Heres a recent Google Talk by author of: The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification _____________________ Paul Roberts says the impulse society manufactures desire and impulse, the result is a blinkered selfishness. The virtual merging of self and market. _____________________ The whole socioeconomic system is re-orienting itself around the self, blinding us to the bigger picture and larger concerns. Corporations play for next quarter, easiest way to do this is to lobby politicians, subverting democracy. Politics has become financial-ised, donors become investors, the amount of money they invest is so large they expect a fast return, and the most efficient way to deliver a return in politics is to go extreme, creating partisan gridlock. Were soo accustom to having what we want now, that the idea of systematically delaying gratification is maybe beyond our capacity. It may be done for us when systems break down. Yet the individual capability and individual willingness to think beyond the self is still there. We need to step back from the impulsive self-absorbed society, the free market spectacle, which offers us totally personalised worlds and gratification of individual desires in exchange for market values. It would be irresponsible to not use the power of social media, because somebody is going to use it. The question is how do we use the power?
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 00:57:04 +0000
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