The next candidate I would like to consider as part of my Modern Cathedrals series (Part 1 here) is the stadium.
Stadiums are amongst the largest, most open and community-centred buildings of our time. A stadium is one of the few buildings where tens of thousands of people can come together for a single purpose, or to [...]
All over Europe, and much of the rest of the world, there are vast majestic cathedrals dedicated to God. Now that, as society at least, we have pretty much lost God, where are the new cathedrals? Who are they dedicated to? I’ve had a few ideas for potential candidates and I’m going to run a little series exploring each [...]
A fantastic example of simulacra.
Perhaps the most powerful and obvious example of simulacra in our lives is that of “make-up”, in the widest possible sense of the word. To change your body and appearance to look like someone else who in turn is a copy, and a distorted copy at that, of someone else. It’s difficult [...]
I have been away in Wales for the past week or so, hence the even later than usual update. One of the things that struck me while I was there was the “beach/surf culture”, and this made me think about “culture” in general. Or perhaps more specifically, being part of a “group”, either physically as [...]
Century of the self
This is an absolutely fantastic BBC series from 2002 about psychology and propaganda over the past hundred years or so. It has been mentioned a lot on Pop Occulture, and other places. The BBC has their own page about it (just text, no video):
Adam Curtis’ acclaimed series examines the rise of the [...]
Busy time has more or less ended so hopefully I’ll have the updates up a bit more frequently in future.
I was listening to the radio a couple of days ago and heard this lady ring in complaining about the effects of rock music on the “Youth of today”. Her arguments were laughable, including “no-one has [...]
What does wealth and security give us? If you look at the people who get depressed, or moan about all their problems, they are not always the worst off people, but often the better off. At school, a lot of the people who became depressives were people from “stable” (or at least richer) homes, and [...]