Martin Pawley (1938–2008)
Autor von Buckminster Fuller
Über den Autor
Architectural writer and critic. Columnist for World Architecture, The Architect's Journal and The Observer. 050
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- Rechtmäßiger Name
- Pawley, Martin Edward
- Geburtstag
- 1938-03-21
- Todestag
- 2008-03-09
- Geschlecht
- male
- Nationalität
- England
UK - Geburtsort
- Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, UK
- Ausbildung
- Architectural Association
École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
University of Oxford - Berufe
- architecture critic
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- The Guardian
The Observer
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- 34
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The main idea of the book is that modern convenience and media allow individuals to indulge in the romanticized idea of selfish individual exclusion exacerbated by consumer culture fueled by capitalism and weaponized by those in power by way of moralization and encouraging the fall of individuals into fantasy, in the book referred to as secondary reality. Boy, if Martin Pawley could see the Western World now: conglomeration of massive world spanning media companies into a dominating handful, social media bubbles, money hoarding as a substitution for morality, organized conspiracy theory cults, individuals demanding rights to weapons and social viciousness without consequence while deliberately ignoring and even mocking the human rights of their compatriots. I wonder how much of that he could’ve guessed as he passed in the early 2000s. I would really like to read a book contemporizing the ideas in The Private Future.
I do have a few favorite passages I would like to share though.
The triumph of mass media as the purveyors of secondary reality reflects the refusal of the people of the West to accept the implications of the collapse of community. The fragmentation of society is a reality, but the priceless distraction of erotic and sensory fantasy products and services conceals it. … Today the true descendent of Rimbaud’s “I” who is “someone else” is not the poet living on welfare or the student revolutionary, but the worker offering his life to a meaningless job because it pays off in the fantasy reward of the endless consumer dream. … Consumer society has become a form of barter for dreams, and nothing in it is more surrealistic than the practice of work itself: no one more dedicated to the relentless servicing of his “other self” than the worker. Compared to any consumer the artist has become a monk, the revolutionary a fakir lying on a bed of nails. (pg.186)
Maybe employers, corporations, and billionaires should take note: Pay your workers well so they can survive easily and stay distracted with the “fruits of culture” i.e., mass media, intoxicants, self-pleasure. The former quote best encapsulates the core of this book’s main idea. Even the thing needed to sustain a community at its foundational level, work, plays into the fragmentation of society into isolated individualism under capitalism and the pressures of technological advancement.
In the summer of 1969 at the apogee of the festival movement, half a million young people gathered at Woodstock, New York, and constituted briefly the tenth largest city in the United States. This counter-culture army – as large as the force sent by Napoleon to conquer Russia – survived for only a few days, supplied in the main by the helicopters and trucks of its establishment enemies, whose security forces had been overwhelmed by the unexpected numbers. At the height of this unprecedented event the Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman seized a microphone to announce that the festival was meaningless as long as the manager of MC5 (a Detroit rock band) was still in jail on a marijuana charge. This logical attempt to draw the attention of the army to the more serious issues that confronted it was summarily dealt with. The guitarist Pete Townsend beat him off the stage with his instrument[.] (pg.202)
Pretty much the stewardship of the Boomers in a nutshell in my opinion.
Yeah, I liked this book, I definitely enjoyed its ideas, I even took a bit of enjoyment in its view from the early 1970’s with a few concerns that have already passed by a long time ago. Would I recommend this one? Yeah, I would, the fragmentation of society through insulated selfish individualism that it explores is still very relevant today. These ideas are due for a direct update (if works like this already exist, I’ll be looking for them). So, to conclude, here is a quote from the last paragraph of the book (the same one quoted on the front of the dustjacket of my copy no less).
Alone in a centrally heated, air-conditioned capsule, drugged, fed with music and erotic imagery, the parts of his consciousness separated into components that reach everywhere and nowhere, the private citizen of the future will have become one with the end of effort and the triumph of sensation divorced from action. When the barbarians arrive they will find him, like some ancient Greek sage, lost in contemplation, terrified yet fearless, listening to himself. (pg.211)
It sort of reminds me of completely immersive virtual reality and leads me to question who exactly are those “barbarians”. I mean, when have you ever known corporations, power mongers, banks, and governments to stop short of complete domination of the world? Well, that’s a depressing note to end on.
… (mehr)