The Culture of Make Believe
"In the Culture of Make Believe, Derrick Jensen sets the bar as high as possible, examining the arrocities that characterize so much of our culture - from lynchings in early 20th-century America, modern slavery and corporate misdeeds to manufacturing disasters, death squads in developing nations and the destruction of the natural world.". "Interweaving political, historical, philosophical and deeply personal perspectives, Jensen argues that only by understanding past horrors can we hope to prevent future ones. Impeccably researched, The Culture of Make Believe arrives at some shocking and thought-provoking conclusions. As readers of A Language Older than Words can attest, Jensen is a public intellectual of rare abilities."--BOOK JACKET.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
5mentions
3people
2016–2024years
40% recommend60% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Reminds me of the book I read “The Culture of Make Believe” about how we pretend the world is different than it really is. It has a chapter called “Holocausts” and notes that in US culture we tend to think there was just one, but there have been many.
- I wholeheartedly agree.
I read a book last year I think you would enjoy. The Culture of Make Believe by Derek Jensen. If you've got time I highly recommend it.
- I read the book “The Culture of Make Believe” and what finally clicked for me was that politicians and CEOs don’t care about anything but themselves, and we all pretend that our system functions but when it results in mass deaths or abuse we just pretend it didn’t happen.
One of many examples in the book was the Bhopal disaster, and the way media and politicians responded to it.
- Special interest groups already dictate policy. There have been actual studies on that, and I did a video on one of them a while back:
http://fightthefuture.org/videos/does-voting-make-a-differen...
I'm currently working on a post called "You can't vote with your purchases" which is something I feel a lot of libertarians and capitalists spew out. Don't like Wal-Mart? Don't shop there.
The trouble is you really can't. Edward Bernays and Anna Freud really changed the game when they started teaching companies how to market to people emotionally to draw them in. I know tons of people, myself included, who don't shop at Wal-Mart, but it doesn't make a dent. Wal-Mart can still manipulate millions of people with their extensive ad campaigns, and most people simply don't care.
Tobacco companies got women to smoke more by disusing it as being part of women's rights (look up Torches of Freedom).
McDonalds led a PR campaign against "frivolous lawsuits" from the women who got 3rd degree, life threatening burns from their coffee, that people still believe to this day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNWh6Kw3ejQ).
The Baptist church didn't put a dent in Disney by boycotting them. Even MLKings Montgomery bus boycotts didn't succeed due to financial pressure. They succeeded because the news and media attention got so huge that the Supreme Court had to step in.
Every company does something unethical. Your processors are manufactured in Malaysia by people who get paid barely enough to live on, your shoes are made in Africa by companies driving people off their land and into the cities to work in factories, your shirts are made in South American sweat shops .. just by living in a high income country (US, EU, AU, even Russia) you are part of a river of exploitation (the book The Culture of Make Believe goes into this in detail).
To vote with purchases requires all the actors to be active, uncompromising and aware .. and that simply never will be the case.
- >"Edward Anthony Anderson, January 15, 1996, shot while handcuffed and on the ground. Frankie Arzuega, fifteen years old, January 12, 1996, shot in the back of the head; the following Mother’s Day, his family received taunting phone calls from anonymous sources: they dialed *69 (call back) and the police answered. Anthony Baez, December 22, 1994, chocked to death for playing football on the streets of New Your City. Rene Campos, whom police said committed suicide in custody by stuffing more than half his T-shirt down his own throat, reaching three-quarters of the way down to his lungs. Garland Carter, seventeen years old, January 8, 1996, shot in the back by police who earlier that day had driven by his home, making their fingers into the shape of a gun and “firing.” Angel Castro, fifteen years old, October 23, 1996. Having already moved out of a neighborhood because of death threats from the police, Castro rode his bike back to the neighborhood to a friend’s birthday party: He accidentally ran into a police cruiser, breaking his teeth, and as he rose from the ground a cop shot him. Sherly Colon, April 25, 1997, pushed off the roof of a housing project, after which police removed the cuffs which had held her hands behind her back….The list is as long as you want to make it..." –The Culture of Make Believe, Derrick Jensen
The Culture of Make Believe is a very difficult book to get through. The author talks about hate crimes and power, and how we've developed these very odd cultural norms around violence. It's pretty depressing.
