You didn't understand a word I said, did you?

Well if by Nietzsche's reasoning, what suppresses inescapable conditions is what enslaves us then it does it matter if we chose to stay on the same level, in the aesthetic realm, operating for best practicality and the largest pallet of choice in situations. But what then are the other levels? If there is a better life I'll live it. Are we all planning to make some great escape or somthing?



Dan.

So as to sidestep this battle of definition, I will explain myself thus. I will state my reasoning in this topic because I have read it where it is. In some countries, the School of Anthropology is set by three fields of study while in some others it is set in four. Don't mistake this for definition of say a word like methodology which is a fancy way of saying method, in fact it isn't even fancy it is someone simply implying more to the word than there is in definition.

I once heard a silly little man state that by the year blah blah, no Australian child will be living in poverty. I had been outside the country and had seen poverty in the face so I questioned the sentiment and some one said what about poverty of the mind. I have since had an appreciation for the concept of the abstract in the form of poverty and also slavery in this same sense.

Youth that now bop to hip hop are in no way different than the youth who bopped to rock in the Fifties or Swing for that matter. A new fashion, fad, behaviourism was flavourable then like it is now. The difference that I see is that which applies to what was coined a Generational Gap. Those who did not partake of listening to new forms of music were considered square or to old to dig it. Those of us however who have listened to music through the Sixties on and now find the music intolerable aren't able to be catergorised as being in a "gen gap" because the reason we don't like the sound or the rhythm or the song is after spending so much time listening to pathetic music that was played to us along side the music we liked we have had enough, of pathetic music.

I know that this drifted off topic a little, so I must return to my train and express that the concept of slavery reaching more adults each day. Current Affair shows are part of a long list of programs that inflict ideals and new age standards that simply bend the will of many viewers. Chocolate is bad for you, say top doctors of Diaper Medical Hospital and so for a week chocolate drops in sales. The following week top doctors of Soiled Medical Centre claim otherwise and so the standard is set. This is done across the board. Today some wanka got conned out of thousands of dollars, next week some other moron has to come up front with how cleverly they were conned out of more thousands than the last. Jerry, Oprah, E News, magazines, video clips, fashion houses, Idol shows, reality shows, the list is endless.
By the way we are one race, that is human, we did not evolve from different beings so to be a different body. White men can jump, just watch Australian Rules Football.

Yes, that does matter. On a different level one opens up more possibilities of quantification. For thinking 'A' makes for being 'A', so thinking as a slave makes for being one. I think this is Urangatan's idea as well, or am Imistaken Urangatan?

But then you're using the words metaphorically and not referring to their more orthodox usage. So if by slavery you don't really mean slavery, and by poverty you don't really mean poverty, then we're going to have a hard time coherently debating the subject. If I were you I'd choose a word other than slavery to refer to how susceptible markets are to news clips from Diaper General Hospital.

As long as you consider that there may never be a conclusion. That is, every possible level may be enslaving you. As another poster noted, you breaking off from one tradition will just be creating another. There may be no true way to be 'free', in a sense.

"Slavery", to me, makes me think of complete and intentional domination by another party. Popular music, images, and video that create a culture of blinding validation within itself are more like a trap of the mind or feedback loop that compounds upon itself. "Jailbreaks" aren't a good metaphor for remedying a situation such as that. Rather, a link in a person's blinding loop of thought would need to be broken, and then that person may helped out of the pit.

However, is the F*CK THIS TAP THAT THUG LIFE hip-hop culture that a lot of us probably have in the back of our minds when we think about this... really wrong or invalid? In fact, the whole mindset that there is nothing to life but money, power, love, and sex kind of alludes to a mental position that the world is only a concrete jungle, where survival of the fittest still reigns supreme. What I think that is most damaging and blinding is the amount and type of self-centralism and pride that comes of it.

Take this video for example (a Soulja girl flips out on an old lady on a train):YouTube - I'm pressin' charges!
The pride and self-centerdom is what seems the most damaging. Also, this obviously is a phenomenon that can apply to people from all cultures, and the amount of pride people feel for their own culture can lead to meaningless conflict and bloodshed. Think of middle eastern religious conflict or a riot at a big football (aka soccer) game for example.

Right on Meteo, its what i was saying, somewhat tongue in cheek yet somewhat not

And indeed it does in EVERY disaffected group of people. We've been concentrating on certain elements of urban black American culture, but to a point that nears stereotyping. Is this any different than talking about "white trash" as if they're all uneducated bible thumping racists living in West Virginia, or talking about native Americans as if they live for nothing but alcohol and to sit around underachieving? Pride within a group can actually lead to social change -- it spearheaded the civil rights movement, it spearheaded the Amercian Revolution, etc. I've got zero problem with pride among disaffected African Americans -- I just hope a distillation of that pride leads to progress, and to effective, influential leaders.

Extremely well put. We should strive to foster progressive pride that is as harmonious as possible with outside identities.

Aedes, is it not slavery of the mind that is the topic. Yes, I am not talking about markets but how people react to information from, well I wouldn't call them the media, it is paparazzi reporters that people are believing are passing on relevent information to enjoy your life. Health warnings on a different food group this week. The ins and outs of the depression of Brittney Spears and how to dress this summer.

If the point is how the youth are conditioned to flaunt themselves like the culture that is rap, behaving like they are in the story, then what is the difference to some redneck believing he is Jack and he must have his Dianne in the back seat, busking like you have something to say like bob or slickin ya hair back thinking you are Jimmy D, "Rebel Rousing" on the streets in your cut down Chev, with holes drilled in the exhaust to make it sound like you got extractors.

If however you are refering to how African Americans are reacting to their slave past, then I will shut up because I know nothing of the topic. I don't know how to react to the topic, I carry no shame of my herritage, I do not know how to broach the topic with somebody who is a descendent of a Slave and I do not see the behaviour on the street. We do see the rap cultural influences filter into the youth but that is only as I have put it in the post so far, where I do not see the point that you are reffering too.
I got a problem with font so forgive the print size.