The statement made at 1:32, of us living in a closed world is relatable to me. During the course of my undergrad, the human development and psychology courses, working with and raising children I noticed this trend. Children start out trying to absorb the world around them and how they can fit into it. As they, and the last few generations age it has become socially acceptable to create a reality in our own mind and then demand society to support your ideas; regardless of how detached from reality our ideas become. In This Self We Deserve, the author describes how“The fundamental Buddhist idea is to accept that we are stuck, which is the only truth of suffering. Baudrillard is suddenly aware that we are stuck in the present because “we suddenly left reality behind.”
The description of having a “closed mind” and not making any references (1:56) speaks volumes about how our society and world is today. We have become so isolated from each other, absorbed in our own phones, iPads, and imaginary worlds to escape the seemingly bleak place we call reality. However, we have made ourselves more bleak as individuals. We lack souls and sensitivity, especially with our surroundings, so disengaged from reality and preferring a virtual one. Now, we see the consequences of years of these changes in our society through various diagnoses in young people and adults alike. Mentioning the concept of losing one’s mind reminds me of the wondering individuals talking to themselves, their minds engaged in a completely different world while their bodies remain stuck in the reality. Unfortunately, people are seeing these things more and more, to the point where it is something that is normalized or tolerated. It is so true here (4:08) that everything we know about life, especially in our society today, supports us to be closed. It seems backwards to normalize things that make us soulless individuals. Like factory-made items on a conveyor belt, Warhol’s replications of images reminds me of people becoming replications of each other, seeking individualism only to end up being the same in the end. I appreciate the explanation on how art relates to the closed world and seeing many of these images throughout the explanation. Many of us don’t realize that we live in a closed world, so having these explanations and visuals really helps us gain a better understanding of the world and have some awareness.
Mr. Fann has captured my life in this video. I am old enough to remember, in the 1960’s, sitting around after a large family dinner or at a club function, listening to the older folks, the grandma and grandpa, uncle or aunt, telling stories. And in those stories, there was wisdom, morals, ethics, of experiences whether good or bad, sometimes poking fun and laughing at mistakes. At those gatherings, the younger people like me, we would not dare to speak or make a sound. To be disrespectful of an elder would receive immediate reprimand. I think of these times as the ending of the “use value”. Like Mr. Fann says at 3:09 “and some point not too long ago, probably 40, 50 years ago, in general, we decide we don't need to do that.” As Mr. Fann says in, “This Self We Deserve” p. 90, “Things used to be sacred, and things that used to be held as values, ideas, and practices are fading away. Sitting at the dinner table together every evening used to be part of the main structure and meaning of family. We are losing the joy of life, the banal regularity of family activity.” As time went by, some of the teenagers and younger adults would no longer attend these gatherings. Yes, it was banal, but it was real caring for each other. Looking back at it now, no longer attending these gatherings was just cutting themselves off, becoming part of the closed mindedness, where no one would laugh at their mistake or ridicule their action or decision. And I went this way too. This was the time when I lost the belief there was wisdom in those around me, whether an elder, a teacher, or Priest. This is exactly what our society has indoctrinated me to be, the close minded individual. Like Mr. Fann says at, 4:05 “the entire society encourages us, or we are encouraged by our surroundings by our history about everything we know about life everything is supporting us to be closed.” I remember wanting so badly to be a self-sufficient person, to be away from anyone who would criticize me. I remember my grandfather once saying, “you think you have it all figured out” and I honestly replied “yes.” In my early 20’s I already thought I could be the independent self. Looking back now, I can see this was reinforced by indoctrination over years of media exposure. At the earliest age, images come to mind of the hero/antiheros, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Paul Newman, the list is nearly endless. But what I was really doing was walking around, metaphorically, with earplugs and blinders that I had put on myself. Now, every day I see families where the kids are all wearing earplugs, the parents looking at their cell phone, everyone is a closed off individual, physically close but mentally and emotionally separated. Back then I wanted to be an individual making my own decisions but really, I was just becoming more closed minded. And yet how many times have I asked the exact question as at 4:55 “How could they even come up idea like that?” It seems clear that Baudrillard has warned us that it is our society is sick and making us all sick. I have seen the closed mind leading to dementia and Alzheimer’s. The doctors can’t find a specific cause, I believe this is because the cause is all around us, every day, all the time. If I accept and reinforce the closed mindedness, I am a coconspirator and accomplice, yet I can tell you I don’t want dementia! What I see is Baudrillard and Mr. Fann warning us. At 6:10 the video captures what I see around me today, “It’s us as the viewers we are most willingly to go with whatever the Art Market is going.” For example, the stock market, or even worse look at e-currency like bit coin, how crazy that market is, yet we support the frenzy with news reports, analysis, and commentary. Just like the art market has no reference to the real world, how does the stock market or e-currency have any connection to the real world in any genuine, use value, way. Our society keeps creating these non-referential things and we keep going along with it. I am truly worried about where we are going as a society.
We are told to be open minded in society but when our ultimate individuality is what is most prized, the opposite is what is really encouraged. The thing that now seems counterintuitive to our modern self is that this open mindedness is not automatically and immediately available to all of us. If I understand, it seems that to open the mind, one must go through an internal process (training), constantly referencing the external world around us. Our place in the world is not determined by how we feel about ourselves or said place, rather by our awareness of our relation to our surroundings; enabling a possibility to then accept that place, and move within the space with clarity. The more open minded we are, the easier it is to live in the world. I see much of the youth (and adults alike) wearing headphones all day, even at work, further distancing themselves from others and their surroundings. Three people sit in a car, all listening to different music, podcasts, or videos. How can these modern norms not affect our ability to connect with each other and know ourselves at a fundamental level? Thank you for clarification of the nature of the contemporary art world. A closed world in itself that most of us don’t understand, but as viewers willing go with and fuel it. I look forward to more videos on art and what the art world means to/for us!
Have we all become Worhol’s Campbell’s soup cans (1980s version)? Flattened, the same, equivalated-only differing in label? Individuality pushed to its critical extreme has inverted into a self-referential collective: “[W]e are the one who remains alone next to millions of solitary others, at the mercy of every vested interest of power. Ultimately, I think therefore I am not, but we think therefore we are.” (Fann, This Self We Deserve, p. 102) Hopper’s paintings of individuals isolated inside desolate cityscapes no longer applies. Alienation is too real for us. We no longer see the situation as ugly like the faces of Bacon’s tormented portraits. Air-tight and self-enclosed, we are accomplices; we are all sealed “inside the shell of [our] own head[s]” (Foucault) and are “embracing the absurd” together (Barzun), unified as one. Everything has become a totality governed by autonomous rules. The self-referential has become non-referent. Since there is no orientation within the non-referent, values are lost; value itself is lost. Individuality, pushed to its self-enclosed, non-referential extreme, has transcended the individual and become a pattern in society, as in the art market discussed in this video. Most are sleep walking, unaware of their collusion in this general loss of meaning. Content like this on UA-cam is a rare wake-up call to those concerned.
I continually see this close mindedness in people today. They are totally self-absorbed in their own minds and not aware of their surroundings. Because of this self-absorption, they act on what they “think” is true without checking the facts and references of what is actually occurring around them. They have closed themselves off from the “referential world” (3:36). I think that is because of what our society has taught us throughout our lifetime. We have been indoctrinated since very young that we should be self-sufficient, we all are individuals who are special in some way, and that what we “think” matters. Due to this, as the video states, “we rely on no one and we trust no one.” (3:30) We all have become reliant on ourselves and then live in a closed world we create for ourselves, kind of like a representative Disneyland, which has become separated from reality, and leading us to make bad decisions and say crazy things. The video really makes the point about how large of problem this has become when referencing Baurdrillard in saying our society and world have become closed (5:02). Baudrillard uses art and the art market to illustrate how this closed, self-referential system, manifest itself in our society. That we, as a society, have conspired with the artists and art market to have them produce art that has no use value anymore, but only exchange value, as the video says (5:25). And it seems that because the closed, non-referential ,world we have created as a society drives the art world to produce what we as a society want, or at least led to believe it is we want. And that because of this, the art market today is mainly attempting to “manage the residues: (where) waste is not only a frequent theme, but the very materials of art are dejecta, and the styles are residual. You can do anything, which also leads to virtual reality…” (Baudrillard, The Conspiracy of Art, p 55). Through this perspective, it seems that what is happening with the larger society and world today, is just the reflection of virtual reality we create in our closed worlds as self-reliant individuals.
The statement made at 1:32, of us living in a closed world is relatable to me. During the course of my undergrad, the human development and psychology courses, working with and raising children I noticed this trend. Children start out trying to absorb the world around them and how they can fit into it. As they, and the last few generations age it has become socially acceptable to create a reality in our own mind and then demand society to support your ideas; regardless of how detached from reality our ideas become. In This Self We Deserve, the author describes how“The fundamental Buddhist idea is to accept that we are stuck, which is the only truth of suffering. Baudrillard is suddenly aware that we are stuck in the present because “we suddenly left reality behind.”
The description of having a “closed mind” and not making any references (1:56) speaks volumes about how our society and world is today. We have become so isolated from each other, absorbed in our own phones, iPads, and imaginary worlds to escape the seemingly bleak place we call reality. However, we have made ourselves more bleak as individuals. We lack souls and sensitivity, especially with our surroundings, so disengaged from reality and preferring a virtual one. Now, we see the consequences of years of these changes in our society through various diagnoses in young people and adults alike. Mentioning the concept of losing one’s mind reminds me of the wondering individuals talking to themselves, their minds engaged in a completely different world while their bodies remain stuck in the reality. Unfortunately, people are seeing these things more and more, to the point where it is something that is normalized or tolerated.
It is so true here (4:08) that everything we know about life, especially in our society today, supports us to be closed. It seems backwards to normalize things that make us soulless individuals. Like factory-made items on a conveyor belt, Warhol’s replications of images reminds me of people becoming replications of each other, seeking individualism only to end up being the same in the end. I appreciate the explanation on how art relates to the closed world and seeing many of these images throughout the explanation. Many of us don’t realize that we live in a closed world, so having these explanations and visuals really helps us gain a better understanding of the world and have some awareness.
Mr. Fann has captured my life in this video. I am old enough to remember, in the 1960’s, sitting around after a large family dinner or at a club function, listening to the older folks, the grandma and grandpa, uncle or aunt, telling stories. And in those stories, there was wisdom, morals, ethics, of experiences whether good or bad, sometimes poking fun and laughing at mistakes. At those gatherings, the younger people like me, we would not dare to speak or make a sound. To be disrespectful of an elder would receive immediate reprimand. I think of these times as the ending of the “use value”. Like Mr. Fann says at 3:09 “and some point not too long ago, probably 40, 50 years ago, in general, we decide we don't need to do that.”
As Mr. Fann says in, “This Self We Deserve” p. 90, “Things used to be sacred, and things that used to be held as values, ideas, and practices are fading away. Sitting at the dinner table together every evening used to be part of the main structure and meaning of family. We are losing the joy of life, the banal regularity of family activity.” As time went by, some of the teenagers and younger adults would no longer attend these gatherings. Yes, it was banal, but it was real caring for each other. Looking back at it now, no longer attending these gatherings was just cutting themselves off, becoming part of the closed mindedness, where no one would laugh at their mistake or ridicule their action or decision. And I went this way too. This was the time when I lost the belief there was wisdom in those around me, whether an elder, a teacher, or Priest. This is exactly what our society has indoctrinated me to be, the close minded individual. Like Mr. Fann says at, 4:05 “the entire society encourages us, or we are encouraged by our surroundings by our history about everything we know about life everything is supporting us to be closed.”
I remember wanting so badly to be a self-sufficient person, to be away from anyone who would criticize me. I remember my grandfather once saying, “you think you have it all figured out” and I honestly replied “yes.” In my early 20’s I already thought I could be the independent self. Looking back now, I can see this was reinforced by indoctrination over years of media exposure. At the earliest age, images come to mind of the hero/antiheros, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Paul Newman, the list is nearly endless. But what I was really doing was walking around, metaphorically, with earplugs and blinders that I had put on myself. Now, every day I see families where the kids are all wearing earplugs, the parents looking at their cell phone, everyone is a closed off individual, physically close but mentally and emotionally separated. Back then I wanted to be an individual making my own decisions but really, I was just becoming more closed minded.
And yet how many times have I asked the exact question as at 4:55 “How could they even come up idea like that?” It seems clear that Baudrillard has warned us that it is our society is sick and making us all sick. I have seen the closed mind leading to dementia and Alzheimer’s. The doctors can’t find a specific cause, I believe this is because the cause is all around us, every day, all the time. If I accept and reinforce the closed mindedness, I am a coconspirator and accomplice, yet I can tell you I don’t want dementia!
What I see is Baudrillard and Mr. Fann warning us. At 6:10 the video captures what I see around me today, “It’s us as the viewers we are most willingly to go with whatever the Art Market is going.” For example, the stock market, or even worse look at e-currency like bit coin, how crazy that market is, yet we support the frenzy with news reports, analysis, and commentary. Just like the art market has no reference to the real world, how does the stock market or e-currency have any connection to the real world in any genuine, use value, way. Our society keeps creating these non-referential things and we keep going along with it. I am truly worried about where we are going as a society.
We are told to be open minded in society but when our ultimate individuality is what is most prized, the opposite is what is really encouraged.
The thing that now seems counterintuitive to our modern self is that this open mindedness is not automatically and immediately available to all of us. If I understand, it seems that to open the mind, one must go through an internal process (training), constantly referencing the external world around us. Our place in the world is not determined by how we feel about ourselves or said place, rather by our awareness of our relation to our surroundings; enabling a possibility to then accept that place, and move within the space with clarity. The more open minded we are, the easier it is to live in the world.
I see much of the youth (and adults alike) wearing headphones all day, even at work, further distancing themselves from others and their surroundings. Three people sit in a car, all listening to different music, podcasts, or videos. How can these modern norms not affect our ability to connect with each other and know ourselves at a fundamental level?
Thank you for clarification of the nature of the contemporary art world. A closed world in itself that most of us don’t understand, but as viewers willing go with and fuel it. I look forward to more videos on art and what the art world means to/for us!
Have we all become Worhol’s Campbell’s soup cans (1980s version)? Flattened, the same, equivalated-only differing in label? Individuality pushed to its critical extreme has inverted into a self-referential collective: “[W]e are the one who remains alone next to millions of solitary others, at the mercy of every vested interest of power. Ultimately, I think therefore I am not, but we think therefore we are.” (Fann, This Self We Deserve, p. 102) Hopper’s paintings of individuals isolated inside desolate cityscapes no longer applies. Alienation is too real for us. We no longer see the situation as ugly like the faces of Bacon’s tormented portraits. Air-tight and self-enclosed, we are accomplices; we are all sealed “inside the shell of [our] own head[s]” (Foucault) and are “embracing the absurd” together (Barzun), unified as one. Everything has become a totality governed by autonomous rules. The self-referential has become non-referent. Since there is no orientation within the non-referent, values are lost; value itself is lost. Individuality, pushed to its self-enclosed, non-referential extreme, has transcended the individual and become a pattern in society, as in the art market discussed in this video. Most are sleep walking, unaware of their collusion in this general loss of meaning. Content like this on UA-cam is a rare wake-up call to those concerned.
I continually see this close mindedness in people today. They are totally self-absorbed in their own minds and not aware of their surroundings. Because of this self-absorption, they act on what they “think” is true without checking the facts and references of what is actually occurring around them. They have closed themselves off from the “referential world” (3:36).
I think that is because of what our society has taught us throughout our lifetime. We have been indoctrinated since very young that we should be self-sufficient, we all are individuals who are special in some way, and that what we “think” matters. Due to this, as the video states, “we rely on no one and we trust no one.” (3:30) We all have become reliant on ourselves and then live in a closed world we create for ourselves, kind of like a representative Disneyland, which has become separated from reality, and leading us to make bad decisions and say crazy things.
The video really makes the point about how large of problem this has become when referencing Baurdrillard in saying our society and world have become closed (5:02). Baudrillard uses art and the art market to illustrate how this closed, self-referential system, manifest itself in our society. That we, as a society, have conspired with the artists and art market to have them produce art that has no use value anymore, but only exchange value, as the video says (5:25). And it seems that because the closed, non-referential ,world we have created as a society drives the art world to produce what we as a society want, or at least led to believe it is we want. And that because of this, the art market today is mainly attempting to “manage the residues: (where) waste is not only a frequent theme, but the very materials of art are dejecta, and the styles are residual. You can do anything, which also leads to virtual reality…” (Baudrillard, The Conspiracy of Art, p 55). Through this perspective, it seems that what is happening with the larger society and world today, is just the reflection of virtual reality we create in our closed worlds as self-reliant individuals.