Tag Archives: Carl Jung

culture decanted May 07

Is there a modern mythology of immortality or is it that some stories never die?

posted by

Is the modern obsession with immortality new? Looking at immortality though from the perspective of mythology this reveals a lot about how we talk about aging today. The dominant stories that are told in popular culture are all reflections of myths that have lived forever.

»»
Culture Decanted September 13

Cradle to Coffin: A Semiotic Model of Life and Death

posted by

There is nothing that influences human behavour as strongly as the power of life and death. It is possible to create a semiotic model that conceptualize how we create meaning on the journey from the womb to the grave.

»»
birdcage August 27

Semiotics of the Birdcage

posted by

A semiotic analysis of the birdcage as a cultural status symbol. Why is this symbol used so consistently by luxury and fashion brands? What is the history of the birdcage through to today? What are the psychological drivers that influence the engagement with the birdcage in society today? Since the birdcage is linked with fashion, what does this suggest about women and how they are framed in societal discourse?

»»
Personification of the City August 15

Why are we no longer in love with our Cities?

posted by

Why are we no longer in love with our cities? We personify cities, give them human characteristics.

We create our identity from where we live. Are we projecting something, of how we see ourselves, onto our cities?

»»
The psychology of the maze July 31

The Psychology of the Maze as a Modern Symbol

posted by

    Why are we still a-maze-d by labyrinths? With a diverse range of permutations, the Maze is a symbol that has been with humanity since the pre-historic era. So pervasive is the labyrinth within human symbolic communication, it is impossible to think of a human era where it was not a deep structural metaphor […]

»»
Semiotics of the Doppelganger July 14

The Semiotics of the Doppelgänger: the Double in Popular Culture

posted by

The Semiotics of the Doppelgänger: the Double in Popular Culture   One of the themes from the last blog I wrote on ‘evil’, was the nature of how this is depicted in popular culture from a semiotic perspective. This started out with a Kantian perspective, that evil is something that all of us have the […]

»»
Culture Decanted June 16

ARE ROBOTS TAKING OVER THE WORLD?

posted by

ARE ROBOTS TAKING OVER THE WORLD? “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein   In my last post, I was exploring why we are scared of the future, a fact that emerged is that there is no one word or phobia to cover ‘fear of […]

»»
Culture Decanted June 13

Opening a Window to the Future [Part 2]

posted by

Why are we so negative about the future?: Future Part 2   “The future is like a dead wall or a thick mist hiding all objects from our view’ William Hazlitt, 1822   Cultural Metaphors of the Future One of the manifestations of the authenticity trend in society today is the cherry-picking what parts of […]

»»
June 11

Why are we so scared of tomorrow? [Part 1]

posted by

Why are we so scared of tomorrow?   To paraphrase the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, ‘humankind has never had it so good’. Well it’s probably more accurate to say that in many ways our collective-cultures have never been so advanced, with the potential of helping so many. So why do we find western culture […]

»»
May 29

I see my name in my soup [names: part 4]

posted by

  “I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden   Is everything about me? From antiquity, there was power of knowing the names of things and naming the world. The way we use names and identity are changing in society, […]

»»
May 27

Names that shape us [names: part 3]

posted by

People’s fates are simplified by their names. Elias Canetti   The preceding discussion, I was looking at the mythical and historical power in naming things. There is another aspect to this discussion is the power our names have over our actions: consciously and subconsciously. “…(there is) the sometimes quite grotesque coincidence between a man’s name […]

»»