Identity...

[fajrdrako]

The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist. - Marshall McLuhan, 1911 - 1980

So... what did he mean by that? Is it an "I am not a number" kind of thing, or is it that he felt his identity was being stolen, like stealing a person's soul by taking their photograph?

I find that McLuhan is often just a little too... arch.

Of course, it's intriguing to find the odd individual who can keep himself off the radar.

Comments

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Perhaps a bit of both? I don't know if McLuhan and McGoohan ever met, mind you, although that might make for an interesting bit of "what if"-style historical fiction.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

LOL! What a wonderful mental image... the water, the ball, McLuhan... the striped umbrellas, the sinister imprisonment in a world without sense or purpose.

I think we're onto a meta-level metaphor there!

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I was considering something a tad more documentarian in tone, mind you... :-D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You have a journalistic turn of mind, don't you? Wear it like a badge! Go for it!

[allyra.livejournal.com]

Hehehe, this is incredibly close to what I came here to post!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Mindwaves floating on the same current.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

What bugs me is when we are expected to put more in to our shadow selves, no matter what the cost to us as real people. Case in point: when talking about how to get around during this bus strike (abomination), someone quite seriously suggested that I buy a car and pay for it with a car loan at 20% interest. He said it would "help my credit history."

I have had serious problems with job security and just got *out* of debt. I very nearly freaked when he suggested that. Arrrrghhhh!

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

Are "credit histories" real beings? Some people in the US seem to believe that, which strikes me as perilously close to insane.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Some people believe we are our credit histories and little else. The advisability of that logic...is questionable.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Some people just don't know what's important.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

We all live in a world where reality takes the form we expect, or create, or build for ourselves. Those who believe in credit histories, or religions, or weather forecasts, or - well, I'm sure you can name your own set of widespread beliefs that have been reified by conviction - those who believe make them real for their own purposes and their own cognition. Sometimes it spills over into our realities, if we let it. Sometimes, like Thoreau, we have to go to prison to defy it. So it's important to think whether it's worth it.

If it's a real illusion (there's a paradox for you!) we are probably safer to follow our own judgement.

Insanity is never safe.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Insensitive, that one.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Lots of insensitivity around. Really.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

It's a concern that whenever a problem exists, some find that buying something (especially on credit) is the first and best solution.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's a concern that whenever a problem exists, some find that buying something

Well - buying something often cheers me up when I'm down. Scary, that. Sometimes. Sometimes it's just fun. Buying a set of Torchwood playing cards really made my day last week.

There's a shallowness to this that I am slightly ashamed of, but I'm not sure why. Or why it isn't more clear to me. I don't want to be materialist, and on the whole, I'm not - but I have weaknesses. Clearly!

Pondering...

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

We all do that. ;) But for example, our dryer died on us a few weeks ago, so my husband looked online, found a replacement kit for some parts for $14 and did the work in an hour. Meanwhile, our friends are saying, "You should get one of those new front loaders!"

It's the disposable-so-get-a-new-one! outlook which gets on my nerves.

We do have cars, but we've never bought new cars.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

our friends are saying, "You should get one of those new front loaders!"

Our culture encourages that.

It's the disposable-so-get-a-new-one! outlook which gets on my nerves.

It fuels the economy. And that's supposed to be a good thing. Never mind that it's destroying our planet and messing with our psyches!

I don't gripe because people have cars. I gripe that the world is set up in such a way that most people have no good alternatives to owning cars. There should be other, better, less damaging ways to get around.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Who/what is your icon?

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

It's a cropped shot of Kate Webb's notebook. She was a war correspondent and one of my personal heroes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/world/asia/15webb.html?_r=1

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That is very cool. I'd like to read about her. The intro reminds me of Agnes Smedley, a Chinese war correspondent whose writing I have admired.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Hah! Some of us don't like (a) car ownership or (b) being in debt. Stick to your guns. We have the freedom to choose, even when the world is fighting us. And outnumbering us.