Subconscious War
Subconscious War is a short documentary detailing the impact of media and the culture of violence on the everyday life, and the development of the common principles in society. The film analyzes the works of Aldous Huxley and Neil Postman's hopeless judgments; relating the ideas of pieces such as 'Brave New World' and 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' to the momentary cultural values that promote the corporate media saturation, games, television, and the extensive technoculture.
In the 'Brave New World' most of the people are united under one World State, an everlasting, serene, fixed, worldwide society in which there is abundance (the number of people is constantly controlled) and all are satisfied. To keep up with the World State's economy, all people are trained from young age to appreciate consumption, because non-stop consumption and universal employment are the basis of economic and social balance for the World State.
Being alone is labeled as a scandalous waste of resources and wanting to be alone is terrible. Society makes people to promote consumption and never to enjoy as being an individual. People die at age 60 having a good health for their whole life. Nobody is afraid of death; anyone thinking of it is assured that what counts is that society goes on. Reproduction is artificial, no one has family, so they have no family to mourn.
In the 'Amusing Ourselves to Death', Postman argues that mass communication media is unable to share serious ideas. Since television virtually replaced the written word, television replaces serious issues with humiliating and subversive political dialog and turns important and complicated issues into depthless flashy images... it is just entertainment. Television can't provide education, as it supports only one way information circulation, rather than the interaction that is necessary to for proper learning.
God, that was painful. Nothing new here, but it's presented so coherently, and it really connects on an emotional level. I have a child, and I have done my best to insulate her from the omnipresent neuro-linguistic programming that we as a society are immersed in, and I have been fairly successful. We talk about Edward Bernays and Gustave LeBon, we talk about post-modernism, we talk about the addiction to personal electronics and their dual use as tools of both thought monitoring and thought control. Most of the children in her school already have their own phones, and she complains to me that its getting harder to find other children to talk to, as they are so immersed in them. The children in her class ask her why she doesn't play video games, or use facebook, why she "talks funny" and uses so many "big words", and why she reads so much. I can barely type this without tearing up. We are the outliers. I fear there is very little hope. I think it is highly unlikely that they will not triumph over us, and soon.
great topic, and sad ,worth the watch for sure , that's why JA is still locked up is'nt it ,? for exposing the fact's, too many people,
---"Protect your spirits. Spirits get eaten nowadays"
:et us not forget , WAR is a political word for MURDER
Oh yeah and Obama turned out to be a major scum bag.
Yeah baby. Humanity is basically evil either active or complicit with a few notable exceptions.
The Orwellian nightmare started long before 1984. Violence is nature in all her glory and humans like it.
Only me that noticed the picture from the cover is from arma 3?
This documentary could have been a whole lot better. The message it presented is already an old one, as the many clips they used reveals. I expected a little more shock effect to wake the viewer up and keep him/her awake. My interest was lost about a 1/4 the way in, but I struggled through to the end.
We have to realize that the media is an unnatural invasion on our lives that we need to e more in control of, and that means taking that control away from the 5 ig media moguls that exist today.
"Protect your spirit. You're in the place where spirits get eaten." Great words to sum it up and describe the world we live in.
The purpose of this film as I see it has two purposes, one for the children who are playing these games and the soldiers who actually go out into the war and see these acts first hand; then lastly technology which is easily accessible. In the film one of the interviewers also said “Manipulating the mind with reality and what’s not reality; our intelligence.” I believe that what we see and look up on the internet as well as the games that we play, have an influence on what we learn and our daily lives. I know people who divorce because one of the spouses is always playing games and not getting things done. We see and hear what happens on the news when people try to do the things that they see on games, and on television. To be it’s so sad because they only see what happens but they don’t get to see the consequence of that has been done. Violence has influenced the younger and younger generations.
I have a question to any one who sees this. How suggestible are you? Do you believe rather than think. I used to think, then I believed, and now I think again. Do you live in a virtual reality? Well if we live are lives through movies, television, music, and the internet (don't get caught in the net) isn't that a kind of virtual reality. Tell-a-vision but you have to wonder who's vision are they telling because it sure isn't mine of a perfect utopia not that there would ever be one. Aldous huxleys interview w/ mike wallace also talks about suggestibility and also cocaine use on mice, very interesting interview with a very intelligent man.
Will definitely share with others. Thank you for this.
'Protect your soul.' That is what I took away from this piece and what I think made it better than it would have otherwise been. I liked the contrasting of the ideas of Orwell and Huxley, but this wasn't enough to carry the rest of the film, which was a collection of images and political commentary that didn't offer anything new or illuminating. And yes, earlier commenter, I agree, the muzak is unnecessary at best.
aimed at the 90's brain and a crap attempt to blame pop music and video games, i think my nan made it?!
As you reap so shall you sow.
As it is being "Reviewed" by the audience below, I do ascertain the actual force of the truth is being ignored, or more like not realized due to a complete dis-integration of the human capacity to discern external reality from the internalized imagination. Those commenting here, seem to feel, as apposed to think, that this is just another video game plot. It is not. It is going to become even more vial, more rotten, disgusting, and much more evil, for that is the design of this destruction. And the masses of braindead fools are doing it to themselves.
File this statement under 'IGNORE". That seems to be the largest file there is present;y. Lol.
Great Doc Thoroughly enjoyed it !!!
Pretty damn sad
This is not a documentary film. It's just a collection of video clips. Someone selected some clips and put them together in an attempt to infer some correlations, but no such correlations can be established by merely selecting various clips and sticking them together. If the person who assembled this is trying to suggest that the violent aspects of human nature are more present in political institutions, technology, or militaries than in the absence of those things, that's just patently false, and history bears out that that's false. If he or she is implying that basic human nature is the problem, then the very specific references included are not particularly useful.
If there is a hell, those low-life maggots of the U.S. military will be condemned to it for all eternity. And that includes Ethan
Another great short doc exposing the evil that permeates humanity at the core. Imagine the possibilities if a very high percentage of the population really understood the implications of our actions; Yes, imagine if evil (exploitation of inequity) was put underfoot where it belonged, instead of running the planet? I can dream, can't I?
great stuff, Huxley was on the money, did he have a crystal ball,,genius!
I remember flipping through a Playboy magazine ( for the articles ... of course ... ahem ) back around either xmas 2000 or 2001. The particular issue had a special xmas spread which tracked some historic moments of prediction as part of its celebration. One of these moments was Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The text gloatingly proclaimed how wrong he had been and was accompanied by a suitably lambasting caricature. At the time I had not yet read Brave New World but the gauntlet had been thrown down with those bold words and my interest had been piqued so I set about my duties. After I finished reading Huxley's masterpiece and had some time to reflect I found that the thing which struck me most, and which my mind still returns to, was how ironic it was for Playboy to have made that assertion.
My .02.
Edit: Maybe the moral of my little story is that if you're reading Playboy for the articles then you're doing it wrong ;)
The constant muzak in this video seems too loud, even unnecessary. The muzak distracts and obscures, in an ironic sense, the valuable words of solutions oriented scholars/ artists. Perhaps the idea of this loud, constant drone is as an allegory of the popular culture being exposed in the doc for what much of it is: poisonous distraction. The documentary would be more coherent and credible with the muzak volume circa 50%. Better yet, make a version with no muzak at all because the critical ideas and seminal thinking here are just too valuable. Maybe then the documentary would be worth the enduring of the hellish scenes--more than once. The audience at Top Docs likely would rather hear Huxley, John Trudeau, Noam and McLuhan --unaccompanied by and competing with an over-loud, subjective electronic synthesizer. Those hearty scholars need no accompaniment, and they need us to hear, even commit to memory their words and ideas. In a sense, this documentary gives us a mixed message about the media and info consumption crisis. The doc uses a similar sort of sensationalism that we see and hear in mass-media drowning out the voice(s) of reason.
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