Ideology and free will. Illusion of society

Ideology and free will. Illusion of society
I tried to read a piece of Zygmunt Bauman book on postmodernity and from what I understood I reckon that Bauman talks about renouncement of subjective perception in modernity. Today the world and society wants only concepts and designs but nothing further, not sophisticated and erudite thinking about the reality. we focus-are told to focus on fleeing likes on facebook. Modernity is not living but only a semblance of living, a kind of hyperreality where we are not capable of distinguishing what is real and what is hyperreal, what is semblance of reality. In this state of living we are consciously contributing to the fact that we live in a vision that is becoming more and more real to us, we exchange it for the real world with all its consequences and what is most important-responsibilities. We are no more sentient being but only shadows of what used to be real and solid, we are consciously becoming simulacrum of genuines which is no more genuine but the more we think it is, the more we paradoxically delve into unreal world. unfortunately, when the illusion is more alluring than reality, the illusion becomes our reality. what we believe is true becomes true. We consciously and willingly exchange freedom for chains, we are becoming only trained monkeys in menagerie of the powers that be. is ones perception important for society? society values only what helps it to keep those few in power- that is uniformity, panopticism, menagerie, sterility, docility. We are old to focus on something far away, something that may come, that is why we like dreaming, reading about traveling somewhere because we secretely dream that we shall once be those who are being liked on facebook but deeply inside we know that likes is not why we would do it. society likes us only when we conform to it, otherwise it devours us. it is like the leviathan that shall not be appeased with anything else than total obedience and loss of uniqueness. it is the conditional love- barter, exchange of goods. society protects us only when we are contributive to it and under surveilence, as Michael Foucoult says-in panopticism. I add further than panopticism is not enough for society because it needs us to do more than just be uniform and under scrutiny, it needs us to produce what it wants us to produce and that is why it teaches us to assimilate, to be in a menagerie and produce and perform feats that it teaches us. it keeps us save only as long as we are kept in the cage and perform what we are told to do. once we rebel from it, it ostracizes us and sees us as renegades. what is most despicable is that we as people conform to our fear so much as to go to the cage of menageric instituion voluntariy. as Gramsci and Althuser warn we are voluntarily entering schools and other ideaological state aparatueses that changer our brains in order to be productive but no creative- that is the most vital point of ideological institutions. the only counter weapon to this change of mind that ideology wants us to make is the change of paradigm that accepts the society and sees is as a benefactor. once we understand that society uses us and needs us only as long as we are productive, then we have no more a reason to stay in either mental or physical menagerie it imposes upon us. the capability to avoid conformity is the hardest decision and the more we are in the mental chain of assimilation the harder it is to go away from it. nevertheless, it is always possible to avoid it because if the society showed that it keeps us in chains, all the system would fail, because the semblance of freedom is what todays so called democracy needs us to believe in. as long as it keeps the semblance of peace, security and liberty, as long as it gives us bread and circuses we can be sure that the mass of mankind willingly sacrifices its freedom in order to gain the illusionary benefits of the menagerie we are in. today we see a great develoment of critical thinking. in the first place, we should be critical towards ourselves and not the society, because society does not exist- only people exist. society is only a kind of concept, utopie that makes us believe that some time in the future all is going to be better. as Trump says-make America great again, as Czech prime minister says- yes, it shall be better. We exchange the reality for some kind of illusion in the future. instead of relisihing the reality of the present moment to the fullest, we make selfies and fotos to prove to the society that we live to the fullest but there is always the inevitable twinge, even moral pang that that living for the society is not what we want. anything that is hegemonical to us is something that robs us of our identity. although the society wants us to believe that it is anti-hegemony, it also imposes very rigidly the mental structure that we are free and yet even this statement when being forced is un-freedom. I do not have any expedient, any antidote, I do not suggest revolution or cultural revolution as Marxist say because revolutions, as it is proved by many such historical events, eat their fathers- and sons ultimately. the change of paradigm is what I suggest. stop thinking that it shall be better or great again, it shall not. let us forget that utopia is going to come and keep striving for better tomorrows these truths notwistanding. any enlightened truth or grand narrative is idea of yesterday. accepting the world as it is, with all its deficiencies and yet finding the reason to stay here and try to improve it is the way of today and tomorrow. the outcome is irrelevant, the effort to step further the result notwithstanding is what is real and at stake now.

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Používam Rychlý zápisník

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