post class 10/29

“Frantic economic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods.” I liked this quote by Jameson because it ties into what we learned from Habermas and his words discussing the “cult of the new.” There is this theme in modern lifestyle that we are always looking for what is new and popular. We never sit back and are satisfied with what we have. We are always looking for newer, faster, stronger, prettier, sleeker, and so on. I liked how he called our economy frantic and urgent. These are adjectives that I think really sum up what we have in our culture though because we are never at a standstill. I also find it useful when we are able to make these connections to past readings because it helps put things into perspective.

“The underside of culture is blood, torture, death and horror.” When we get these wonderful things like clothes, jewelry, electronics, and so on, we don’t think of how these things came about, we just think about having them, and how they are the best and what we wanted. When in reality, there are children being forced to work, there are people slaving away making minimum wage and barely making it by, and sweat shops. Other things are blood diamonds. I learned about this when I watched the movie “Blood Diamond” which is such a cruel and awful thing to think about, but it is reality. Everything may look shiny on the surface but in reality it wasn’t so simple to get or make a lot of what we won which is an awful thing. I have included the movie poster to “Blood Diamond” because I think it really ties into what Jameson discusses here.