[Editor's Note: Exene Cervenka is a writer, visual artist and punk rock pioneer. The OC transplant is the lead singer for X, the Knitters and Original Sinners. Her new column, Exene Says…, is her space to basically just write what's on her mind, everything from crazy life stories to political theories and observations about what's going on in this fucked up world of ours. To contact her, send all messages to as******@oc******.com.]
So the topic of my previous column–that you can be your own boss–got me thinking. Reality is subjective; mine is mine, and yours is yours. Therefore, we should all be incredibly unique individuals. Then why aren't we?
Everything we create must first be created by the mind. If the amount of matter is constant and it cannot be created or destroyed, how do we end up with so much new yet redundant junk?
Our mind energy, which has unlimited potential for creating reality, is being directed. Corporate reality forces our reality. That's why our likes and dislikes seem to have been standardized somewhere along the way.
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Sigmund Freud is the father of psychoanalysis, right? His mind came up with the map for your mind. Okay, that's good, 'cause he's smart and did his own thing. Millions of people have benefited from Freud's truly revolutionary work. One of them was Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays.
Bernays is also known as the Father of Public Relations, though it was called propaganda until he came up with that sparkly new term.
Bernays used Freud's (and others') ideas to exploit human herd mentality. That's an old trick, to be sure, but he is the master at showing the rulers how it's done.
He sold World War I to the American public, helping turn around a very unpopular idea (go fight and die so we can get rich!) into a huge financial success for the elites. All he had to do was sell everyone on the idea of universal “Democracy.” In 1929, tobacco companies were upset that only 5 percent of women smoked, so Bernays had young debutantes walk in New York's Easter parade, smoking cigarettes–or “Freedom Torches,” as the instructed media called them. Bernays swayed public opinion worldwide, becoming a favorite of Goebbels, Nazi propagandist.
Oh, yes . . . the point of this column: You can't be your own boss if you are not your own person. Do you know why you do the things you do? Why do you eat that, not this? Why is that logo proudly emblazoned on the front of your shirt, your shoes, your hat? Why are you wearing corporate logos at all?
Logos is a Greek word that means “more than words”; it is a philosophical, spiritual concept of who we are, what we know, what we can become.
Ironic that such an important idea came to mean corporate branding.
I'll elaborate on this more next week. Until then, try to stay sane in an insane world.
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