ture, in their speed, quantity, and variety of
messages, act to destabilize culture at large. A social vertigo (vertigo means “a condition
with a sensation of whirling and a tendency to lose balance”) ensues, and we lose our
bearings in the blizzard of decontextualized information. Such a world of decontextualized
information, vertigo, and acceleration is often referred to as “hyperreality”—a term that
comes from the media theorist, Jean Baudrillard. The result is that we can no longer detect
the operations of power in the world behind the blizzard, and as a result experience reality
as two disconnected spheres.
These spheres are (i) a political and economic world of work, production, and profit, and (ii)
a cultural world of pleasure and consumer satisfactions. The culture of atomized bits and
pieces is also defined by fast food, disposable products, and a lack of understanding how
things and ideas connect. We lose our sense of the past, and as a result find ourselvesstranded in the “eternal present” without history as a guide or a resource by which we can
critique the present. We thus suffer a “social amnesia”, lacking a meaningful sense of where
we have come from and who we are. One result of this is that we are made vulnerable to
manufactured memories, and hence we see a culture of manufactured nostalgia, e.g.,
“classic” movies released only a few years ago.
Postmodern culture is one governed by emotion, not reason, and which we experience a
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media and popular culture that is full of emotionally powerful, evocative messages. Here
large private and public interests assumes the role of cultural “pedagogues” (i.e., teachers)
to the public, instructing them in what it means to be human, what to believe in, how to
relate to family, faith, nature, etc. This is a culture in which good and reliable information is
difficult to come by, and in which “disinformation” (i.e., deliberately produced inaccurate
information used to confuse or deceive) is produced in massive quantities. Take for example
McDonald’s arguments on behalf of the nutritional value of its food, in light of the fact that it
is a major contributor to the epidemic of obesity plaguing North Americans. To quote from a
McDonald’s website, we can see evidence of their concern to position themselves as a
source of good nutrition and fitness programs:
(http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/values/balance.html)
“Our balanced, active lifestyles initiatives reflect a global framework. Within it, our local and
regional business units are launching new programs and menu offerings that address the
realities of our customers’ varied lives and conditions in the diverse communities we serve.
Our approach is guided by an
independent advisory council of world-recognized experts and
managed by a
registered dietitian with a doctoral degree in public health science. As we
implement the approach, we work with numerous other
experts and o
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