PLATO'S ALLEGORICAL CAVE RECKONING

First, there was Socrates! Old Socs in the middle probably giving his mates his reckonings, Plato by his side getting excited Athenian style SOURCE: http://brewminate.com/from-presocratic-to-classical-greek-philosophy-a-shift-in-focus-and-methodology/

Then, an old and wise Plato with his gossip mags in hand talking with a young Aristotle, to view my reckonings of Aristot's check this previous post of mine out. SOURCE: http://hipporeads.com/plato-and-aristotle-on-the-american-state/

A coloured illustration of the allegory. SOURCE: http://brewminate.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/TheCave02.jpg

I really enjoy reading Plato’s BookVII of The Allegory of the Cave, applying it to any form of modern day social norms of social media and the internet is quite fascinating as it stands symbolically with my views on what the internet is doing to us by acting as our chains to willingly but forcefully view unrealities by displaying false images and content when all one needs to do to experience real life and all that represents good is to break free from the comfortable ignorance we live in but can liberate ourselves from.

I think that can be applied perfectly to that of a video gamer too! Below I’ve created the likeness of Plato's Allegory of the Cave to the mindless consent of the video gamers.

(You can probably tell also my distaste for video gamers here, all most as much as my own chains to internet addiction)

Plato's Cave. SOURCE: https://lightnightgreekfire.wordpress.com/platos-cave/
Video Gamer. SOURCE: http://www.altmuslimah.com/2015/03/dear-salma-my-husband-is-addicted-to-video-games/ 

edited photo linking the two concepts together by yours truly.

ADA LOVELACE, LIVE!

I found Ada Lovelaces myspace profile from 2006? WEEEIIIRDDD

REVIEWING THE REVIEWS: CATFISH (2008 DOCUMENTARY)

SOURCE: Catfish Documentary

Massively criticized documentary CATFISH, is a 2008 post-modern film that, considered a hoax, follows the story of a film maker named Nev, a guy from New York who befriends a young country girl named Abby after she emails him a painting of his work. Nev engages a friendly online relationship with Abby's family; her older sister, Megan, and their mother, Angela over Facebook. As he becomes more and more romantically involved with Megan via IMs, texts, phone calls, little details start to become twisted and introduces the implications and dangers of online identities and the people behind them. 

 

SOURCE: Nev on his way to hunt down fact from fiction. A review from The Independent suspicious of real and fake.

In viewing this “documentary” I felt an array of emotions, first dark mocking humour for the good-looking guy about to get his heart broken to the audacity of lengths people will go through to construct false or extended identities for themselves online, to then feeling sympathetic and sad for those same people.

SOURCE: A post modern review on the film relate-able with my reckonings

It’s definitely a rollercoaster of emotion with relatable and relevant representation of (real) characters in this film, at any time you are able to empathise and put yourself in the shoes of all involved; the protagonist, the antagonist and the anti-hero, with good fairness of depiction (once the boys had ‘figured’ out what was going on) to the characters, all but one: Little Abby. With having no thought for potential damage, the film may cause her while growing up, all involved didn’t stop to think exploiting this young girl could inevitably result in facing the fall out of her mothers fantasy life that was displayed in cinemas across the world, without being given the correct coping mechanisms to help her manage the ordeal she had no say in to begin with.

The Guardian Fact or Fiction is another review which presents issues supporting the falsities behind the documentary.


 SOURCE: An idiom turned meme which is a popularized cartoon in The New Yorker, it has come to illustrate an understanding about the way privacy and anonymity work on the Internet.

TO READ: "THE SYSTEM OF OBJECTS" BY JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Since class last Tuesday, I have been frantically googling and oogling over the works and words of the Frenchman Jean Baudrillard. A cultural theorist, sociologist, philosopher, political commentator and photographer he is best known for his analyses of contemporary culture and media, technological communication and concepts of hyperreality. But what I’m most excited to get into are his diverse subjects on gender relations, social history, art and popular culture.

In touching on the topic of bygone objects and the romanticisation of antique technologies that leave us feeling nostalgic or moved by the presence of the past, Baudrillard’s name came into conversation and with a little bit of research a very interesting book of his called “The Consumer:Society Myths and Structures” came up.

AND IT LOOKS FANTASTIC! Especially that he wrote it in the 70’s (My favourite era to romanticize and dream (ironically) of what it was to live in a time of the glitterati, opulent establishment, the disco, the punk, to be inundated with consumerist feeding frenzies and the way media was revolutionised.

The book includes Baudrillard's most organized discussion of mass media culture, the meaning of leisure and anomie in affluent society. But alas, the book was $65(AU). And a cool sixty on a book is not something a poor student can afford as yet, so I opted for the next cheapest, ever interesting and post-modern. “The System of Objects” A cultural critique of the commodity in consumer society, which brilliantly communicates to us all the live ideas of the day.

I'll let you know what I think when it arrives! I purchased my copy on Booktopia.