Conscious media
Recently I’ve been reading a white paper on the Conscious
Media. Even though I didn’t know the
concept had been formalized until recently, I’ve shared its goals for years.
Granted, a great deal of my overall focus has been on the
right wing political propaganda machine because that’s where I find the most
generous opportunities. They are as easily had as low-hanging fruit. But make no mistake, the left has its opportunities
too. It’s just that their message is not
as coherent and they’re just not as good at packaging it.
So what is this goal that I share with Conscious Media? An
awakened consumer. How does it do this? It naturally questions the status quo
and provokes its audience to reconsider the range of possible questions and
answers to the world’s problems. Do we need it? Check out the daily news about
the condition of the world on any given day.
Typically,
the Conscious Media consumer is on a journey that follows a path. It starts with being asleep. Asleep is a condition that feels like being awake
because you can interact with others in the same condition and re-state,
discuss, and debate traditional interpretations of current events. For instance, “capitalism has built the most abundant
way of life in the history of man. Continuing unabated, it will make our lives
even better. So more consumption will
make us happier. The only question that remains is how do I consume more so I
can be happier.”
The
next step is awakening. It is a state where you begin to notice that some very qualified
people are questioning the future effects of capitalism on the web of life, the
planet’s natural resources and the myth of “more is better.” These may be folks you’ve never heard of but
their arguments make good sense to you. You can relate to the unfulfilled
promise of happiness from material goods. You know about the trillions of
dollars in private retirement funds lost due to unethical financial practices
on Wall Street. You’ve become aware that not a single executive has been
charged with a crime.
Once you
begin to awake, it’s a short step to exploring.
This is a state in which you seek out other sources of information
rather than the traditional main stream media and favored individual sources like
Fox News or MSNBC, capitalist organizations themselves. In other words, the profit-making machines
called “corporate news organizations.”
If you can tolerate the discomfort of consuming news that sounds
disagreeable and doesn’t confirm your biases, the next state, transformation,
can begin.
Transformation
is a state in which new thinking emerges with the help of new input from the
above mentioned non-traditional sources. Your confirmation and disconfirmation
biases are challenged. What used to sound like “facts” dissolve into questions.
And you begin to realize that higher levels of consciousness come from tolerating
the questions and not seeking a new set of doctrinal truths. The fuel of this transformation
is the full-body realization that you cannot know anything for sure, regardless
of the sources.
Finally,
you are awake. Awake is a state in which
you will see the same reality as though with new eyes. For instance, being aware of the simple truth
that the core value of capitalism is infinite growth and cannot continue on a
planet with finite resources. Or that
our continuing striving for a better life through consumption robs us of
appreciating and enjoying the good life we already have. Or there exists a new organization
in capitalism called “too big to fail.” And its executives are “too big to
prosecute.”
But
beware: Our minds demand certainty and when you think you have it, you’ve
regressed into slumber. So although the journey is rigorous, you are always
tempted to go back to sleep. It’s so much more familiar and many of your
friends will be there to welcome you home.
Robert
DeFilippis
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