Soundtracks on the Best Sellers List

A friend said to me yesterday, "We have too many buffers protecting us and we think that those buffers are natural." This is crucial in understanding the difference between budo and the sports/artistic martial arts. I also happen to think that this is crucial in understanding in general.

If anyone has seen real violence, you will notice that it's quiet. In the movies, no matter how real the directors and special effects teams try to make it, violence is noisy. In the movies, Rambo becomes a demi-God with unlimited comic powers. In Platoon and Saving Private Ryan, the mimicry of the forms is almost aphrodisiacal...

I'm not suggesting that we all go out and look for trouble. I'm saying that it's important to be able to recognise what's real at a fundamental level.

Silence makes violence scary. For many of us silence itself is scary. There is no soundtrack to support us, and we are basically left on our own to contemplate the finality that violence and war brings.

In the dojo, so many people laugh during the training that I wonder if these people are aware of the violence inherent in what we do. In the past, people had to sign their name in blood in order to be held accountable for their knowledge. Death was a very real consequence of failure. Nowadays, we have pens instead of blood but the feeling should be the same. Now, if a person dies in the training would we still be able to laugh, or would we all wait for the music to start playing to tell us how we should feel?

This violence and death is part of a reality that seems to be so fundamental to the human experience, yet we who live in the industrial world seem to have distanced ourselves from this reality. It may very well be that where we are now is the place to be but I don't think for a moment that it is at all fundamental.

PS: Even though I'm required by law to include a Chuck D quote in my posts I'm going to fight the power and not do so... hehe

Question

What kind of knowledge does technology satisfy?

Technology, Economics and Culture

I’ve been reading through ‘Bubble Generation’ (www.bubblegeneration.com) a bit of late. The general theme of the blog is to look at what’s happening technologically, then understand the subsequent cultural and economic effects .

This guy is good. He is a leading figure in discussions about many of the things he writes about so he knows what's going on. While the blog touches on sometimes complex issues, they’re always well explained. A caveat, he often uses jargon that he has created. The reason why he has to do this is because he is putting forward new concepts which require novel descriptions. There are some explanations on the site, but if you don't get anything let me know and I'll do my best to give you a summary.

Anyway, check it out.

I’ve picked up a sample article (linked to below) which is, and yet isn't, too economic in nature.

Makes interesting reading.

http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2006/03/banality-of-market-pt-4-jeff-n-thinks.cfm

A New Focus

I found this quote in Naomi Klein's 'No Logo':

"This is what Leslie Savan, author of The Sponsored Life, describes as symptom number one of the sponsored mindset: we become collectively convinced not that corporations are hitching a ride on our cultural and communal activities, but that creativity and congregation would be impossible without their generosity." (italics are mine)

Any comments?