Peter McLaren
Popular culture is the site where the naturalization of exploitation is cultivated in our subjectivity.
Artist as Shaman
The arts, visual, dramatic, musical and beyond are rooted in ancient shamanism. Shamanic principles of healing, magic, and holism were the bedrocks of their practice. As Terrance McKenna states in this thought provoking video, the artists of the 1960s were beginning to revitalize the archaic shaman. However, this movement that gave profound meaning to art was relativised by the rise of post-modernity. Its been alleged that a number of major post-modern, post-meaning artists were money laundering fronts for the U.S. government. The unaware Jackson Pollock had most of his work was purchased very cheaply and resold in laundering fronts for tens of millions for secret projects. This had a dual purpose, in addition to laundering finances with ease, it catapulted post-modern art into the mainstream. This meant the relativization of arts and culture was TACTICAL. To this day you will see how post-meaning has dominated thought in university lectures and textbooks, yet the true exploration of shamanic, revolutionary holistic roots of the arts is hardly examined.
“The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. Because of the artists, who are self-selected, for being able to journey into the Other, if the artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.” -Terrence McKenna
Explore the Irrational
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Pataphysics is the Science
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Dream it
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Explore the Irrational • Pataphysics is the Science • Dream it •
‘Relativizing the arts into political neutrality’
1960s Anti War Art vs Postmodern art
‘F-111’ by Rosenquist in 1965
Poster by Baranik published in 1967
Poster by Golub, and was used from 1967-1970
If Terrence McKenna were alive today he would have a tremendous amount to say about the alleged CIA money laundering fronts of Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol. These two massive icons of post-modernity made post meaning in the arts a major fad.
Whether it was an inside joke or a psy-op, Andy WARHOL allowed the WAR-HAUL of the military industrial complex to keep rolling on into the 1970s and beyond. Meanwhile the alcoholic Pollock (unknowingly) solidified the pro militaristic politicians into ‘POLL LOCK’ during their elections/primaries.
Warhol’s ‘200 One Dollar Bills’ art piece sold for over 43 million USD!
Paintings in Andy Warhol’s ‘Dollar Sign’ series of the 1980s sold for as much as 15 million USD.
Jackson Pollock’s ‘Blue Poles’ was sold for $2 million USD to the Australian government in 1973. Pollock only made $8,000 for the painting in 1957. Today the painting has an estimated worth of 500 million dollars!
Rothco’s ‘Untitled’ painted in 1961 sold for 31 million dollars in 2007
Language of Disorientation
Noam Chomsky claims the Powell memorandum made in 1971 marks the date of a highly coordinated effort to alter public perception of corporate interest. It targeted universities, media, sectors of government that at the time were overtly concerned with war, inequality and other appendages of a deeply corrupt system. This system had already been violently using cultural warfare since Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. The use of repetitive language was an incredibly simple tool of regulating public thought. In the case of JFK, the term coined in 1963 post-assassination was ‘conspiracy theorist.’ This term exploited two major cultural insecurities; stupidity and insanity. Both stupidity or insanity make one’s ontology false. Due to our mammalian nature, collective acceptable ontological belief is a big deal.
In 1963 ‘conspiracy theorist’ was proven so domesticating for criticality of power its remained relevant into 2025, despite being synonymous with righteous bigotry. Mis-informing the public has therefor become an effective method for disorienting critical thought, as it builds an association between questioning authority and fabricated ideas. As we will see, the MK-Ultra experiments happening in the 1950s and 1960s discovered their victims were more susceptible to outer influence once disoriented. Disorientation therefore became a major goal for power.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."- Noam Chomsky
Chaos
As Tom O’Neil makes perfectly clear in his book Chaos, the Manson family was an orchestrated form of cultural warfare. Manson used techniques that were used on himself during MK-Ultra experiments to lead a group of otherwise completely innocent hippies. The shocking crimes they would commit became associated with counter cultural hippies through the media’s horribly contorted lens. Just as the Manson cult was hypno-programmed so to was culture.
The Simulacrum
Jean Baudrillard’s concept of the simulacrum explains how the Gulf War was the moment war became culturally unreal, a mere simulated spectacle. It was the scud missiles of the Iraqis versus the Patriot missiles as if it were a football game.
Simulation
The ontologicide of our very reality.
The Medium is the Message
Marshall McLuhan’s insight that we build our tools that in turn shape us still eludes many non-ontologically conscious scholars. This is why the medium is indeed the message because it isn’t just information the technology of television produces, just as a radio will produce a different reaction. In the case of television, Terrance McKenna states it has an effect similar to any opiate. A viewer’s eye’s will dilate, blood will pool in their rear and the senses will be satiated. The Vietnam war’s propaganda machine fell apart in real time as the public witnessed civilian atrocities making McLuhan truly believe the ontological truth of the image of war on television was too real. He felt that war could only be propagandized in romantic textual or oral cultures such as radio transmitted world war 1 & 2 in Europe, and that television marked the death of culturally acceptable war. Yet, as Chomsky pointed out, from Vietnam to 1988, omission from public discourse was the main course of allowing US involvement in the bombing of other countries. The simulation of war in 1989 was a telling sign of a major alteration in public opinion of warfare. It would seem that the efforts put forward in the 1970s and 80s paid off.