Necessary Illusions

classes. Through the construction of this marketplace, western governments forged firm and enduring links between socioeconomic position and ideological power, permitting upper classes to use each to buttress the other ... In the United States, in particular, the ability of the upper and upper-middle classes to dominate the marketplace of ideas has generally allowed these strata to shape the entire society’s perception of political reality and the range of realistic political and social possibilities. While westerners usually equate the marketplace with freedom of opinion, the hidden hand of the market can be almost as potent an instrument of control as the iron fist of the state.15.                                           Interesting extract from N,Chomsky ,Necessary illusions

Willem de Kooning.Excavation 1950

De Koonings painting Excavation 1950 and his use of newsprint in the in the creation of this painting,anticipates Rauschenburgs use of found images and texts in his own work ,has made me realise that the modern environment,especially the urban environment is virtually a living text.This text is not necessarily narrative in nature.Just as John Cages symphonies utilises the arbitrary way sounds interacts with our senses,the modern media and message saturated environment,with its colidescope of images and text.Each one competing for our attention as we journey through the streets and hi ways of our modern cities is completely arbitrary in its power to work on our perceptions.This is a completely new phanomonom unique to the 20th and 21st century.The modern city dweller is spoken to and enticed daily by images and texts,each random turn of the head exposing him to a new message.

Benjamin Ginsberg. Market place of ideas.

western governments have used market mechanisms to regulate popular perspectives and sentiments. The “marketplace of ideas,” built during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, effectively disseminates the beliefs and ideas of the upper classes while subverting the ideological and cultural independence of the classes. Through the construction of this marketplace, western governments forged firm and enduring links between socioeconomic position and ideological power, permitting upper classes to use each to buttress the other ... In the United States, in particular, the ability of the upper and upper-middle classes to dominate the marketplace of ideas has generally allowed these strata to shape the entire society’s perception of political reality and the range of realistic political and social possibilities. While westerners usually equate the marketplace with freedom of opinion, the hidden hand of the market can be almost as potent an instrument of control as the iron fist of the state.

Clash of civilisations Samuel Huntington

In his book Clash of Civilisations,Samuel Huntington articulates the political theory that,with the sensation of the Cold War,ideology ,and the clash of ideologies is no longer the predominant factor in shaping the world we live in.Huntington believed that the source of future conflict in the world will be between cultures eg. Islam, consumerist western culture etc.The author believes these cultures have their origins in ancient historical civilations of the old world.This is an interesting idea,we see the populations of western democracies, being increasing moulded into a political and cultural consensus by the media.But what is notable is the resistance of Islamic cultures to this manufacturing of consent.what is more interesting is that cultures are no longer confined to geographical locations.Culture is no longer predominantly idetified with nationality.Clashes between cultures can take place within nation states.

Baudelaire on childhood

“Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man's physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.”