This week over a short flight to San Diego I started reading Kalle Lasn’s Culture Jam. Though its not particularly research heavy, most of his rants about the state of American consumer culture and its effects on all of us carry a lot of truth. One such bit in a chapter about the emergence of modern advertising and how we’ve come to experience the world not as it is, but as it is seen through commercial messaging goes as follow: “(Modern Advertising) marks the end of the authentic experience, and therefore the end of the authentic self.”

This made me think of another bit of related genius I read recently in a magazine: “When you cut off arterial blood to an organ, the organ dies. When you cut the flow of nature into people’s lives, their spirit dies. It’s as simple as that.”

Both of these made me think about how living in a large urban area, exposed to almost constant commercial messaging can sometimes feel like slow death. I think I’ll join a small farming community when I finish grad school. : )

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