Thomas Nagel’s Concept of Absurdity

Thomas Nagel remarks that our absurdity lies in our discrepancy between pretension or aspiration and reality (Nagel, 718). Our mental collision to doubt and question truth simultaneously is inescapable and provides a distance from physical reality. Humans are cursed in perceiving knowledge as arbitrary during every single minute of their lives. Though we ignore the doubts that we know cannot be settled, we continue to live with nearly undiminished seriousness in spite of theme. He then clarifies that absurdity starts with the fact that we take everything for granted. Knowing that, some of us seek to supply our lives with meaning through finding meaning in the presence in something larger than themselves. “People can come to feel, when they are part of something bigger, that it is part of them too” (Nagel, 721). It is important to know that even the sense of larger purposes (such as religion) and other meanings create systems can be questioned to the same extent as the smaller sense of an individual life. Although we are conscious of this paradox we continue to seek meaning in the theories or systems of justifications that give the illusion of purpose to our lives. “We step back to find that the whole system of justification and criticism, which controls our choices and supports our claims to rationality, rests on responses and habits that we never question, that we should not know how to defend without circularity, and to which we shall continue to adhere even after they are called into question.” (Nagel, 720) He does not only articulate this awareness, but also explains that it is inescapable. At last, he lists three possible lifestyles that individuals who become increasingly aware of the paradox with all it’s realities will adopt: The heroic approach, the gaze of irony or the escape through suicide.

Genesis of Lessons of Darkness

To analyze Lessons of Darkness in terms of expressionist film conventions carrying out the illustration of these four aspects, which I mentioned in the introduction, we must first examine the genesis of Herzog’s Lesson of Darkness. “The starting point for many of my films is a landscape, whether it be a real place or an imaginary or hallucinatory one from a dream, and when I write a script I often describe landscapes that I have never seen. I know that somewhere they do exist and I have never failed to find them” (Herzog & Cronin, 83). Herzog’s approach of documenting landscape does not only start, as a product of imagination but has to be interpreted in order to gain the full understanding of its truth. He demonstrates that the representation of an imagined landscape has the power to create and interpret concepts, which can explain the realities and irrational phenomena’s of our minds better than physical landscape. As Ames clarifies that his films “are not meant to be read straight. Rather, landscapes serve to conjure unseen worlds of affect and spirituality, even as they represent the physical world that we inhabit” (Ames, 58). His relationship to landscape is far more imaginative than informative. The environment or any specific time in history does not inspire his approach of portraying reality. In opposite it is truth of the absurd paradox within us, which in his opinion, has to be conveyed through an imagined landscape. “I’ve always made it very clear that for the sake of a deeper truth, a stratum of very deep truth in movies you have to be inventive, you have to be imaginative” (BBC, 1). This approach of representing landscape in framework of documentary filmmaking forces the audience to analyze landscape through an entirely new outlook.

Expressionism

Having looked at the origin of Lessons of Darkness, it becomes obvious that his representation of landscape has much more in common with the expressionist stylized mise-en-scene, as opposed to the realistic portrayal of landscape found in usual documentaries.  Herzog’s method of reshaping landscape to match his imagined environment can be compared to many expressionist filmmakers approach of deforming mise-en-scene. In fact, Lessons of Darkness, like many other German films throughout the early nineteenth century, favours extreme distortion of the mise-en-scene to express an inner emotional reality rather than surface appearance (Bordwell and Thompson, 104). Furthermore, many of Herzog’s cinematic conventions are similar to conventions of German expressionism, which evolved as a countermovement against the portrayal of realism.  Conventions such as religious themes, frame stories, poetic irony, set distortion and graphic compositions (Bordwell and Thompson, 105) are individually used to reveal Nagel’s four aspects which contribute to the understanding of our absurdity. Subsequently, Herzog ‘s goal of expressing the absurdity of the inner world of emotions, psyche and soul (Ames, 49) is premised upon the ideals of German expressionism. Therefore, Lessons of darkness transform the burning oil field of Kuwait in 1991 into a device, which serves as a reflection of our absurdity, rather than a testimony of geographical or historical facts. Herzog’s documentaries mythologize landscape as representation of internal space, which is also an indexical image of the external world (Ames, 65). All the above proves that Herzog’s use of landscape as mise-en-scene is a given, based on movies origin and purpose.

How He uses Expressionism to convey Absurdity

Having discussed why filmmakers used the expressionist film conventions, we can now examine specific examples in Herzog’s Lessons of Darkness. Timothy Corrigan states that Herzog is even more ambitious than his expressionist precursor. His documentary’s stylization of landscape is not only a function to reflect the character’s internal reality of emotions, but also express the viewer’s own condition of knowledge throughout his/her participation (Corrigan, 190).

He strives a conversation with the viewer while he reveals his personal perspective about absurdity not only in our lives but also within himself. The scenes and conventions, which I will examine, illustrate: his expressionist use of abstracting landscape through cinematography to show that ‘the absurdity is in our perception’; his expressionist use of symmetry while composing the frame to show that ‘the absurdity is within ourselves’; his expressionist use of religion, frame story, and unnatural performance to show ‘the absurdity of our search for purpose in something larger than ourselves’; His expressionist use of poetry to show that ‘the absurdity is inescapable’ through the gaze of Irony.

Abstraction

My first point is concerned with Herzog’s abstraction of landscape; that is, to illustrate that ‘absurdity is in our perception’. According to Thomas Nagel human absurdity is in close relationship with the perception of truth and knowledge. “We can ask not only why we should believe there is a floor under us, but also why we should believe the evidence of our senses at all“. (Nagel, 723)

Herzog’s fictional world is generated through the abstract uses of camera. His technique of distortion serves as a tool to create an exotic and horrifying version/representation of our world.  In fact, many expressionist filmmakers use this style to create exotic settings similar to Lessons of Darkness which remote from contemporary reality. Moreover, most of these films including this documentary emphasise themes of horror or fantasy (Thomson & Bordwell, 109). Bozak articulates that Lessons of Darkness is not a documentary about Kuwait but a science-fictional document of a planet’s apocalyptic finale (Bozak, 19).

Herzog’s technique of distorting Landscape creates an ordinary conception of how appearance might diverge from reality. A good example of this is his extensive use of helicopter cinematography. The movie does not only aestheticize landscape into a sublime imagery, but also allows the audience to identify with the lens through the organic manoeuvres of the aircraft. This is evident in the movie’s chapter 7 And A Smoke Arose Like the Smoke From A Furnace  (00:22:11), which mainly focuses on the smoke arising from the oil fields.

He starts the scene by revealing a representation of a reflected image of the large clouds of smoke mirrored in the oil fields, before tilting up to their actual presence. The aerial shots and organic manoeuvring of the camera provokes a speculative attitude of the viewer, who therefore explores the image and its layers of representation. In particular, the third shot (00:25:23) captures the burning oil fields through an aerial shot, which slowly tilts upside-down. As we are looking through the lens of the camera, we seem to be placed in a situation in which one can no longer tell whether the representation of landscape is a work of art or an attempt to disorient us. The aerial shots throughout the movie thus enable the viewer to observe our world as an alternative reality. Like an archaeologist from another planet, one can look at everything independently and see absurdity of our life represented in subjects and landscape, detached from its historical and emotional context.

Scenes like this subsequently raise questions about the representation of landscape and War, and the absurdity of our perception as outlined by Nagel. He consciously allows the viewer to question internal perception through the distorted imagery. This on the one hand shows how we evaluate the truth, and on the other hand questions the representation of landscape conditioned through the media. His technique to misrepresent the Kuwait oil crisis as an exotic and horrifying planet employs Nagel’s point that we take our world largely for granted (Nagel, 723).

Compositions

My second point is concerned with Herzog’s use of compositions within the shot to illustrate that this ‘Absurdity is within ourselves’. “The sense that life as a whole is absurd arises when we perceive, perhaps dimly, an inflated pretension or aspiration which is inseparable from the continuation of human life“ (Nagel, 718). Thomas Nagel further notes that our situation of absurdity does not derive from a collision between our expectations and the world, but from a collision within ourselves (Nagel, 722).

Herzog composes the frame as a medium that frames our minds. Exemplified in Chapter 9 A Dinosaur’s Feast (00:37:45), in which man and machine work hand in hand to diminish the fire, composed elements collaboratively reflect our actions as absurd and paradoxical. The narrative, like in many expressionist films, often slows briefly for moments when the ‘mise-en-scene’ elements such as industrial machinery, subject, fire and water align into eye-catching compositions. In fact, the frames become visual graphics carrying a two-folded meaning (Thomson & Bordwell, 106).

Right after its title A Dinosaurs Feast, Herzog introduces the scene with a pan following a driving transport truck in front of the contaminated scenery filled with black smoke. The pan comes to a stop once the exploding fire is framed in the centre of the screen. The symmetrical framing in which the beginning of the shot centres the truck and the end centres the oil well (0038:34) indicates a close connection between oil crisis and motored vehicles. The scene continues with several other machines such as helicopters, cranes and smaller truck provoking the audience to associate Industrial machinery to our demand for oil. It is not until later on in the chapter (00:39:30) that he reveals a man centred between two detonation shields, giving directions to the machines.

This leads up to the most significant composition (00:40:09) with regards to Nagel’s concept that absurdity is within ourselves. The fire fighter, dressed in a white suit enters the left side of the frame, meanwhile the mechanical arm of the backhoe, sprayed with cooling water, swings from the right side into the left side of the frame. As a result the man, mechanical arm and burning oil well are juxtaposed into one site of the frame, drawing attention to the elements of men, machine and fire. This shot specifically, relates to expressionist conventional use of symmetry that combines the subject and set to emphasize the overall composition (Thomson & Bordwell, 107); which in this case was created to express human absurdity of fixing a crisis with machinery that was the cause of it in the first place.

Further into the scene (00:40:55) the same site is captured with the use of a telephoto lens, which according to Ames “marks off the extreme distance at which the audience is situated vis-à-vis the documentary subject, for it is only from such a remove that an exterior landscape of this magnitude can serve double duty as a screen for projecting the inner world of the spectator” (Ames, 50). The camera’s movement is orchestrated to the motion of the arm while the subject holds still observing its action. This shot does not only the show us an expressionist approach in composing machine and men symmetrically on the right side of the frame, but also in dominating the action of the set, ‘Machinery” blending in with the subject. (Thomson & Bordwell, 106).

These shots detach the surrounding objects and industrial products from their proper purposes; using them instead to enable the viewer to draw parallels between humanity and machinery, as the reason as well as solution of the bursting fire of the Kuwait crisis.  The domination of the mechanical arm’s movement over the standing fire fighter generates a reflection of our mind, a constant stream of thought, questioning and reasoning simultaneously, although we might remain still. Like a snake biting its own tail, we operate industrial products to fix what they have caused unaware that the origin of the paradox lies within ourselves.

Religious Themes

My third point is concerned with Herzog’s use of religion to illustrate ‘the absurdity of our search for purpose in something larger than themselves’. Nagel states that some aspire to flee from the paradox of absurdity, despite the awareness of its inescapability. Someone who seeks to supply their life with meaning usually envisions a role or purpose of something larger than themselves, such as systems of beliefs or philosophies (Nagel, 720). Nagel then mentions that the sense of a larger purpose can be questioned in the same way that the sense of an individual life can  “What makes doubt inescapable with regard to the limited aims of individual life also makes it inescapable with regard to any larger purpose that encourages the sense that life is meaningful.” (Nagel, 721) Herzog uses religion, similar to many other expressionistic writers (Dierick, 96), to raise awareness about this human characteristic.

One way Herzog shows this is through his use of omnipotent narration such as in chapter 7 And A Smoke Arose Like the Smoke From A Furnace  (00:22:11) where the narrator uses terms taken from biblical stories (such as star, heaven, hell, darkness, death) utilizing a train of expressionistic film conventions. Furthermore, an application of biblical themes in titles such as in chapter 8 ‘A Pilgrimage’ and 13 ‘I Am So Weary of Sighing, O Lord, Grant That the Night Cometh’. These titles and frame stories, like in Lessons of darkness, were a common stylizations of expressionist scriptwriters, who aimed to embed self-containing stories within the larger narrative structure (Thomson & Bordwell , 108). Therefore, throughout the movie, titles and narration stimulate the audience to question the role of individual chapters in his larger narrative. This already allows the viewer to participate in the process of the search for meaning (in the presence of something larger than one’s self).

Another example is visible throughout one of his interviews in chapters 4 ‘Torture Chambers’ (00:13:26). Herzog shows a woman who was forced to watch her own sons being tortured to death. This incident caused her to loose her speech. Despite everything, she still tries to explain what has happened. Though the only word that she seems to be able to pronounce properly is the Arabic word for God “allah”. She consistently kisses her hands and looks up to the sky after she says it. Like in many other expressionist films, Herzog seems to have chosen subjects, which performed against the effect of natural behaviour (Thomson & Bordwell, 109), such as speech impairment. The behaviour contributes to the overall concept of absurdity not only being within the sense of an individual, but also within the sense of a larger purpose. This woman illustrates how we give meaning to tragedies, by explaining them as the will of something larger than us; but in fact we are ignoring that they are as questionable as individuals are.

Poetic Irony

My fourth and last point is concerned with Herzog’s use of expressionist narration to illustrate that ‘absurdity is inescapability’. After Nagel describes that this paradox is inescapable (Nagel, 718), he discusses the recognition of absurdity and the impact it has on an individual’s perspective and life. “Philosophical scepticism does not cause us to abandon our ordinary beliefs, but it lends them a peculiar flavour. After acknowledging that their truth is incompatible with possibilities that we have no grounds for believing do not obtain apart from grounds in those very beliefs which we have called into question-we return to our familiar convictions with a certain irony and resignation”(Nagel, 724). He explains that once we truly recognize our absurdity we return to our lives, as we must, but our seriousness is laced with irony. This particularly associates to Herzog’s narration, which embodies his personal perspective on the absurdity in life. He seems to have recognizes our inescapable paradox, returned to his life, and chosen to express it through the gaze of irony.

This is evident in chapter 12 Life without fire (00:50:03), in which workers, who finally extinguished one of the flames, re-ignite it again.

As the scene reveals several oil wells being relight a subtle voice narrates: Two figures are approaching an oil well. One of them holds a lighted torch. What are they up to? Are they going to rekindle the blaze? Has life without fire become unbearable for them? Others ceased by madness follow suit. Now they are content. Now there is something to extinguish again. The sarcastic narration, which can often be found in expressionist poetry (Stoehr, 67), communicates our inescapable paradox of ‘extinguishing and re-igniting fire’ through the mode of irony.

The scene metaphorically express Thomas Nagel account that “we ignore the doubts that we know cannot be settled, continuing to live with nearly undiminished seriousness in spite of them” (Nagel, 719). Like Prometheus, who stole the fire of Gods for humanity, was punished with meaningless life of humankind, we tent to ‘play with fire’ ignoring unanswerable doubts and consequences.

The Scene opens with a beautiful shot of the Canadian Lake and mountain landscape revealing the feeling of oppressive boredom and emptiness. The Cinematographer managed to capture a blue monochromatic shot of Canadian landscape, in which everything stands still. Besides the presentation of Canada’s beauty and dominance in nature the diegetic sound of chirping crickets, the blowing wind and the flowing river embraces the feeling of wilderness and empty space. The long shot of the vast mountainous landscape shows an area seemingly uninhabited, clear of civilization. In composition with the imagery the use of sound, a quiet radio station, gives the notion of small-civilized establishments in the large scale of Canada’s land.

Once the titles have been screened over the consistent shot of landscape the Camera zooms into the dark blue wilderness onto a house, which was previously unnoticeable. The Volume of the radio station starts to rise as we cut to the interiors of the house, where Sandra lies in her bedroom writing her diary. The transition in diegetic sound of wilderness melds into the sound of cracking doors, a ticking clock and the standard volume of a radio, which marks the mergence from the wilderness to civilization. She writes ‘NOTHING EVER HAPPENS over a full page in bold letters.

This juxtaposition connects the previous imagery with her desire of civilization where ‘EVERYTHING HAPPENS’. This expression of a young Canadian girl reflects on the relationship between the Canadian and American youth. This leads up to various shot establishing the representation of Canadian lifestyle; Major Wilcox is an accountant who is struggling with the cold Canadian winter, which results in a financial fallback for his family. After the children are put to bed, Butch Walker stands in front of their door.

The young boy, whose character personifies the American Ideal, seems to have the reflection of Hollywood and Rock ‘n’ roll culture himself. Major Wilcox reveals an intruding vibe of trouble when questioning the American’s unexpected arrival. This technique resembles the colonial history, which was about mapping and discovery of new territory in the Canadian and American context; It was to expand community and nation. In the eyes of Kitty and Major Wilcox the surprising appearance of ‘The American Other’ or Butch Walker intrudes the Canadian lifestyle and Canada’s peaceful Nature.  Conversing the examination of the parent’s conservative outlook, the children mount excitement of exploration while watching Butch Walker marching to his room.

Up to this point the sequence already shows all three aspects; First it reveals Images of wilderness followed up by the shot of Sandra’s note that ‘NOTHING EVER HAPPENS’.  Secondly the results of the narrative and cinematic interference evokes the idea about the Politics of space; nothing ever happens because it is empty; free land to be taken or invaded. And last Butch Walker represents the American Ideal invading the land, which encounters the aspect of ‘The Colonization as progressive Narrative’; the advancement in civilization and technology where ‘EVERYTHING HAPPENS’,

The Movie Continuously leads up to the second shot of landscape; showing once again the beauty of the mountains and lakes. But this time Butch Walker’s Cadillac takes up half of the screen visually intruding Canada’s land. Butch and his red Cadillac convertible symbolize the materialization of American cinema and music, the space where something new is always happening. Even the narrative structure in the scene exhibits the importance of national representation and perception.

Sandra’s control over the Photo camera introduces the view of the Canadians seeing the car as the outstanding technology from the advanced civilization. Kitty Wilcox mentions when first seeing the car: “What an extravagant car for one so young…so American.” This conceals with the plain shot of beautiful nature and the encroachment of American Ideal symbolized through Butch and his Cadillac.

Following, three photographs are being taken from the same position, facing the car and the landscape. The first is with Butch and his cousins; it shows them standing in front of the Cadillac. In the second, Sandra takes one with Butch aone against the Cadillac, which exhibits Sandra’s aura being drawn towards the association of Hollywood glamour. In the final photograph, Butch asks everyone to stand together so he can take a shot of the Canadian family, which he will show his parents in America. This case is different. Butch Walker now has the control over the photo camera. The lens imitates the way the Americans look at the situation. There is one change in the frame, which will prove all three aspect mention previously. When Butch takes the picture the Cadillac is surprisingly completely covered behind the family. It is as if it would be a norm of picture showing a Canadian family in the typical landscape of wilderness. In other words Butch leaves the frame to set up his shot, so does the ideology of technological progress and the American other. The swift of perspectives demonstrates how the American other and his car see Canada with its inhabitants.

In overall, the beginning and the end of the sequence portray Canada in two different ways. At first It shows the landscape as wild, boring but peacefully which thank transforms into exciting, but invaded by the American Other including all his idealistic attributes.

Primarily, Our perception of reality intervenes with our cultural behaviour and demand. The relationship between language and culture seems to have a crucial effect on how we perceive, perform and communicate to the outer world based on experience. In other words, ‘the principal of language as an experienced thought’ is reflected through aspects such as ‘language patterns’ formed by habitual thought, ‘metaphoric concepts’ established by our everyday values and the ‘grammatical structures’ simplifying our communication based on the experiences in our surrounding.

Language is constructed by the evolution of habitual thought, which is established through a culture’s experience and interference in reality. “…The real world is to a large extend unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group…the language habits of our community predisposes certain choices of interpretation”(Benjamin Lee Worf, 64). Benjamin Lee Worf points out that the aspect of ‘Language Patterns’ illustrates how cultures conceptualizes time, space and matter based on their surroundings and motivation. For instance, language patterns in Hopi illustrate a varied usage of ‘time’ compared to standard average European languages. In fact, they express time as a sequence based on their need of extensive and careful preparation in agricultural activity. In contrast, SAE languages create imaginary and spatial metaphors in order to objectify ‘time’, which was caused by the cultural need for measurements of units in industrial communication (Benjamin Lee Worf, 68-69).

Another aspect, which provokes language to reflect culture, is the use of metaphoric concepts in our every day live. Like our language patterns, we create metaphors to express cultural values in our activity and behavior. According to Lakoff and Johnson “A metaphor can serve as a vehicle for understanding a concept only by virtue of its experiential basis” (Lakoff and Johnson, 18). Both Authors acknowledge our ability to see certain values of a culture through the reflection of metaphors, which must be frequently experienced. Replicating the above-mentioned example of ‘Time’, it is evident that certain cultures have a different understanding and concepts of time. Concepts carry different associations with everyday experiences depending on a society’s situations and function. For instance, western cultures associate time to money and conceptualize its value, as ‘time is money’. “Thus we understand and experience time as the kind of thing that can be spent, wasted, budgeted, invested wisely or poorly, saved, or squandered” (Lakoff and Johnson, 8). Similarly to the first aspect ‘time’ in SAE is being objective, which can only be decoded if one sees through the cultures perception of time and reality.

Besides language patterns and metaphors, the aspect of grammar and vocabulary reflect a cultures method of communication, which is accustomed to surroundings and work habits. In fact, Marianne Mithun states “Both vocabulary and grammar can be observed to develop through certain recurring processes”. “In some cases we can still see the resources used by speakers to create the vocabulary they have needed” (Mithun, 131). She thoroughly explains that languages, such as Mohawk, Navajo or Yup’ik, have different foundation of letters, lords and structures reducing their struggle to correspond their daily tasks and reports. Language foundations like morphemes representing building blocks of words, which must be translated in SAE as a whole sentences. In addition, if one morpheme is replaced, the English sentences changes meaning and structure. This enables their culture to create new words at anytime without reinsurance of the associated concept. Mithun believes it is the result of the culture’s need of detailed and distinctive communication (Mithun, 129). In brief, cultures form grammar based on the experience of conversing with each other, which is evident by SAE’s drive to generalize through grammatical objectification and Mohawk’s motivation to distinguish through grammatical diversity.

Based on the aspects by Worf, Lakoff, Johnson and Mithun, we know that change of language is possible through the alteration of how a culture perceives reality. As result language is an expression and reflection of a group mind within a culture. George Orwell’s example of newspeak restricting thought through the reduction of words does not consider ‘the principal of language as an experienced thought’, which associates language to culture. Newspeak is a mechanism based on thought changing after the word is eliminated or shifted, which excludes the process of modifying the mental meaning and value before hand. Language patterns, metaphoric concepts and grammar have proof to be rooted to cultural experience and necessity, which contradicts Orwell’s idea of restricting thought merely through control of language.

Considering the second factor, a one-time ‘ process of information management’ cannot restrict and police thought forever. It can maintain boundaries, in which we think, if it is frequently influencing the mindset of new generations until everyone forgot the past.

According to Marian Mithun and Deborah Cameron, the meaning of words may be actively transformable through grammaticalization and verbal hygiene. “The meaning of words is never stable, can always be debated and changed” (Cameron, 17). Cameron argues that language can be cleansed by verbal hygiene, which is to adjust words to the current set of values and perception. Indeed, before this process can take place, the values need to be modified through an experience, necessity or external pressure. While ‘grammaticalization’ naturally takes place over centuries, ‘verbal hygiene’ is an instant tool to influence cultural behavior (Cameron, 18). For example, the feminist equality movement applied verbal hygiene to achieve an equal gender-representation in the English language. Articles like ‘he’ and ‘she’ were combined to he/she in order to follow up with ‘political correctness’.

The concept of verbal hygiene may associate to certain features of Orwellian Newspeak, which include the restriction of words and modification of meaning. However, Newspeak does not share the same results with examples from our past such as the verbal hygiene applied through the informational management of the Nazi ideology. It was used to an extent that German citizen performed, perceived and communicated values governed by the Nazi regime although they might have only been followers rather than believers. In fact, daily confrontation with the Nazi ideology manipulated their behavior through limiting ‘the thought to be spoken’ rather than restricting ‘the thought to be practiced’. This was accomplished through strategies of daily influence onto social interaction such as the transformation of the ‘Hitler Salute’ to the frequently used national greeting. “People who are not real Nazis are poisoned by the language to tacitly accept aspects of the Nazi ideology”, (Angelmayer, Lecture 4, March 31, 2009). This illustrated the need of permanent external pressure through language in order to maintain the ideology socially accepted. On the contrary, George Orwell’s concept of his language was applying the permanent elimination and transformation of these changes in language and thought. However, the fact that Victor Klemperer wrote his report during the establishment of the Nazi-language, contradicts Orwellian theory of vanish thought forever.

Considering these two factors, George Orwell has failed in creating a system, which restricts thought through the elimination of language. When culture is expressed and delivered through language, thought is established through forms of communication. This means we encode thought through grammar, vocabulary and metaphors, which than can be decoded based on our history, experiences and inherited conventions. If you change how people perceive reality through constant mechanical illusions, you can determine how they pursue thinking; therefore, inject them different virtues, dreams and concepts, which they will reflect back onto language. However, it is possible that these factors could be established through the signification of events, which may surprisingly shock or fear a certain crowd. In fact, the reaction of panic can easily support the fast adaptation of new words or transformation of meanings resulting in a cultural shift.

As a matter of fact the Media has now become an art in itself without any recognition of its form of communication and expression. The technology defined as the medium similar to a canvas of clay, has now its own language to communicate ideas, dreams and education as more precise and direct as any other art (Benjamin, 793). Communication used in unconscious manners to lead, or form its own society, through animation or alteration of perception. Why the need to change the perception of a humans nature, if you could let them understand and explore their own? Ironically, it is because humans get lost in their minds and overwhelmed by the urge of skeptical and critical behavior.

At this point Media does not only have to be analyzed for its origin and result, but for its approach and function. Unfortunately the lack of creativity and critical thinking, which media has established, only possible through film, has encountered our perception already into accepting the term ‘Media’ as it is. No one examines its origin or its definition, which has relevance in the understanding of the role media assumed in our society and culture. The term itself finds its origins in Latin: Media – to cure, heal.

Since its true definition is outlined as a cure, it is rational to draw it back to our desires and dreams. Happiness is now the priority of all desires, which is enhanced through the pretension and lies of our authorities. In one way it is the cure for skeptical and critical behavior, while others may define it as the cure of rational thought; both of these ideas were generated as a result of the post-modernist experience. However, this can only be made possible through the filmic alteration of realities. ‘During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence (Benjamin,794).’

Film is a factor of change in the modern mass media, which has a more precise and effectual method of carving and alternating human’s perception of reality. This filmic medium caused Art not to imitate but capture and alternate reality.

This Paper will discuss three critical issues relevant to the alternation. For one  ‘The importance in the lack in creativity’, which led us to believe and dream fiction is in fact real in the evolution of Media. Secondly, The integration and effect on human instincts and its relationship to the unborn generations. And lastly the psychological path of fiction to reality (Benjamin, 803). Film is the trigger to the change in our perception of reality, which has been a long traditional approach of old magicians, visionaries or storytellers. To purely insert a vision, or Illusion of reality into the minds of the masses in order to shape their instinctual dreams, believes and education.

Lack of creativity

The elimination of creativity and skeptical behavior adapted through out the 20^th century has become factual by the use of technology and language, a medium of

communication and expression. The artist expresses and communicates his message, opinion or speech through the cognitive extraction by the spectator. We think the painting looks beautiful while understanding what it is about or what it says to us. The painting delivers a vision within an imitated reality. In consideration of this approach, Walter Benjamin claims that art has split into two pillars; one is the Experience of its exhibition and the second is the spiritual behavior in its communication (Benjamin, 797). Spiritual as in the Aura that enhances your imagination of mind to feel, comprehend and explore its message. What ever the message might be, it is transmitted in the form of information through a medium in order to activate, as the psychologist would say, ‘stimuli of the spectator’s imagination’; we process the information based on our cognitive understanding of correlation of scales, shapes, textures, linguistic and narrative content. We then will be placed into a virtual reality or imagination and receive the image the artist placed into our heads. Although not identical with every person, it always carrying the underlying mission; one, which only changes through artwork. However, since media has reached its point by creating this virtual reality in itself, the need of the spectators’ imagination has become irrelevant to the message, which embraces the lack of creativity and critical thinking. Film terminology defines this effect as the narcissistic state, which attracts the spectator by participating in the simulation of a reality and stimulation of revealing desires of the unconscious (Stam, 363). The filmic audience is a passive receiver of an alternate reality or experience of the vision. All throughout history our drives and desire changed with regard to things, which are deemed as unattainable. Whether it is survival in the early stages of human evolution or freedom in the medieval ages; the desire to be morally and politically just which resulted in a postmodernist storm of skepticism. We were lost in restrictions and boundaries in art, lifestyle and exploration of existence. All this took place until media cured us from skeptical behavior and gave us the blue print for happiness, which was born as a dream. We lacked the tools as to how to pursue without the

media. As it is known, art reflects on society as well as the society reflects itself on the arts (Benjamin, 795). This was the fair exchange of the traditional medium, which now has become a one-way communication in the mass media.

The Electronic Parent

Realities are created based on the media’s opinion or beliefs. It is guiding our every day life by attracting the spectator through convenience and pace. Before we used to explore knowledge on our own and examine our own dreams in order to find our desired lifestyle of happiness. Now it is injected to us as a set value of knowledge we favor to accept since consumerism and convenience is our new way of defining happiness.

A replacement of three psychological attributes in human instinct; desire to dream, education/exploration to believe as well as the lifestyle to have drive and motivation. Those three concepts are the building blocks of whole individuals, alone as well as being incorporated into society. This has changed through the introduction of film due to media’s influence on film. Consumers now dream of their desire, believe their education and the drive for lifestyle and reputation. It is a reversed action eliminating critical and skeptical thought, which maintains unquestioned routine and determination for the use of its medium. In Further examinations we unconsciously participate in media driving for convenience, speed and consumerism as an approach to reach the injected and altered perception of happiness. In more defined words media sells dreams and desires to people and gives them the means to achieve them. We inherit our perception or drive, desires and beliefs from our parents and backgrounds, which are now converted into an electronic parent. This role of an electronic parent is now assumed by the media, which explores and creates the dreams of its children.

These dreams created and sustained by the media have replaced the natural order of dreams originally inherited through our parents and our own imagination. The dream has become the most significant aspect of human life although our desires change throughout our lifetime. The media, often through film addresses these changes in desire as we grow and evolve. Film can imitate the effects of a dream itself. Both are very similarly articulated with our unconscious. Both have storylines and are abstract of reality, while moving with your cognitive result of our desire (Myers, 281). Film has the power to alternate a reality through dreams, proven with one of the greatest examples “The American Dream”. The deliverer of its origin was media in a filmic approach. Commercialization, television – series and magazines all illustrate in their alternative realities how the dream should be lived. As Walter Benjamin mentioned, ‘Unmistakably, reproduction as offered by picture magazines and news reels differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye (Benjamin, 795)’, it is the spectator who takes it for granted and accepts it as real. Consumerism and media specifically present a hegemonic view of reality and in doing so, sustain social reproduction amongst societies.

Our attention for exploration in our education left humans with the notion to believe. Film is the tool, which educates and forms society knowledge (Marlin, 66). Selective information has evolved into a reversed education. We are being fed information from the western world, preaching the eastern side is in the wrong while the east experiences the same issue reversed. ‘…photographs become standard evidence for historical occurrences, and acquire a hidden political significance (Benjamin, 798).

Both are wrong and right, which shows how different their perception has become through news programming and ideological movies. An example of an alternative reality through the media is China’s current state. They set law restriction for Google’s incoming information and want to be able to select the information coming in from the outside world.

To the Chinese people those incidents do not exist, and if one generation is made not to talk about it, the next will hardly remember and the one after will have no idea that there were such incidents that took place. When Google went to China to launch Google China, a great controversy was started. The government insisted that Google give into the censorship laws of their country. All the other search engines have given into the same policy, but Google had been at looked as being the one who would stand up to all of this, with their do no evil motto. This was not the case as free market objectives come before any form of morality and Google gave into what the Chinese government wanted. If you search for certain things relating to dark parts of Chinese history, you will come up with no result in China, and a statement comes at the bottom of the page saying, ‘in accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part of the search result is not shown (Dowel, 111-113).’ This is not a complex example; it is the simplest one there is. We believe the knowledge or information we are told through our lives establishing our perspective or perception. Which begs the question; what if our perception of fictional stories is in our perspective of reality. We only know that we perceive, but not what and how. We determine reality because we believe or think so. ‘We know now that the thirst of media for fresh atrocity stories was so great that journalists sometimes embellished or invented them (Marlin, 70).’

Media has become the guide of our lifestyle based on the drive and motivation towards our injected dreams. People see the commercialization of the normal and perfect lifestyle everywhere they go. We strive for speed and the convenience in owning the new medium‚ technology.

Modern science and technology stand for making everything easier and faster in life. If things are “faster” and “easier” our ideal dream, essentially the American dream becomes more attainable, the redefined dream of happiness injected to us through our five senses, which receive what we perceive. Smell, touch, hearing, taste and sight, which evolved with

film. Overall, Media is the electronic parent, which has the ability to tell good night tales without any use of humans imagination. ‘Andre Bazin explains how the filmmaker is no longer the competitor of the painter and the playwright, he is, at last equal of the novelist (Bazin, 53).’ Children learned from imagining story tales, mythologies, fables, which has been replaced through the ritualistic use of an electronic device (Ellis, 401). Television exploits consumerism as the path to happiness, which evolved into a whole generation in front of a television. It is not our parents anymore, who strongly and proudly illustrate moral education but the Television itself in fictional manners through alternate realities.

From Fiction To Reality

This revolution of The Mass media occurred because of the lack of creativity, brought on by film. Without the imagination of the individuals it was possible for media to use basic psychology and classical conditioning to achieve its goals. It plays with human instincts and perception to alter their being, also known as Doublethink or generalization of the mind (Myers, 312). This is how the fictional universe enters into our reality. The reproduction of a situation through the lenses is perceived as the reality although it’s origin has fictional fundaments. ‘Photographic reproduction, with aid of certain process such as enlargement or slow motion, can capture images, which escape natural vision (Benjamin, 793).’

Classical conditioning is the manipulation of emotional experience by past situations. Those situations can be recreated as an illusion perceived as a reality; to process the situation with extra stimulant. So we associate future situations with the emotions reassigned to a new reality. The method has been used to modify our instinct, since dreams teach us how to associate certain emotions to what we saw (Myers, 312). It is the paradox, which keeps the attraction consistent. The critical issue has been that our dream is to get more of the dream,

which seems like an escape into a virtual reality enhanced by the filmic production of illusions. It seems like we are communicating and expressing ourselves in a virtual reality, which allows humans for example, to travel to Mexico as a totally passive observer. This can easily be achieved through panoramic cameras online or through a television set as well as virtual reality programs.

Many parts in our lives now function desperately through media technology, which gives users enough opportunities to not just travel but base life on it. We order, talk, watch, live, work, study, entertain, satisfy and represent oneself through the media, which proves that our drives, desires and lifestyles are already participants in the new medium of communication and expression. Film has opened the doors for media to change the way we look at reality, which consists as the cure of skeptical and critical behavior

Work Cited

Bazin, Andre.“ From What is Cinema: The Evolution of Language.” Film Theory and Criticism. Braudy, Leo, and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, inc, 2004. Pg. 41.

Benjamin, Walter “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Film Theory and Criticism. Braudy, Leo, and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, inc, 2004. Pg. 791.

Ellis, John “From visible fiction: Broadcast Television as sound and image “ Film Theory and Criticism. Braudy, Leo, and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, inc, 2004. Pg. 395

Marlin, Randal. Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion. Peterborough: Broadview Press, LTD. 2002

Myers, David G. Psychology: Seventh Edition. Hope College Holland, Michigan: Worth Publishers, 2003.

Stan, Robert.  “Television, News and its Spectator.” Film and Theory: An Anthology. Stam, Robert, and Toby Miller. New York University: Blackwell Publishing, 2000. Pg. 361

William Thatcher Dowell. “The Internet, Censorship, and China. ” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs  7.2 (2006): 111-119. Research Library. ProQuest. 21 Apr. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>