Reflection On Pink Floyd's "The Wall"

This reflects upon both the album The Wall and its movie adaptation. Both have equal artistic merit and both are respectable in their own manner. This blog is just another brick in the wall.

The Wall, perhaps the greatest metaphor for how big of an ego Roger Waters had.

Roger Waters used a LOT of imagery and symbolism to convey his artistic vision in The Wall. The wall itself is a metaphor for social isolation. There are several characters that represent the things that help him build his "wall". His mother represents the overbearing love that smothers her child, his lost girlfriend represents the cold sting of love that leaves an emotional wound, and his teacher represents the imposing rule of conformity that shoves itself unto the protagonist. Imagery can be found throughout the album and the movie as well. "The Thin Ice" uses ice imagery, which calls to mind cold, inhospitable places.

The wall is the biggest symbol in the whole piece of work. It encompasses all of the things that make him recess into the solitude of his mind until he becomes 'comfortably numb'. The wall is a symbol that has been used throughout history and culture to represent a barrier between one from another. Usually, it is because someone does not want to be in the same company as the other. The wall's purpose here is not that different. The protagonist wants to be isolated from the outside world because it is harming him. Thus, every act that brings him down helps him build his wall.

The things that help him build it are things that bring him harm. His mother's smothering love does not let him breathe. He wants to escape her grasp because she is imposing all of her thoughts and beliefs unto him. His teacher tries to impose the system of conformity and mind control unto the protagonist, as seen in "Another Brick In The Wall Pt.2". Putting him in line is the teacher's main objective, no matter what cost. The ultimate thing that harms him is his breakup with his girlfriend because it leaves him emotionally hurt. It emphasizes the isolation he feels from the world because he believes that no one can really feel his suffering. All of these things contribute to his isolation from the outside world with the wall.

"The Thin Ice" uses imagery of ice, which conveys the sense of isolation that the protagonist feels with the outside world. Usually, the image of ice brings to mind the cold, desolate plains in the Himalayas or the arctic. These places are pretty inhospitable and people don't generally like to live there. This leaves the places being very empty and barren by people usually. Such does the protagonist feel in connection with the outside world. He feels like he has found himself in a place in which no one wants to be around him and he has been left feeling 'comfortably numb'.

The Wall uses a lot of symbolism and imagery in order to convey the character's descent into social isolation. I think it is an incredibly creative piece of work that expresses how people feel sometimes when they become socially isolated due to problems of life. Roger Waters was a genius... and an egotistical genius, too.

Reflection on Nine Inch Nails' Concept Album "Year Zero"

What if the path of greed and power ran their natural course without being stopped? We would probably get a dystopic world like the world painted in Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero.

This wallpaper has everything you need to infer from this dystopia.
 Greed, religious hypocrisy, and political divide.

The man who created this concept album, Trent Reznor, found his inspiration to write this album from a daydream. He dreamt that he saw the way that things were going at the time (during George W. Bush's 2nd term in mid-2000). This was a time where freedoms were eroding away due to post 9/11 surveillance. Greed seemed to be at its peak. Religious establishments preached hypocrisy. Trent Reznor imagined all of this becoming amplified and turning into a monstrous Dystopia where the government was cruel and unjust, religion taught hypocrisy as the new standard, and greed was abundant. Several songs touch on these visions that he had.

            In the song "Capital G", we see Trent Reznor address greed. "The biggest problem with the way that we've doing things is the more we let you have the less that I'll be keeping for me." In this line, we see the corrupt justification that greed maintains for itself. If someone takes something away from you, you have less. Sometimes people give in to greed and want to keep on getting more and more to no end. This part of the dark side of human nature is one that we try to keep from surfacing. Here, we see that greed can blind people into not helping others and letting the entire foundation fall down.

            The song "God Given" shows us the religious hypocrisy of this dystopia. "We are the divine / separated from the swine." Most religions have doctrines that say that you must love others because it is morally right. However, hypocrisy is something very common found among extreme religious advocates. This view that you are "divine" and everybody else who isn't riding the same boat is "swine" fundamentally contradicts the basis of morals that most religions preach. This condescending hatred strongly evokes social Darwinist views more than the actual religion's supposed "morals".

         We see how the government in this dystopia assimilates its people in the song "The Greater Good". "Breathe us in / Slowly." This shows how the dystopian government forces people to obey in things they wouldn't normally obey. An unreasonable concept can be reasoned with, if done so in small, seemingly insignificant amounts. So, the government feeds its unsuspecting people tiny bits and pieces that eventually form the whole picture of what they want them to see. They have to find a reason to believe in insane concepts. The government uses "persuasion, coercion, submission, [and] assimilation" in order to give them reasons to believe in these concepts.

         The world of Year Zero is a distorted reflection of how things were like in mid-2000. It showed us how horrible it can be if we allow greed, hypocrisy, and government control to get out of hand. It is through the viewpoint of this dystopia that we can truly recognize some of the faults that we have in our society.

Nine Inch Nail's "The Downward Spiral" Reflection

The Downward Spiral is critically acclaimed as the best album that the one-man army Trent Reznor has produced with his musical project Nine Inch Nails. It is not solely the music that makes Reznor's magnum opus so great. It is also the rich theme of the album that makes it so cohesively amazing. 

The artwork of the album perfectly describes a recurring theme in the album: Decay

The first track, "Mr. Self Destruct" is a fitting opening for the album, as it talks about the album in a gist. It describes the vices that the unknown protagonist (whom I will call Jimmy for ease of reference) will have in order to go down his downward spiral. Sex, hate, religious blindness, drugs, and prostitution are the many things that will control Jimmy on his way down. about the album in a nutshell. It describes the vices that the unknown protagonist (whom I will call Jimmy for ease of reference) will have in order to go down his downward spiral. Sex, hate, religious blindness, drugs, and prostitution are the many things that will control Jimmy on his way down. He turns to these things in order to somehow fill this emptiness that he feels inside.  It is no one's fault but his own, as we see in the lines of the song's breakdown: "You let me do this to you". He did this to himself and he is the sole reason why he spirals downward.

The second track, "Piggy", gives us a hint as to why Jimmy began his descent. His former lover, whom he calls a "piggy" now, must have betrayed his love and trust somehow, because Jimmy is very mad at her and says that "[his] little piggy needed something new". Once he finishes blaming her, he begins his mantra, "Nothing can stop me now cause I don't care anymore". He begins his descent because he feels like there is nothing else he can do. Nothing can stop him anymore because it seems to him that the world is gone now without her. He has lost the only thing he really cared for and now he has nothing left to do but begin his downward spiral.

We see his cards play out as he spirals down. He first blames god for all of his suffering in "Heresy". A natural part of grief, as we sometimes feel like there is no one else to really blame except for higher powers that we cannot see or feel. So, we point our rage towards the sky and claim that it is all god's or fate's fault for our troubles. Then, in (arguably Nine Inch Nails' most popular song) "Closer", we see him quell his feelings of worthlessness through control of others with sex. In a sick, twisted way, his control makes him feel like he is worth something and that he has purpose in life. However, these feelings don't last very long.

The only instrumental of the album, "A Warm Place", doesn't need to have words to convey the feelings that Jimmy has. After having done all of these things to try and fill his void, he finally comes to a realization of what he has done. He feels guilty for having done all of these bad things in order to try and make himself feel good.  However, in the next song "Eraser", it seems that he also realizes that he gone too far to have come back. So, he continues to decay and turns to prostitution in order to fill his void again. He has not learned from his mistakes truly because he continues to keep on descending even though he had the choice not to. The rest of the album seems to convey that he continues to spiral down into the throes of depression.

The Downward Spiral describes a man's descent through the dark vices that we sometimes turn to in order to try and make ourselves feel better. I find that the reason this album is so successful is because its theme of decay is so brilliantly woven into the music.  

Empathy Deceives

Here is a poem I wrote about a philosophical thought I had about empathy:

Bleeding alone
No one can truly feel you
Empathy deceives
Seducing us with false comfort
Our suffering is parallel
But will never be equal
From our conception
To our requiem

Bleed alone
Bleed with none
Our rivers of pain
Cannot run the same
Look me in these eyes
I can only sympathize
Accept the reality

Dying alone
Your fate is your own
We are equalized
With an equaled passing
It is our natural desire
To find our resemblance
It is our need to believe
That together we bleed

Handmaid's Tale Journal Chap.30-33

"You know what they were complaining about the most? Inability to feel. Men were turning off on sex, even."

   In our society, men strive to have sex because of the feelings they get from the experience. It feels good, like a nice, cold piña colada on a warm beach. If you took away the feelings of sex, there would be a great loss of incentive to do it. People would not want to have sex for the sake of it anymore. They would only do it if they had to. 

They would be disappointed like this gray man in a gray suit. The color gray is so... disappointing!

In the Handmaid's Tale, the society has become desensitized to sex. The men are turning down on sex as much as they can, because they only see it as a way to maintain their status in their society or government. If they need to stay in a position or move to a higher status, they use sex as a tool. They don't see it as a means to obtain pleasure or connect with the one they love. Feelings such as love have become eradicated in this culture and sex is meaningless. This eventually emotionally neuters the whole society of men.

Sex is not the only thing that people have become emotionally neutered to in this society. They also find an inability to feel during the particicutions and the picking off on peers. People are being ripped apart right in front of their eyes and they still look on and do nothing. It happens so often that it becomes routine and, in a sense, they become numb to the experience. Like for example, the gladiators of ancient times. The people of Rome saw lions eating people alive. It was literally murder, yet they didn't do anything to stop it. It is because it happened so often that people stopped thinking about what was wrong and what was right and they just looked on cheering with a hollow mind. 

Everything wrong that is happening around the people in this society have just become regular. The only feeling people really have is now just numbness. This suggests that people have just stopped trying to do anything to change their bad situation. 

Handmaid's Tale Journal Chap.34-37

"Love, said Aunt Lydia with distaste. Don't let me catch you at it... Wagging her finger at us. Love is not the point."

     In dystopias, love is like a disease to the government because it inspires two people to form an individualistic relationship independent of the government. To the government, this is a loss of control. They can't tolerate any loss of control because they're a totalitarian government. Total control is their goal. So, they do everything they can in order to stop something such as love from detracting from their control over the population.

    But this is not the only reason Aunt Lydia doesn't want Offred chasing love. In a society where men have become desensitized to sex itself, one of the most sensual experiences lovers can have, the room for emotions in every man's heart is mostly just empty. There may be some emotions left, but those might just be the basic "I want to talk with a cute girl" type of emotions. The real feelings in a relationship such as passion, pleasure, and happiness have all been pretty much eradicated. So what then is the point of a relationship like love in this society? If all the feelings in love have become extinguished, there is really no point in chasing love unless you want to face great sadness.

However, the fact that Offred is even attempting to chase love is still intriguing. Even after love has been eradicated in this society, there are still people chasing it. It suggests that maybe love really is an indestructible concept. It can carry on through the darkest hours of mankind, like in this dystopia, and still be alive at the end of the day. It leaves the glimmering hope that even if you took away every principle for liking love, it is a concept that will still survive.

Chap.17-19 Handmaid's Tale Journal

"I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable"

Actual values are the type of values one would see in a field of study such as economics. An employer would value his employees for their capital and sees value in them only for the sole purpose of his business. These aren't exactly invaluable values because if one employee leaves, the employer can just find another one to replace his value. These values are valuable but not invaluable so that they cannot be replaced by anything else. 

There are certain values in this world that transcend actual values and I like to call these invaluable values. These type of values are found beyond the professional world. You can find some of these values in things like relationships. When someone dates a person, they aare valuing them for something that they cannot easily replace. It could be that they care for them in a certain way or that they give really good kisses. These values are invaluable and can't exactly be given a value. Yet at the same time, they are values. These are harder to find than valuable values and they are even rarer to find in a professional, serious environment. 

In the dystopian world of The Handmaid's Tale, these invaluable values have become eradicated. They are seen as an evil to this world where women are basically walking reproductive factories. This makes the women no longer invaluable for their relationships as they are seen only for their sex.

This is why Offred is trying to find something she can't exactly describe. However, she know it exists and that is why she craves it. She is seeking an invaluable value.