Shiva vs. Darth Maul: Consumerism

[Abishai100]

This is a mock-dialogue between Shiva (Hindu god of destruction) and Darth Maul (powerful evil Sith apprentice from the Phantom Menace symbolizing pure malice).


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SHIVA: Capitalism can become like smallpox.
MAUL: You're a 'master of destruction,' so you should know that competition breeds violence!
SHIVA: For any meditation on the anarchy of fire, there is an equal meditation about the blankets of water.
MAUL: Water can be used for destruction too, and American kids who like toy water-pistols like violence!
SHIVA: American kids also like the DC Comics super-villain 'Toyman,' a ghoul who symbolizes atheism.
MAUL: War toys are symbolic just as spiritual toys (or 'nonviolence-themed toys') are.
SHIVA: A religious shrine with a doll of Shiva (or as effigy) can signify harmless curiosity as well as fervor.
MAUL: Consumerism requires marketing all kinds of culture-figures as 'political' (e.g., Captain America).
SHIVA: Politics is not separate from music...
MAUL: What on earth are you talking about?
SHIVA: There is a cadence to capitalism-behavior just as there is cadence to the opera.
MAUL: 'Lyrical attitudes' will not quell the urge to make mayhem (and endorse anarchy!).
SHIVA: How would you explain the 'reality' of daydreams (of peaceful activities such as Easter egg hunts)?
MAUL: The Biblical flood Noah endured wiped out many 'peaceful assumptions' about resurrecting God.
SHIVA: Calamity always creates both trauma and self-reflection...
MAUL: If destruction is 'cleansing,' why is the chaos of fire so intellectually alluring?
SHIVA: When we see a motion resembling the uncertainty of flesh, we dream about revolution!
MAUL: There's no way to translate 'nihilism-transcendentalism' into any kind of 'consumerism intellectualism.'
SHIVA: I do not share your doubts; I think Apple Computers symbolizes both imagination and commerce.
MAUL: When Yale history and economics professors teach satisfying courses about video-games, I will dance!

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[Abishai100]

The Dollhouse


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Shiva was on Earth to compete with the malicious Sith apprentice Darth Maul after the Sith declared total war on the soul of human optimism and threatened to exterminate all the Utopian Jedi of the universe. Shiva knew the Jedi needed help, but he didn't want to offend their pride by suggesting they needed the 'gentle-assistance' of the Hindu Lord of Destruction (and Meditation!). So Shiva approached Maul only with riddles and discussions about the sanctity of family-values in the modern world and wrestling out idealism from anti-industrialization eco-conscious new age pop-literature 'avatars' such as The Toxic Avenger and Swamp Thing. Shiva presented a 'pro-family campfire' approach to modernism metaphysics.

Maul retaliated by explaining that all levels of civilization development come with stages that threaten the mind's sense of security in a time of great and unforgettable change (e.g., the advent of computers). Maul suggested to Shiva that Internet-hackers were the new terrorists, and he awaited the day when global computer infrastructures collapsed by the infiltrating hand of ISIS terrorists trained to decode and destroy society's most 'trusted' algorithms (e.g., computerized banking-systems). Shiva reminded Darth Maul that the family unit is timelessly sacred, and many family members from a single household may equally enjoy surfing on the globally-popular social networking website Facebook and think only of friendship and communication bridges in the digital age --- not just commerce and traffic.

Shiva knew Maul meant business so he ordered the dark Sith apprentice to challenge him on the grounds of the folkloric and respected forests of the Pine Barrens in New Jersey (America). Maul reminded Shiva that the Jersey Devil is rumored to wander in those 'pseudo-mystical woods' and would not be surprised if it was disclosed that the real phantom-menace spirit of the fictional hockey-mask wearing serial killer Jason Voorhees (the iconic zombie from the vitality-devastation forest-monster horror-film franchise Friday the 13th, a franchise representing the sort of '9/11 timeline paranoia' characteristic of the Age of Metropolis). Shiva won the argument by suggesting that Jason, like any 'forest-ghoul,' reminds us of the sanity of the city and not just the primal carnality of the Mother Nature we've left behind.

This was a competition based on optimism and cynicism. Shiva had to use his wits to employ optimism to challenge Darth Maul's deconstructive cynical assessment of the psychological impact of mass-consumerism and 'mindless shopping.' Shiva told Maul that if the conscious mind condemned the sacred realms of naturalism habitation (e.g., Earth's forests), then more priceless regions of modern traffic (e.g., LAX) would be considered as 'mischievous targets' of anti-social terrorism. In other words, Shiva argued that the 'ghosts of Earth' linger as much to remind the mind of labor and hygiene as they do to remind the mind of mischief and criminality. Maul conceded that 'preciousness' may be hiding deep in the rich green woods of Earth but insisted that the forces of pride would always contradict the presence of governance. Maul then ominously warned Shiva not to feel 'haunted' by the real ghosts of the Pine Barrens --- e.g., the illiterate Jersey Devil (who cared nothing for Starbucks coffee)!

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