Current “pandemic” notwithstanding, I don’t get out much. Well, when I say I don’t get out much, what I mean is I avoid major retailers and anything that includes advertising like the plague: I buy meat from a butcher and vegetables from the local farmer’s market, work out of my home, use ad blockers on the Web, and largely listen to podcasts or purchased music rather than the radio. Today was a rare occasion when a trip to both the local grocery store and big box store were unavoidable.
When one avoids big box stores or chain restaurants or, in this case, a grocery store and big box store in the same trip, the occasion of visiting one is a shock to the senses. Loud music, bright fluorescent lights, and brightly colored boxes along with the constant interruption of in-store advertising, when one interacts with these things it’s enough to drive one to drink, unless and until one has become desensitized to them. Each one of these sensory inputs at one time, and in fairly recent human history, had profound meaning in and of themselves.
The music playing on the store loudspeakers, in this case, was composed of Soul and Rock and Roll music from the 1960s and 1970s. Each song was written by an individual or group of individuals, who spent time organizing chord and note structures. The music as it was written at the time had a very specific meaning to the people who wrote and played it; the songs were written about something, or someone, and each tells a story.
Each one of these songs were then published and promoted by the recording industry as part of the Sexual and Cultural Revolution which took place during that time period. The music had a profound impact on American and Western culture as a whole. Now, it is mindless background noise being played to people standing in line at a grocery checkout to pay for their cheese.
The shelves of the store are lined with brightly colored boxes and posters, most of which bear a picture of individuals taking a pose in order to make “whatever-it-is” seem more appealing. Every one of these people was formed in the image and likeness of their Creator, but now are nothing more than pawns in the game that is mass marketing. The colors on each box were chosen by these advertisers in order to catch our attention so that we will spend our hard earned money on their product instead of a competitor’s. Most of these will go unnoticed.
This is the end result of a century of marketing and manipulation which looks to use human psychology to separate each individual from their money, while at the same time rendering profound pieces of human ingenuity like music or color printing or photography or even the modern grocery store as meaningless. The end result of modernity is, in actuality, nihilism. Even those of us who hold to a world view where things, and especially people, matter are ultimately reduced to a practical nihilism simply in order to function without being overwhelmed by the barrage of psychological manipulation to which we are constantly subjected.
-By Dixie Anon
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
The 60’s music has always driven me insane, sometimes it’s so loud you can’t even hear other people speaking. I’d say the worst addition right now is the arrows present everywhere implying you have to walk around the store in a certain direction as if it’s a cheesy 90’s game-show.