The 'wicked' culture and the 'face book'
Pi magazine for those who keep up to date with the latest pub crawl news and also some ‘other events’ at UCL is a student magazine.
To some ‘lecherous slavering’ undergrad’s dismay in this issue they have broken with the longstanding tradition and haven’t published the lurid, voyeuristic, offensive and mundane photographs of union pub crawls.
Instead it has put a serious and critical ‘face and look’ by having a go at what it calls ‘a barrier to true communication’ and if you haven’t guessed what I am on about it is the indispensable, every students must have social networking tool the face book.
There is no doubt that to most people who are addicted to this evil it is the worst and most unrewarding way to waste time if it is used in a way that it has become synonymous to the word ‘socialising’ which often means foul language, booze fuelled profanity, steamy antics and unprotected sex.
Like many words in English language socialising has been raped and disrobed of its meaning which is a real shame. There was a time where socialising meant sharing ideas and enjoying the company of each other in a civilized and humane manner. University was a place to meet highbrow and big headed intellectual students who were both intelligent and witty without being offensive and outrageous.
Most grand ideas from metaphysics to microphysics were developed through this form of communication over a coffee or tea in great archaic establishments of the good old universities.
The biographies of great thinkers are all full of enticing anecdotes of their encounters with friends and colleagues who enlightened them by their stimulating ideas and insights.
To my annoyance students who chat at library’s quite study spaces is nothing but unadulterated vulgar gossips and boastings of how they got ‘pissed’ the week before provided they remember of their shenanigans.
Now thanks to face book they don’t even need to wait until the next morning but can share a pictorial and textual account of their night as soon as they get sober.
What the author of the pi article berates as a ‘procrastinators dream and ultimate time-waster’s idyll’ is nothing but the student culture which has been given a voluptuous yet a corrosive name of ‘cool’. Being cool is to be wicked and speak in a manner that would butcher the English language. To borrow Gillian Mckeith's holistic idea ' you are what you think' and ultimately the product of their life style and thinking is reflected on their walls and 'my notes'.
Sadly, university has come to be a place where students analytical and critical thought is suppressed and is replaced by a modus Vivendi of binge drinking, anti-social behaviour and sexual pantomimes.
Like any means of communication, face book which is the product of technological modernism has both liberatory and enslaving potential. It could be used to promote civility, knowledge, insights and views or could be used like it is done by most.
Having said this I am going to sign on my face book account to post this ‘blabber’.
To some ‘lecherous slavering’ undergrad’s dismay in this issue they have broken with the longstanding tradition and haven’t published the lurid, voyeuristic, offensive and mundane photographs of union pub crawls.
Instead it has put a serious and critical ‘face and look’ by having a go at what it calls ‘a barrier to true communication’ and if you haven’t guessed what I am on about it is the indispensable, every students must have social networking tool the face book.
There is no doubt that to most people who are addicted to this evil it is the worst and most unrewarding way to waste time if it is used in a way that it has become synonymous to the word ‘socialising’ which often means foul language, booze fuelled profanity, steamy antics and unprotected sex.
Like many words in English language socialising has been raped and disrobed of its meaning which is a real shame. There was a time where socialising meant sharing ideas and enjoying the company of each other in a civilized and humane manner. University was a place to meet highbrow and big headed intellectual students who were both intelligent and witty without being offensive and outrageous.
Most grand ideas from metaphysics to microphysics were developed through this form of communication over a coffee or tea in great archaic establishments of the good old universities.
The biographies of great thinkers are all full of enticing anecdotes of their encounters with friends and colleagues who enlightened them by their stimulating ideas and insights.
To my annoyance students who chat at library’s quite study spaces is nothing but unadulterated vulgar gossips and boastings of how they got ‘pissed’ the week before provided they remember of their shenanigans.
Now thanks to face book they don’t even need to wait until the next morning but can share a pictorial and textual account of their night as soon as they get sober.
What the author of the pi article berates as a ‘procrastinators dream and ultimate time-waster’s idyll’ is nothing but the student culture which has been given a voluptuous yet a corrosive name of ‘cool’. Being cool is to be wicked and speak in a manner that would butcher the English language. To borrow Gillian Mckeith's holistic idea ' you are what you think' and ultimately the product of their life style and thinking is reflected on their walls and 'my notes'.
Sadly, university has come to be a place where students analytical and critical thought is suppressed and is replaced by a modus Vivendi of binge drinking, anti-social behaviour and sexual pantomimes.
Like any means of communication, face book which is the product of technological modernism has both liberatory and enslaving potential. It could be used to promote civility, knowledge, insights and views or could be used like it is done by most.
Having said this I am going to sign on my face book account to post this ‘blabber’.
posted by sharif at
2:11 PM
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