SEE The sense of sight helps me recognize other people and learn about color, motion and distance. Two heads with four eyes can watch more things going on around, it may help in case of danger and even help to survive. Four eyes would allow me to read more books, watch more films, get more visual impressions every day.
TASTE Taste helps me to select and enjoy food. I need my tongue to taste, but I also use it to chew, swallow, sing, talk and kiss! Snakes even smell with their tongue! Two tongues would mean more capacity for the taste of sweet ice cream, sour lemon, bitter cocoa and spicy pizza, more capacity for singing my favourite song, more capacity to talk!
SMELL The sense of smell helps me to enjoy life and helps me learn about unsafe conditions. It brings me into harmony with nature, warns me of dangers and sharpens my awareness of other people, places and things. It helps me to respond to those I meet, can influence my mood, how long I stay in a room, who I talk to and who I want to see again. The nose allows me to make scents of what's going on in the world around me. Two noses would mean smelling more parfums, more sweet apple pies and more fresh air.
HEAR The sense of hearing helps me learn from others through communication. Sound can produce patterns. My ears help me to hear sounds and music, but also help me to keep my balance. Four ears would mean double power for the act of perceiving sound.
FEEL The sense of touch helps me learn about my world by feeling it and learning the size, texture and shape of things. I use my hands to pet a fluffy cat, I use my hands to give a dog a bath, I use my hands to feel the powdery snow. Having more skin would mean more sensations by contact with my body or limbs, it would bring me double sensitive experiences.
If I had two heads I would enjoy being able to watch one situation in two perspectives. I would love to sing one song in two voices at once! I would love to smell the scent of hey at the same time than the delicate odour of a bouquet of flowers. I would be fond of listening to the singing birds and to my favourite song at the same time. I couldn´t get enough of feeling the gentle touch of a beloved person on my hair and refreshing cold water on my skin in hot summer days at once!
BUT…. Wouldn´t all the negative things I see, taste, smell, hear and feel every day also duplicate? I would make double negative experiences and receive double negative impressions too. Sooner or later it would end up in sensory overload… Even if all the sensual impressions would just be positive, I probably would suffer from being overloaded.
jeder mensch hat das recht auf arbeit auf freie berufswahl auf angemessene und befriedigende arbeitsbedingungen sowie auf schutz gegen arbeitslosigkeit alle menschen haben ohne jede unterschiedliche behandlung das recht auf gleichen lohn für gleiche arbeit jeder mensch der arbeitet hat das recht auf angemessene und befriedigende entlohnung die ihm und seiner familie eine der menschlichen würde entsprechende existenz sichert und die wenn nötig durch andere soziale schutzmassnahmen zu ergänzen ist daher muss es unser oberstes ziel sein den profit unserer aktionäre zu vermehren und alle unnötigen arbeitskraefte zu entlassen die sind ja nur rationalisierungsreserve also brennstoff aber leider leben mehr als 100 millionen menschen in industrieländern unterhalb der offiziellen armutsgrenze und mehr als fünf millionen sind obdachlos jedoch ich sehe dies system und äusserlich ist’s lang bekannt nur nicht im zusammenhang da sitzen welche wenige oben und viele unten und die oben schreien hinunter kommt herauf damit wir alle oben sind aber genau hinsehend siehst du was verdecktes zwischen denen oben und denen unten was wie ein weg aussieht doch ist’s kein weg sondern ein brett und jetzt siehst du’s ganz deutlich ‘s ist ein schaukelbrett dieses ganze system ist eine schaukel mit zwei enden die voneinander abhängen und die oben sitzen oben nur weil jene unten sitzen und nur solang jene unten sitzen und sässen nicht mehr oben wenn jene heraufkämen ihren platz verlassend so dass sie wollen müssen diese sässen unten in ewigkeit und kämen nicht herauf auch müssen’s unten mehr als oben sein sonst hält die schaukel nicht ‘s ist nämlich eine schaukel
[aus: Verinte Nationen, Charta der Menschenrechte (1948); Brecht’s “Die heilige Johanne der Schlachthöfe” und der zur Produktion des gleichnamigen Theaterstuecks im Wiener Akademietheater erschienenen Taschenpostille (1997 )]
My name is Ian Fisher. I play music, but often I use that music as a cart to carry a message through the ears of listeners too their minds. Due to the fact that the song I recorded to post on this month's blog wouldn't upload to my emails, I will skip the cart this time.
For those of you who don't know about me, I'm from the United States. I thought that I needed to say that in-order to clarify the link between my perspective and neoliberalism. In the US we often hear of neoliberalism in reference to practices that are taking place in other countries (often countries where our governmental/economic elite have tried to impose neoliberal policies to strength the global power of our extreme upper class, but that's beside the point). Though we have played the leading role in the story of neoliberalism, it appears to me as though many Americans are oblivious to it's existence on their-own streets because "liberal" democracy has overtime become so familiar to them that they accept it as common knowledge, or truth, and don't question it. Thus, the stereotypical American personality is the embodiment of liberalism. Thus, a reflection on American civil society and individuals may shed light on the concept itself.
While driving down the wide streets of my country I looked around and started noticing things. A fat suburban woman talking on a cell phone, while cutting me off in an SUV with a Jesus fish plastered to the bumper happened to catch my eye. I couldn't help but image what that woman would have been like one-hundred years ago. I pictured her looking a little older and skinnier with 5 to 7 children speaking German and broken-English on a farm where she worked in the fields from sun up to sun down simply to keep her family and herself alive. I then hung this mental picture next to the soccer mom in front of me and compared the two. I thought about the motives behind their actions. I imaged the woman of one hundred years ago being motivated by the desire to simply survive and provide a better life for her children. I imaged the modern woman, who never went to bed hungry or cold, who never feared her children starving to death, who wants her children's lives to be like hers, as being motivated by increasing her social status and self image. Since her basic needs are fulfilled and the prospect of them not being fulfilled is unimaginable to her, she works not for what she needs, but rather for what she wants. Unfortunately, this woman is not the only person in society wanting more than they need (which is a human tendency, but is extremely harmful to a society that basses its economic structure on greed and over-consumption). Individuals with the ability to increase their level of profit will do so to increase their-own ability to consume. Those who hold the most power in the relationship between the creation of goods and services and the consumption of those goods and services have the ability to decide how profit will be distributed. Since everyone in this relationship wants more, whether it be on the creation side (more pay) or on the consumption side (lower prices), this concentrated group's increased profit margin puts a strain on the entire system. When those who have the power to raise their-own profits do so, the prices of goods and services go up and the profits of those who don't hold power go down. In order to maintain stability, there must be a balance struck between prices and profits. When this is unbalanced the masses become frustrated. In working democratic systems, people's demands are answered by legislation and action on behalf of the government. When those legislations and/or actions threaten the economic elite's power, the elite respond. That response in many modern cases has been neoliberalism, which is an attempt on behalf of the economic elite to weaken institutions that stand the way of them attaining more profit.
To finish my thought about the woman in the SUV, I asked myself a question. What would happen if the ability for her to attain what she wanted feel apart? Would her motivation switch to surviving and providing for her children? Yes. However, I believe her inflated level of wanting would remain. Further more, when/if she fought for change, she would be fighting, to a certain extent, for the return of her ability to consume. Upon her victory, her greed would simply set back in motion the same system that starved her.
I believe that our generation will see the effects of these policies and there will come an awakening. From our past the stage is set. Neoliberalism has burnt our flags, the Internet has untied our tongues, global war and media have broke our crosses, and our fathers' communists have hung themselves in their-own rusted chains. The time of decision is comeing. To continue to fight like cavemen over rocks or to work together and use them to build a new world.
IAN FISHER
ISIS FRISCH & DIANA FRISCH
MARKUS MEZNIK
THADDÄUS STOCKERT
Neo-liberals who turn to drink turn conservative in the morning.
Neo-liberally, I pour wine at table. Je refuse l'affaire Dreyfus But accept your scotch with glee.
First I voted with my feet. Then I voted at the bar.
Come morning, I'm conservative, Comforted by misty tradition.
MARK BOUSFIELD
PHILLIP SULKE
DIE ÄRGSTEN FEINDE DER FREIHEIT SIND GLÜCKLICHE SKLAVEN
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