How Absurd!
Marcuse and McDonald's Best Friend
Sophia: Voltaire, your words echo loudly today: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” I wonder how this applies in a world dominated by mass culture and convenient comforts — like fast food, pop culture, and the subtle coercions of advertising.
Voltaire: Sophia, absurdities need not be grand or esoteric; they thrive in everyday life. If people accept banalities unquestioningly — whether a slogan, a “value meal,” or a trend — their capacity for moral discernment dulls. And dulled discernment can pave the way for cruelty or complicity in injustice.
Sophia: So even a seemingly harmless system — a fast-food empire, for instance — can shape thought patterns, habits, and priorities, subtly training obedience or acceptance of convenience over conscience?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
— Voltaire (1694-1778)
Voltaire: Exactly. The mundane can normalize absurdity. One need not shout or command to influence; repetition, familiarity, and appealing convenience can guide minds without resistance. The same mechanisms that cultivate taste for fries can cultivate taste for unquestioned authority.
Sophia: Then the antidote is awareness, critical reflection, and refusal to surrender judgment to superficial comforts or social persuasion. True freedom requires seeing through absurdities, whether cultural, political, or ideological.
Voltaire: Indeed. Discernment is a muscle; it grows by questioning what is presented as obvious, by resisting the ease of unquestioned acceptance. One must remain vigilant against the ordinary absurdities that gradually shape extraordinary complicity.
Sophia: So, Marcuse and McDonald’s best friend alike serve as metaphors: one for ideological seduction, the other for cultural habituation. Both remind us that vigilance, thought, and moral courage are required, even in the most comfortable or familiar settings.
Voltaire: Comfort is no shield against folly. The moment we accept absurdity uncritically, the seeds of moral failure are planted. To resist is both a duty and an act of liberation.
Sophia: Then let us live wisely: savoring comfort without surrender, enjoying culture without unquestioning obedience, and cultivating minds that recognize absurdities before they demand complicity.
They sit beneath the glow of a neon sign, reflecting that vigilance and wisdom are necessary even amid the most ordinary and tempting of human comforts.
The planksip Writers' Cooperative is proud to sponsor an exciting article rewriting competition where you can win part of over $750,000 in available prize money.
Figures of Speech Collection Personified
Our editorial instructions for your contest submission are simple: incorporate the quotes and imagery from the above article into your submission.
What emerges is entirely up to you!
Winners receive $500 per winning entry multiplied by the article's featured quotes. Our largest prize is $8,000 for rewriting the following article;
Heraclitus
At planksip, we believe in changing the way people engage—at least, that's the Idea (ἰδέα). By becoming a member of our thought-provoking community, you'll have the chance to win incredible prizes and access our extensive network of media outlets, which will amplify your voice as a thought leader. Your membership truly matters!