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Child - Parent
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Increasingly we [live in a] 'dependency culture.'
We depend on the consumer machine to provide for us - to give us what we want, when we want it. This is our 'right.' The Thing has dehumanised us, and we are all incresingly dependent on it for succour. We expect. We demand. We are like children. Everything must be instant and, if it isn't, somebody must pay.
[Paul Kingsnorth]
Real England, p. 272
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In order to transition to a new paradigm we must be prepared to lessen our reliance on the current culture and the things that it gives us to consume: films, sport, art, music, television. Inasmuch as these things - in both a direct and indirect way - prop up the current state of affairs, we must be prepared to move away from them.
One of the overriding affects of current popular culture is to reinforce the world as it is.
It allows us to go on thinking everything is okay, because culture is okay.
And yet, in many ways, culture - this world that we lose ourselves within - serves to keep us distracted from other things that are happening, outside of its borders.
Inasmuch as we are addicted to our cultural consumables, we must wean ourselves off them. When the addict is intoxicated they disappear into their own world; turned off, tuned out. The outside world, with its problems and worries, disappears, if only momentarily.
One of the biggest imperatives of our time - in light of the challenges that currently face us as a species - is for us all to overcome our addictions.
This includes our addiction to culture.
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Related posts:-
Addiction: the Short and Long of it
Flip-side
A Circle of Gifts
Do Not Disturb
Status Quo
Masters of the Universe
