Chapter 6-5The Prison Walls

[Kara 염]

# three factors preventing people from realising the order organizing their lives exists only in their imagination 

(1) the embedded imagined order in the material world e) modern houses with separately divided rooms providing maximum autonomy, different from those (the houses) shared in the medieval era 

(2) our desires shaped by the imagined order

e) "Follow your heart!" implanted in our minds by a combination of 19th Romantic myths and 20th consumerist myths 

e) Romantic Consumerism - the popular desire to take a holiday abroad : people today spend a great deal of money on holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of romantic consumerism

"Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions ; we must sample various kidns of relationships; we must try different cuisines ; we must learn to aprpeaciate different styles of music. ... We hear again and again the romantic myths about how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life."

# Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly with consumerism. 

(3) the inter-subjective imagined order 

Things to Discuss

1 There are some ways to make people believe in an imagined order. One is to insist that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature. Another is to educate them thoroughly. Related to this topic, our last book, the Giver shows a society with a thoroughly imagined order. What is your opinion about this? 

2 Related to Romantic Consumerism, how much do you think you are under its influence? 

3 Do you agree that human history's most important drivers are inter-subjective: law, money, gods, nations?