Summary Of Captains Of Consciousness

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society, and the corporations can use this lack of awareness to further their agenda. By demonstrating a few of the techniques Ewen analyzes, Murakami introduces the flaws created in thinking, which corporations can later use to change societal structure and become the overarching power. Ewen in Captains of Consciousness clarifies how the “Philosophy of Futility” is created through advertising propaganda, which Murakami and Stretcher use to prove and explain why members of a consumerist society lack and identity and how this can be resolved. Ewen explains the result of advertising propaganda be saying that, “Through advertising, then, consumption took on a clearly cultural tone. Within governmental and business rhetoric, consumption assumed…show more content…
Ewen is describing the true trend of advertisement by showing how advertisements form a relationship between consumption and happiness. The “cycle of consumption” limits the success of the average citizen and creates the ideology that buying certain products will lead to a level of success that the consumer would have had never otherwise reached. The narrator talks about what he sees in the bathroom, “There was an almost new can of shaving cream and a Gillettte razor at the washasbin. toothbrush and toothpase, soap, lotion, even clogne” (Murakami 290). There products are to designed to be used at every part of the body and essentially this compartilizes the body. The products are also advertised and designed to manipulate the problems the citizens have with their bodies and this in return works on their faults and causes the consumer to continually consume. While Ewen explains how adveritising can entrap a consumer into the…show more content…
It showcases the unseen side of the large food production company, Monsanto, and how they are able to minimize their competition by only allow the growth of certain types of seeds. Vandana Shiva, an ecologist, explains the consequences of Monsanto’s actions, “Seeds that will destroy themselves through a suicide gene. Seeds that are designed to only produce crop in one season . . . But quite clearly profits are so much higher in their minds” (The Corporation). Shiva is able to highlight the inhumane actions that Monsanto is taking to ensure larger profits. Through techniques, corporations hide behaviors and do not suffer the costs. By clearly using the technique of selection of topic and abusing the “invisible power structure” mentioned by Kawakami, corporations are able to negatively affect society. Murakami explains that the solution for these problems begins with the individual. The boss receives all his money from the exploitation of the natural resources of J’s birth country. With the large amounts of money the boss is able to create a large corporation with control over the three pillars of society in which the narrator works for. The narrator is able to repent for the actions of the boss, “I pulled the check out of my pocket and passed it over to J, amount unseen”(Murakami 352). The narrator uses the Boss’

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