts and sciences are the cultural frames in terms of which attitudes are formed and lives conducted. The interpretive study of culture represents an attempt to come to terms with the diversity of the ways human beings construct their lives in the act of leading them.”
Duncombe, Stephen. "Introduction to The Cultural Resistance Reader." Critical Encounters with Texts: Finding a Place to Stand. By Margaret Himley and Anne Fitzsimmons. New York: Custom Pub., 2009. 117-23. Print.
Government effects my life everyday in a vast variety of ways. From the quality of the milk that I drink in the morning, to the license and Insurance I need to drive my vehicle to school and work. Government also effects the taxes that are deducted from my salary. The government uses this money to protect consumers and provide services for the public amongst many other things.
Culture is an essential part of every human being. People can fall under the category of one culture or they can fall under many. Values derived from culture tend to reflect in an individual’s or a society’s understanding of what is wrong and right. In culture, there are many significant features. Some are material, such as food and clothing, and non-material, such as beliefs and ideas. These material and non-material objects help to push people into powerful roles and they maintain the power. With the power these people then have a strong influence on the beliefs and ideas of the lower people. They have the ability to alter and change their beliefs at any time and most times, they follow along with it. These ideas and thoughts have been in place for many decades, since cultural theorists, such as Marx and Habermas, began explaining them. They have been a thought for decades
Culture, what is culture? For some people, it is viewed as the ways of life. It’s the norms and values of the society. For instance, politics, economics, religions, arts, laws and others. Culture for Geertz (1973:44-5) is a “set of control mechanisms”. Those include rules, plans, and recipes for behavior governing. He also argues that culture views begin with the assumption that human thought is basically both social and public. Example, our natural habitat which is our home, but also including the market place and the town. Geertz’s interpretation of culture has the requisite implications of power and control mechanisms embedded in culture, which allow for the exploration of gender inequality.
Overall, humans impact the global environment in multitudinous ways whether positive or negative. While creating issues such as overpopulation, pollution, biomagnification, and deforestation they also intrude into many other factors such as environmental, social, political, and economic. Problems caused by society itself are leading up to solutions to fix these environmental problems and may also just benefit the world as a whole.
The instrumental view discusses that the key to freedom is the access to technology and information, incorrectly taking importance from the ability to provide feedback and access public discussion about that information. On the other hand, the environmental view raises importance about the previously mentioned public sphere, focusing on feedback and interaction between individuals within a society as the most influential aspect for the discussion of political opinions, ultimately leading to political change. Shirky’s article even discusses the inability to cause political change if the environmental approach is not adopted, “The environmental view assumes that little political change happens without the dissemination and adoption of ideas and opinions in the public sphere.” (Shirky, C., 2011, p. 35) However, Shirky discusses that, to embrace this last approach, we must focus on long-term effects, even if that means going through some short-term
As we look backon past cultures it reveals so much about the world, and the same will happen when we lookback on our culture today. We will be able to see how important certain things are to oursociety, and how it reflects who we are.In our fast-paced society, the news is constantly changing, and what is news today,could be irrelevant tomorrow. Popular culture includes the most current and ongoing aspects ofour lives. However, with the union of media into the technical world, people are brought closerand closer to the ever-present media. We are able to get the latest news at our finger tips. Thestories that were important years ago, don’t have the same level of importance today.However, I don’t think this means that we don’t appreciate culture. Not only does popularculture teach us about ourselves it also helps us learn about society. We are able to see howpopular culture reveals information about our culture, and what society believes is important. Itgives us truths about our own culture, time, era, and society and it can even offer reassuranceon life’s challenges, and help us figure out who we are. Like I mentioned before, the cultures ofthe past have helped shape our society and tells us about what it is like to live in this world, thesame as the popular culture of today also helps shapes us. Popular culture reveals our beliefs,values, and decisions. It can also have an impact on younger
In Matthew Arnold’s 1869 essay, “Culture and Anarchy”, there is little discussion about the word culture. Instead, he describes culture as striving for perfection in a world without it. Without a clear definition, the meaning of the word is open to interpretation and thus will mean different things to different people. While I do not necessarily agree with Arnold’s ideas, they are the foundation for the thought about culture. While Arnold builds a foundation for the study of culture, it was F.R. Leavis who built on this foundation in his 1933 text “Mass Civilizations and Minority Culture”.
Despite this ever-presence, there are a lot of questions surrounding culture, like what exactly culture, why are their differences in culture and what arises from those differences, and how culture interacts with society to influence one’s worldview. In this essay, these questions were answered. To summarize, culture, loosely defined, is the set of ideas, traditions, and beliefs that shape an individual’s or a group’s behavior and/or outlook on the world (Warf). Different cultures arose from biological, environmental, and geographic differences between humans back when humans were evolving and thereafter. In those differences, many things, both positive like the sharing of ideas, and negative, like the annihilation of a culture, can occur when two cultures meet. Culture can affect one’s worldview in similar ways. It can cause a sort of broadening of the mind, or it can cause stereotypes and even hate crimes. But, no matter what you think about culture, in this diverse, very global society, it is becoming increasingly important to understand what culture is and what one as a citizen, need to keep in