Saturday, July 14, 2007

ads take away our freedom

Q: Is this something we, as a society that claims to stand for freedom, justice, and equality, can tolerate?

A: It is really hard to answer that question because not everyone is able to see what you saw in and ad. I was unable to see it until you told us because I'm really bad in history so it was harder for me to make connections of all the elements and be able to come up with the conclusion that you came to even though you gave us time to analyze it. Also when we are looking at an ad we often just glance at it only to notice what is being sold and making it really hard to go deep. So since many of us are blinded to this, we don't really ask ourselves the question of whether we can tolerate having our freedom taken away or not.

4 comments:

Tim said...

We all can train ourselves to do analysis, to think critically, and to be more skeptical of power. Like for most things,we improve with practice.

As for the Hilfiger ad, I don't expect you or anyone else to read it precisely the way I did. My reading of it isn't the "right" one and all others wrong, but I do stand by it. You can choose any ad out there and try to understand how it works. You will likely discover more underlying outrageousness.

What I'm really arguing for is the notion that the world is more, not less complex than it seems, that there are powerful forces at work beneath the surface.

Since few of us spend much time looking beneath the surface of things, we risk allowing these powerful forces to control us and shape us without our being aware.

Sherwin said...

I agree to Martin's answer, I don't have a strong connection with history but I am willing to understand it as the class progresses.

Zack said...

I again agree. Overlooking ideas that may be hidden in everything around us is quite easy. Everyday we are bomparded with information, in many forms, from the radio, tv and even walking around town. With ads and everyone's opinion on the pages and billboards, many of us just ignore it. We need to realize what the ads are saying and not just forget they exist.

Melissa said...

This topic Freedom for our first essay, I found to be a good one. Some parts of what freedom is about is hard for me to sallow as well as hard for me to comment on due to the fact of our whole political point to freedom and the government. I just hate and i know hate is a strong word but i am still shooseing to use it. It is hard when someone like myself have a responsiblity to think of the future and the out come for the sake of my children and the worry i carry for them and the way things may be later on through the years and i do have a stong belief that out whole state of the freedom we so have now is going to be reduced by some what of amount by the time my children are my age.

thank you
Melissa Anne G.