Ethics
Was Apprentice a Cultural Outcome of Post-Modernism
Among many things, Donald Trump is a successful businessman and an extremely wealthy individual. Donald Trump is perceived by the mass public as a true corporate King. The question is who are all these people that competed so fiercely against each other during the hour that the Apprentice show was broadcasted and why did they strive to prove their skills so as to secure their position in his empire? One might support that they are the products of America's powerful media networks, the gladiators of our postmodern reality. But are these reality shows we tend to watch ritually, the mirroring of our contemporary culture, or are they the outcome of today's spectators' confusion regarding the prevailing notions of modernity, revolution and self-development?
To be a citizen of the modern world, is equivalent to remain open to change and evolution, to be able to explore and create, accept or reject, all those forces and trends that shape the global scene and the mere self at the same time. This ongoing change, the development of human history, has been classified according to scholars as the act of relating modernization (the socio-economic process) with modernism (the cultural vision), through modernity (the historical experience). But this powerful process, although once considered linear, has evolved over time to the point that it can now be conceived as "curved," since modernism has experienced a major decline during the 21st century. This realization can be partly explained by the fact that social, political, or economic revolutions have ended, while the upcoming reformations are not fostered by the bourgeois engagement, but mainly by the continuous technological progress limited to specific time fragments which make any kind of revolution seeming obsolete.
If then we accept that modernism has ceased to exist then what exactly are we left with? How can we identify ourselves in this endless game of change and evolution? The answer is hidden in the method used to analyze the present living circumstances and humanity's past actions. Postmodernism or post-historicism, is another generic title given to the period after modernism, in order to characterize a shift in mentality, methods, and processes used by society to deploy a new system of reference. Having to deal with an almost static capitalistic scheme that blocks the likelihood of any profound cultural renovation comparable to the great Age of Aesthetic Discoveries in the first third of this century, society is left to revolutionize itself through the ruins of the past, equipped with the belief that a true revolution would be to abolish modernity as a whole.
Where is the Apprentice show on this check board? Is it the King, the Queen or the soldier in this game of power and control? Various arguments may be raised to answer such a question, but the underlying truth is that television, along with other technological innovations of the 21st century, like the Internet, have succeeded in becoming a new type of artistic expression, where the spectator has no intention to classify and analyze what is seen using specific labels, since their existence is considered temporal. The threat is hidden on the simple fact that the majority of the viewers, regardless their age, as the citizens of this global village, remain almost indifferent to these alterations in the scenery of life and consume these preheated meals without questioning their source while sitting in front of a TV or PC screen, unable to resist the magical world of consumption, misinterpreting it as the best solution available in this chaotic mode of living. It may seem pessimistic or oversimplified as a view, but Apprentice, Big Brother and many of these reality shows, are actually an analysis on the cultural shift of today's societies, towards an epoch whose title has not yet been articulated.
Kadence Buchanan writes articles on many topics including Arts, Education, and Clothing |
Kadence Buchanan
Tags: Apprentice, businessmanSimilar articles
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