Culture Jamming (Two-Five-Zero-23 014)
In support of “Here’s What We’ll Do: Practical suggestions for working toward a marginally Better Future”
I was working on this a while ago, and it’s appearing here to pick up the slack from the missing week. Which keeps at least the 250 word part of the schedule on track.
From my review of “Chapter 20 Culture, Jamming.”
What is Culture Jamming?
It’s unauthorized and unsheltered communications generally broadcast for the purposes of introducing people to slogans, images, questions, memes, and alternative viewpoints that suggest different forms of consciousness and participation. It offers a direct illustration of a world based on different assumptions, principles, and values than those in the dominant culture. It’s a place where the connection between creativity and transformation is powerful and consequential — and is therefore a place where a lot of fun, joy, and liberation can be found.
Let’s define Culture Jamming as unofficial communications executed on a volunteer basis intended to bring to an unsuspecting audience the possibility of living in the world in an unfamiliar way that makes the future more likely to be better (Be Best).
I began at Occupy Wall Street a train of thought that’s been germinating in me ever since. The defenders of the status quo consists of money and power in the hands of those well-versed in how to deploy them, and deploy them they will. On the other hand, the champions of change have, to a first approximation, all the creatives and their allies: The writers, poets, musicians, artists, advertising people, movie people, communications people, librarians, comedians, open-source programmers, rogues, moles and secret Earth Angels. The Culture chapters are concerned with leveraging their talents and willingnesses. A lot.
