GORETZKI ON CORPORATISM

Is there anything more cringeworthy or utterly depressing than overblown team-building corporate ‘philosophies’, and having them rammed down your ear, nose and throat at cultish weekend seminars in which some Big Wig helicopters in to parp utterly flocculent drivel in an attempt to indoctrinate you to the point where you are ready to blow yourself up on the bus of their rival, should it be necessary (no, the analogy is not too strong)? Yes, there is: the utter c**ts that buy into it all. But such naff evangelism works in thousands of more intimate and insidious ways, too, subtly weaving itself into your every thought and action – if you worked for such a company, that is. Thankfully, I do not. As Alan Partridge (impersonating a generic Irishman) once said: Dairs mourr tuh loif dan dis.

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GORETZKI ON PSYCHOLOGY

With a background in market research and a reluctant foot or ironic toe in the rarefied mumbo-jumbo of corporate team-building, it’s to be expected that a look at psychology is coloured by the latter’s “application” to an instrumentalized field in which people are either trying to be persuaded to buy things or to work with greater zeal, both of which, ironically enough, are likely to put you on the psychiatrist’s couch pretty pronto. This kind of world is not an easy one for children to grow up in, a vicious circle of over-stimulation through being fobbed off onto toys as proxy parents and lack of attention from others (causing attention-deficit)…

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GORETZKI ON THE INTERNET

Continuing on from the previous post’s look at sociality and communication, it is true that emailing now consumes a large part of our time, but that we also depend on the Internet for much more: everything from practical knowledge to spiritual succour.

I don't know about you, but I find there’s a disturbing font stigma in play with that cartoon...

Anyone know God’s email address?

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GORETZKI ON SOCIAL MEDIA (AND TXTING)

There are many who have seen the rise of social media as the latest, maybe final harbinger of the death of true communality as we retreat into ersatz collectives in which the lack of physical presence removes all constraints on our behaviour at the same time is erodes the affection and intimacy that sustain communities. Such is the view of Sherry Turkle in Alone Together, and, to a certain extent, of Nicholas Carr in The Shallows. What does Jake Goretzki think?  

Papa Mike Sierra Lima. 

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GORETZKI ON CONSUMERISM

Us Twenty-First Century types – we’re so historically mature, aren’t we? So grown up. No wool can be pulled over eyes. No simple object can take such a prominent place in our affections that – …ooh, I simply must get one of those new AppleBlueberry x-ray-phones with 47 terabyte “squindaxia”. Supposed to be mega. 

Those Apple users know their shit, don’t they? Wonder how many squindaxia they reckon is minimum...

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GORETZKI ON MEDIA

Obscure references to obscure radio programmes* is a strong enough ‘Media’ content for me not to have to group the final cartoon of the previous post and the first one here, alongside another couple of that ilk, to form their own category: Barber’s Shop Quartet.  

* It is of course The Shipping Forecast, as any lover of Test Match Special whose window on to The Ashes Down Under had been interrupted would be able to tell you

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GORETZKI ON ART AND CULTURE, YEAH?

If it’s not people preventing you from ‘consuming’ the culture that you’d like to, then it’s time… Still, looking at cartoons – or visual artistic forms of any description – doesn’t take too long. The Blink of an eye, in fact. Unlike books.

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