Calming the Masses

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Calming the Masses

• A media production by
• Caroline Faber

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Martin Heidegger

• "The essence of technology is nothing
  technological.
• "The Question of Technology," in Martin
  Heidegger Basic Writings. (Sobchack)

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Calming the Masses

• We live in a world where technology is all around
  us. For better or for worse it is everywhere we
  look, everywhere we turn.
• We are surrounded by it, inundated with reminders
  of its potential, overwhelmed by the power that
  it holds.
• Imagining its power is beyond our scope but well
  within our realm of fear.

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The anxiety that lives within us

• Expressing our fears and hopes through literary
  or film media is not a new concept.
• Expressing our fears of technology, its
  potential impact and our ability to
  control it comes through in the genre of
  science fiction. (HoffPauir)

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The questions

• What will happen in our world of the future?
• What will happen with everything we are creating?
• Will we remain in control?
• Will we remain the masters of our devices or will
  our devices create servants out of us?

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The potential

• Perhaps we will continue as we are
• Technology will continue to serve us.
• We will continue to benefit from our creations.
• We will continue to live, breathe and function
  through the technology we create.
• We will carry on as masters of our domains.
• Our creations will continue to serve us without
  questioning our imposed slavery.

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Our idealized utopia

• First introduced as a concept
• by Thomas More in 1551, a
• eutopia (utopia) is a society
• based around notions of equality,
• social harmony, economic
• prosperity and political stability.
• (HoffPauir)
• We idealize a place where people work
  harmoniously, masters of sub-servant others,
  able to successfully manage and control.

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The no-place

• We work towards creating this ideal, this fictive
  place that cannot exist. The word itself denotes
  its impossibility
• The Greek words that Utopia derives from mean no
  place
• but when pronounced in Latin the meaning changes
  to good place. (HoffPauir)

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Playing Creator

• When did we begin to play God and think we could
  be successful??!!
• When, exactly, did we become confused and believe
  we could actually attain the impossible nothing?
• And when did we begin to see nothing as
  something inherently good?

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Star trek

• Star Trek is a perfect example of this.
• Explorers search the galaxy using technology to
  help them all along the way.
• Technology aids them in their spread of the
  Utopian their perfect democracy.
• But they judge all other cultures who are not as
  civilized.
• And they are only willing to uphold the values of
  non-interference so long as the society they
  encounter is acceptable to their standards.

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Star trek photos
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And if you dont think Star Trek influences and
reflects American culture

• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek

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Utopian ideology expenses

• Utopian ideologies, including Star Trek, are not,
  however, without slavery and extreme social
  control.
• In Mores original Utopia, the utopian society
  required the use of slave labor (gained through
  imperialistic excursions against neighboring
  cultures) as well as methods of intense social
  control that placed fairly severe limits on
  individual freedom. (HoffPauir)

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Machines as tools

• We use the machines to control and attempt to
  create a utopian ideal.
• We idealize continuing to utilize them for our
  own means
• To get what we want,
• To maintain what we get,
• To further our own goals in raping our
  surroundings of everything in order to try to be
  happy

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Barbara Kingsolver in High Tide in Tuscan

• In just a few centuries of setting ourselves
  apart as landlords of the Garden of Eden, exempt
  from the natural order and entitled to hold
  dominion, we have managed to behave like
  so-called animals anyway, and on top of it to
  wreck most of what took three billion years to
  assemble. (Jenkins)

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• But we are never happy.
• We always want more.
• And we disregard man, animal and machine in this,
  our impossible and selfish quest.

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The Other

• We set up our view point, with help of science
  fiction, of distancing ourselves from anything
  that is not us
• everything that is the other.
• By setting up a dichotomy of us and them we
  see ourselves as an autonomous group and the
  other as the one dimensional expendable.

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The negative other

• Our need to separate ourselves from the other
  moves further still.
• We have a need to see ourselves as set against
  this other.
• The other is accepted as long as it is
  sub-servant
• but what happens when the other begins to
  think for itself or begins to compete with us for
  the aspects of life we believe we are entitled to
  just for being us?

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The dystopia of science fiction

• When we envision a society turning bad and the
  conditions for living are characterized by
  terror, oppression and deprivation, we have
  reached a view of dystopian society.
• The society is familiar enough that we can relate
  to it in many ways, but simultaneously
  frightening, overwhelming and out of control.
  (HoffPauir, Wikipedia, Dystopia definition)

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Characteristics of a Dystopia

• Some traits of a dystopian society might include
• Extreme democracy-free hierarchy
• Extreme valuing of conformity with no acceptance
  for individuality
• Cult like worship of rulers
• Fear of the outside, or other
• A background narrative of some other event which
  dramatically affects the society
• Often features technology more advanced than
  contemporary society
• (Economic expert.com)

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Fear

• Dystopian Science fiction is about fear. This
  can be seen in post 1950s science fiction
  movies
• During the Cold War, mainstream science fiction
  films were perfect for representing the deepest
  fears of the post-WWII generation. The Communists
  took the form of giant radioactive red ants or
  alien space invaders, embodying the terror that
  Americans felt from an invisible, unknowable
  enemy. (Nikbin)

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Propaganda

• Throughout this essay I have skirted here and
  there around the issue of propaganda in science
  fiction.
• It is time now to look more closely

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Definition

• What is propaganda? Is it simply the overt
  attempts of a society to convince its
  participants of a particular cause or social
  structure? Or is it more?
• Is propaganda used to create fear and in doing
  so, subdue the participants in a society through
  manipulation via ethnocentricity and fear of
  future demise?

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• Wikipedia provides the following definition
• Propaganda is a specific type of message
  presentation aimed at serving an agenda. At its
  root, the denotation of propaganda is 'to
  propagate (actively spread) a philosophy or point
  of view'.

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Purpose

• Wikipedia goes further to explain the aim of
  propaganda is to influence people's opinions
  actively, rather than to merely communicate the
  facts about something. What separates propaganda
  from "normal" communication is in the subtle,
  often insidious, ways that the message attempts
  to shape opinion.

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Examples

• Propaganda can be found all over the world and in
  a wide variety of mediums including leaflets,
  posters, TV, and radio broadcasts. (WikiPedia,
  Propaganda).
• Often it can appear shocking to the others whom
  it targets. The others do not see themselves
  in that role.
• Take a look at these propaganda pieces found in
  Wikipedia from the USA, North Korea, and Russia

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Anti-Japanese propaganda from US Office for
War Information.

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Anti-Japanese propaganda from the United
StatesWorld War II
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North Korean propaganda showing soldier
destroying US Capitol building.
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Soviet Propaganda Poster during the Great
Patriotic War.

The text reads "Red Army Soldier - SAVE US!"
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The connection

• So how does propaganda connect to Science
  Fiction?
• Science fiction tells a story but it also helps
  us to express our fears, hopes and concerns.
  Science fiction shows both the hope of the masses
  (Utopian) and the hopes of the other, power
  groups who embody other forms or control the
  environment (Dystopian).

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• In Literature and Propaganda, A.P. Foulkes
  distinguishes between viewing a text "not as
  propagandist but as attempted demystification of
  propaganda..
• Either way, the concern is still with the
  propagandist process, which seeks to affect the
  reader in a particular fashion, seeks to
  reconstruct the subject to a particular viewpoint
  or position of skepticism. (McKay)

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Us

• When we view a science fiction movie or read a
  science fiction text we are receiving a message
  through the story. The story is the scaffolding
  the message rests upon.
• We learn about the message indirectly as we
  absorb the situation on the screen or page. We
  become immersed in the actions of the other,
  unaware that the other represents deeper
  political, social and cultural agendas and
  ideals. (Collins)

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The medium

• Propagandist texts are not (primarily) intended
  to be well-wrought urns or verbal icons. There is
  a narrative text, and there is intra-textual
  activity in order for there to be extra-textual
  resonance there is a story, and something
  happens within the story so that something can
  happen outside the story.
• George McKay

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Hoffman

• We watch the film or read the science fiction
  text and become aware of possibilities. This
  awareness affects our ideas and actions.
• Hoffman calls this form of technological
  determinism predictive programming.
• We carry out what we have seen in a self
  fulfilled prophecy.

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Predictive programming in science fiction

•   'Predictive programming works by means of the
  propagation of the illusion of an infallibly
  accurate vision of how the world is going to look
  in the future' (Hoffman, 205). Memes are
  instilled through the circulation of 'mass
  appeal' documents under the guise of 'science
  fiction' literature. Once subsumed on a cognitive
  level, these memes become self-fulfilling
  prophecies, embraced by the masses and outwardly
  approximated through the efforts of the elite.
  (Collins)

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Effective?

• The medium of science fiction is effective. The
  popularity of this genre continues to rise with a
  regularly increasing number of viewers.
  (Nikbin)
• The medium is not pushed upon us and is not
  presented as fact, making it an effective medium.
  (Wikipedia propaganda)
• We voluntarily absorb it all

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Modern propaganda

• So what is the effect?
• We end up with brilliantly distributed propaganda
  on a global level.
• While the world watches science fiction we come
  to know ourselves as the us and the alien or
  technological forces as the other.
• And we live in fear of the power of the other.

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Calming of the masses

• Through the view of propaganda, Utopian and
  dystopian science fiction are not as different as
  we might believe.
• Both serve the same purpose
• to calm us and keep us in our place so we do not
  start to fight back.
• Ensuring we remain powerless, immersed in a
  flurry of hope and despair.

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Utopian hope

• Utopian science fiction gives the hope needed to
  keep us pressing forward.
• We continue to live our lives, absorbing new
  technologies and moving along with every new
  advance that comes along. We keep the thought in
  the back of our minds that this can not be as
  bad as we imagine.
• Through the help of Utopian Science fiction, we
  believe everything will be fine in the end.

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Dytopian dispair

• While the utopian science fiction serves to keep
  us moving forward on the premise of hope,
  dystopian science fiction shows us our place and
  keeps us there.
• We develop and retain, further develop and again
  retain the disastrous possibilities that may come
  upon us.
• We become to scared to move or act for the us
  that we are led to believe in in Utopian ideals

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The good, the bad and the unbelievable

• We see ourselves as the good.
• So we try to unite in hopes of moving forward.
• We see ourselves as the victims of the other.
• So we refrain from taking steps to avert the
  disasters that await.
• We live in fear of the unbelievable that we are
  able to imagine
• So we place trust in the powers that be to avert
  the situations we are not sure we could manage.

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The masses have been calmed.

• Thus, 'science fiction' is a means of
  conditioning the masses to accept future visions
  that the elite wish to tangibly enact.
  (Collins)

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References

• Aline's collection of star trek wallpaper.
  Retrieved July 4, 2005 from http//www.xs4all.nl/
  dassel/
• Animation Station. Retrieved June 26, 2005,
  from http//www.animationstation.net/posterimages/
  S/Star_Trek_Enterprise.jpg
• Collins, P. B.I.P.E.D. (Beings for intelligent
  purpose in evolutionary design). The ascendancy
  of the scientific dictatorship part two
  science fiction and the sirius connection.
  (2003). Retrieved June 26, 2005, from
  http//www.biped.info/articles/collins2.html
• Davis, M. Beyond blade runner urban control
  the ecology of fear. (1995). Retrieved June 29,
  2005 from http//www.mediamatic.nl/magazine/8_2/Da
  vis-Urban-E3.html

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References cont

• Dystopia definition. Retrieved June 25, 2005
  from http//hem.passagen.se/replikant/dystopia_def
  inition.htm
• Economic Expert.com. Dystopia. (2005).
  Retrieved July 1, 2005, from http//www.economicex
  pert.com/a/Dystopia.htm
• HoffPauir. Dystopia and science fiction blade
  runner, brazil and beyond, (or, whos dystopia is
  it?) (or, dystopia is in the eyes of the
  (frightened) beholder). Retrieved June 30, 2005,
  from http//dc-mrg.english.ucsb.edu/WarnerTeach/E1
  92/bladerunner/Dystopia.Blade.Runner.Hoffpauir.htm
  
• Jenkins, M.. Trumpeter. (1997). The
  dystopian world of blade runner an ecofeminist
  perspective. Retrieved June 17, 2005 from
  http//trumpeter.athabascau.ca/content/v14.4/jenki
  ns.html

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References cont

• Nikbin, D. (2005) Felix Online. The science
  fiction renaissance. Retrieved June 23, 2005,
  from http//www.felixonline.co.uk/v2/article.php?i
  d2544
• McKay, G. (1994) Metapropaganda self-reading
  dystopian fiction burdekin's swastika night and
  orwell's nineteen eighty-four. Science Fiction
  Studies, 64, Volume 21, Part 3, November 1994.
  Retrieved June 24, 2005 from http//www.depauw.edu
  /sfs/backissues/64/mckay.htm
• Mochadog. Retrieved June 26, 2005, from
  http//www.mochadog.com/photos/Vacations/Vegas201
  999/star_trek_17.JPG
• Raibley, J. R. Existentialism photos, Phil
  336, U-mass amherst. Retrieved on July 4, 2005
  from http//www.jraibley.com/ex/exphotos.html

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References cont

• Renaissance order and reason, 2A. Sir Thomas
  Mores utopia. Retrieved July 3, 2005 from
  http//www.beyondbooks.com/leu11/2a_link.asp
• Sci-fi Movies.com. Retrieved July 5, 2005 from
  http//www.scifimovies.com/
• Sobchack, V. (Fall, 2004) Toward a
  Phenomenology of Cinematic and Electronic
  Presence The Scene of the Screen. Materialities
  of Communication. Retrieved June 28, 2005, from
  http//www3.sympatico.ca/kartz/d_2b03/electronic_p
  resence.html
• Walls of Fame Autographs. Retrieved June 26,
  2005, from http//www.wallsoffame.com/assets/image
  s/3_28_star_trek_3.jpg
• Wikipedia. Star Trek. (2005). Retrieved June
  26, 2005, from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_T
  rek

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References cont

• Wikipedia. Political Ideas in Science Fiction.
  (2005) Retrieved June 26, 2005, from
  http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ideas_in_sc
  ience_fiction
• Wikipedia. Dystopia. (2005). Retrieved July
  2, 2005 from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia
  
• Wikipedia. Propoganda. Retrieved July 2, 2005
  from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
• Wikipedia Answers.com, Ecotopia. Retrieved
  July 4, 2005 from http//www.answers.com/main/n
  tquery?method4dsid2222dekeyEcotopiagwp8cur
  tab2222_1linktextEcotopia20(novel)