Research and Destroy
I agree with the author when he states that designing today is more for "wants" rather than "necessities" because designing generates a feeling of longing. Longing for something doesn't necessarily mean one will die without it because in some third world countries, they have no such media available, yet they are well off. Sometimes a graphic designer must take on a role similar to a lawyer, for their client, "removing themselves from the usual commission structure and its fixed role definitions" in order to produce work for whom they are working for, which led others to criticize that they do not think for themselves and just do work - like someone working on a conveyer belt, not thinking and just doing as told. Much of the design only serves as temptation for viewers rather than harboring a significant meaning. When a designer push beyond their instructions, they are then their own authors of their work.
A Republic of Fat
A majority of Americans are overweight and increases every year because America attempts to produce, buy/sell everything at the lowest price they can find possible. A variety of reasons lead overweight problems and one of biggest ones has to do with corn. As we have seen in the film, "King Corn," a lot of the corn grown is "useless" or uneatable and the government pays farmers to continue making this useless product. With this useless product, people salvage every bit of the corn, whether it be high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, feed for the cows, etc which then starts spreading to every bit of our livelihood, from the food we eat, straight to even the ends of our hairs! And since corn is so cheap to process, it produces cheap products (i.e. McDonalds), which then can be bought by lower-income individuals, which constitutes for a large portion of Americans causing obesity. In addition, obese individuals find it difficult to exercise, so they continue to live a sedentary lifestyle, making problems worst.
The production, processing, and selling of corn products is just like importing goods from China; the quality is extremely low and harms the body, yet because many individuals cannot afford to consume higher quality food, it becomes an endless cycle. Eating better quality food or corn-free food is out of reach except for the "privileged" who can afford to eat better. Corn is like a cockroach; you just can't get rid of it no matter how hard you try. Everywhere you look, everything's made of corn; even the chair you're sitting in may have an indirection relation to corn. The cheapest foods will contain some form of corn and probably also contain the highest amounts of calories in comparison to their more expensive counterparts.
I totally agree with you Judy, everything is just an endless cycle as mentioned. It is very alarming how the government pays farmers to produce something that is uneatable from the beginning, that its a red flag already, and to let it get distributed in so many "food sources" is very contradicting. The government do not have money to provide health care yet they seem to be just fine to pay for chemical treated corn that ends up at our eating table every day one way or another. Government do not have money to help people stay alive but they do have the money to help us die faster.
ReplyDeleteThere over production of the useless corn rings the bell for what is common in the society of human beings all around the world: Once we discover, or access something that works and is also affordable, we tend to use it as much as possible. In the next step, after it becomes popular, overusing and misusing it becomes the common theme. Once it used to be wood, iron, rice and flour, now it's plastic and corn. This notion combined with social and governmental slogans such as: "consume more to produce more" then would lead to a systematic disaster created by those who access the resources with minimum knowledge and/or sense of social responsibility to fulfill a short run dream, usually derived by egocentric needs like fast money, power, or status. The terms: overflow, overfed, over weight are the outcome of overusing and over producing, which are the antimatter of drought, poverty,..etc.
ReplyDeleteHere we are talking about second hand/brainwashed investors and designers who prefer to copy what is available and working instead of creating something new and beneficial in a universal landscape; considering not just momentary human needs, but the life of all live organisms in a long lasting perspective.