Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride, Get back in Line

 Okay, full disclosure, this may get a little soapboxy and somebody may walk away offended, so you've been warned, nothing personal. Desperately Seeking Susan was a fun ride nothing particularly taxing on the gray matter, essentially forgettable and at first I did just that forgot about it. However in class when we got onto the topic of image control and celebrities as salespersons, selling in many ways ideologies as products that got me going.

 The commodification of ideology is a weird thing but ultimately nothing new. Take for example the building of the Vatican. Back in the day the Pope sent out a man named Johann Tetzel to collect money from the peoples of Europe. Tetzel was a clever man and figured he could use faith as a selling point and came up with a catchy jingle " Every time a coin on the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs." Basically people paid for their relatives to be freed from purgatory and all the money built St.Peters.

I see something like this all the time albeit not quite as outright as Tetzel and his methods. Today there are lots of "Ism`s" Anarchism, Communism, Feminism, Capitalism etc and today our culture has many idols and youth culture prophets designed to push Coke and most importantly ideas. When a celebrity say Madonna or Beyonce release their latest album their fan base goes freaking nuts endlessly posting on Facebook how that celebrity is at the fore of the fight for in this case Feminism, but is this a condusive introduction to any of the nebulous "Ism`s"? I personally think this introduction to thought through pop is a perfect way to create stunted " heroes of the revolution." Like buying a Che Guevara  T-Shirt or getting your risque Anarchist paraphernalia at Hot Topic. Many people do not move beyond image identification with an "Ism" and we are all guilty of it. Through direct observation of people I encounter I have seen many examples  in others and in myself of this strange phenomenon. For example I am interested in Anarchist thought and find many of it's philosophies to be liberating, but I'm here at a STATE school, receiving STATE grants. Not exactly hoisting the black flag and declaring an end to nations am I. However I was introduced to the ideology through popular culture and for years thought it was about smashing Starbucks windows and going to Road Warrior conventions. Then I did some reading and research and applied what I thought I could to my own life and it's been working so far.

But I don't think many people move beyond an introductory course in their chosen "Ism" before becoming a crusader for it. Feminism is a hot topic on campus lately, I've met a lot more self-identifying Feminists in the past semester than ever before. Absolute equality for peoples of all genders, races and creeds is a no-brainer in my estimation. But in my observation I've met these people only after celebrities began pushing Feminism as a popular concept. This in my opinion is dangerous for cultural movements as it creates a groundswell of fair-weather "Ism" followers and ceases new thoughts and adaptations on old concepts so that ideology may evolve in the 21st Century to finally see it's goals achieved. It makes me wonder how many will self-identify with their ideology as time goes on and things change.

Perhaps I'm a nut and no change comes from below but trickles down from icons and idols engineered by institutions be they economic or religious or governmental and we only change as we buy more of what they sell, I hope not because that's a pretty hopeless world.