Obama:Symbol of Human Homogenization by John I. Jones
The Bear on Dec 02 2008 at 9:30 am | Filed under: Politics
The election of Barack Obama is only the latest signal indicating how humans are plunging headlong toward homogenization and the subtle way that mass media and the internet is changing our social, intellectual and cultural perspectives at every hand.
We like to think that we went to the polls and elected Obama by majority vote because he is the best man for the job. That his education, his experience and his personal courage make him better qualified to lead America and the World in these troubling times.
Actually—a quiet undertow fed by a pervasive, all-powerful media machine which demands that we all become equal/homogenized for the common good–is what got him elected. That is the intrinsic nature of the global village.
It was the collective effect of media….television, books, video games, computers, Ipods, word processing software, automobiles, clothing, firearms, money etc.… all of those extensions we use every day to empower ourselves in this modern world that got Obama elected.
As any student of media knows, media not only extends—in the Marshall McLuhan sense—but it also equalizes and homogenizes.
When I was young boy, I remember my father saying: “The .38 special made all men equal.”
What he meant by that was that, until that point in history, personal confrontations between individuals were based largely on size and strength. Small guys knew better than to diss a bigger guy because the bigger guy was physically superior in terms of size and strength and could kick the hell out of him. Women knew better to talk back to men because of… again, their superior physical strength and size. That’s why you see so many women being slapped around in 1940s gangster movies. But if you have a .38 special and a larger more physically powerful person assaults you, you can send them into eternity with nothing more than a flick of the trigger finger.
Somebody said that the internet is the “most democratic medium ever invented.”
With the vast plethora of media which is plastering us day today, everybody on earth—except for a few Muslin lunatics—are being democratized like never before in human history.
The internet allows everybody on earth to say anything they want to say to anybody else on earth. There are NO forces—governments, laws, dictators, soldiers… nothing can prevent this free, truly democratic form of communication. Never before have human beings found themselves with such a contraption as this!!
The internet homogenizes us because it not only allows, but demands that we see one another’s sameness.
There is a universal frequency at which all thinking human beings recognize their sameness with all other thinking human beings.
The vast welter of media that consumes the modern world—especially the internet–has exposed this universal frequency like no other time in human history.
This universal frequency is not only alive and well on the internet, it is thriving beyond everyone’s wildest dreams. In fact, the pursuit of this universal frequency is the driving force behind globalization. The internet represents ultimate democratization. That is, global democratization.
So the next time somebody tells you that Barack Obama was elected by majority vote among registered voters, tell them that is only partially true. Tell them that media has become so pervasive a part of human life that human beings don’t control their lives any more. They are just pawns to the mesmerizing power of mass media. Tell them they spend more time every day obeying the commands of the various forms of media than they spend obeying the commands of their spouse. Tell them to check out their daily routine and see if that is correct. Tell them they are children to this great giant plethora of media which demanded that Obama be elected.
So, my friends, like it or not, it appears that the human race is continuing its headlong plunge into the swirling vortex of human homogenization/globalization as a result of mass media. This vortex is a giant blender which is blending all of its participants into one, single, homogenous substance.
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Obama is not that single, homogenized substance.
He is a symbol of that single, homogenized substance.
The mass media itself—not the content—is the message.
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