Monday 20 August 2012

What do people really want?

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In a world of saturation hype, where the mass media and its offshoot of electronic communication, permeates life with a frequency and level of detail many orders of magnitude beyond anything ever before, the distinction between what people 'want' and what they get has become very difficult to discern.

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At one level of simplification people want exactly what they get; looked at differently they get what they get, whether they want it or not - and the media neutralizes any potential opposition.

Looked at differently again, this is a futile topic in the absence of knowing something of what people ought to have; and the topic of what people ought to have is itself futile, unless it can be discussed objectively - in terms of 'ought' lying outside of humans.

(Otherwise the whole thing degenerates into dividing humans into interest groups, and siding with one or another.)

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So... unless the topic of what people really want and what they get can be referenced to something non-human, objective - then we might as well shut-up about it because all that we are doing is taking sides...

and taking sides is, in itself, an arbitrary decision depending upon who we are and our own experience.

And modern secular analytic and critical discourse just is various elaborations and disguises of "I want this because I want it". 

Thus modern secular discourse: futile cycles within futile cycles.

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