TTE & Radical Alterity

The Ticket That Exploded - Also some Radical Alterity Connections

The question was brought up in class…Should we be angrier at this book or the way that media affects how we look at love and life an sex? Shouldn’t we be mad that the media has manipulated us over the years?

First of all my feeling on this is, I am actually angry with both. I will start out explaining why I the media is upsetting to me. I am and have always been frustrated by the media showing us what we should look like and who we should be, and how we should live our lives. The media consistently in more forms than we realize teach us what is “right” and “wrong” and what “everyone” should do and look like. I feel like it is so much apart of our lives though that it is almost impossible to function and to live without the media. We would not know what is going on in the world, we would be “hermits” potentially and we would not “fit in” with the rest of society. While some might view that as more desirable, to me it is just not possible. Therefore yes, I am frustrated with the media “controlling” my life and my thoughts and how “life should be”.

Secondly, I have been very back and forth on the book. I feel that maybe there was a point to reading the disgusting, disturbing information of the authors thoughts and maybe wildest dreams, yet why am I forced to read it, and had no idea I would be required to read this for a class. Its not merely the fact that its gay porn, I would personally not read any porn. I would rather not have these vivid descriptions of someone else’s fantasies in my brain.

The problem that I am finding is with the book I am saying that it crossed the lines of choice. Also it is ok for the media to control my thoughts but not the book, because I can chose what I want to listen to read and hear from the media and I can’t with the book. Normally we have more control over what books we read rather than what we watch on TV, what we hear about in the news, or the movies. Yes we have some control over the media we hear, and I guess we have the option to not watch TV or movies or read books or magazines, but realistically we would have no knowledge of what is going on around us and it would be hard to communicate to others. I guess it’s a struggle and a challenge to read something that you feel you were forced into rather than a go to a movie that you chose to go to and be manipulated by.

I think Burroughs does cross the boundaries in most of our lives of what is “ok” to be reading and what we want to think or not think about. The problem is his book doesn’t give it a rest. He doesn’t just talk about it at one time for a short time. We are stuck in this miserable disgusting world that we have no control over changing what is actually happening.


Another interesting point that I feel might tie into this is something from Radical Alterity, where on page 91 it talks about how America has no origins. It talks about how we have a mythical society and a mythical origin. I think that this is true because we do not necessarily follow our ancestors and we have no background that we follow. I feel that this is an effect that the media has had on us as well. I think the media has shaped who we are supposed to be, causing us to have no origin and no originality. We are all similar to everyone around us. We don’t bring very many unique backgrounds into our diversity. We appear to be very close to our origins like the book says, but yet we are so far away from them. I personally have little to no recollection of my own origin.

Oddly enough I have found that some things in Radical Alterity make me laugh because they are things that are true about America, or people in general that we may not realize, but is very true. We seem to have no meaning and not a very strong need to look for it. As a whole I feel that this is true, but personally I feel like I have found meaning in my life. I think that as a majority Americans have no other meaning in life besides going to school to get a education to get a good paying job to make money to spend. I find no meaning in living life that way, but that’s how it is “supposed” to be lived, and therefore I am at school wishing I wasn’t. But to survive its necessary. These books have been very interesting to connect to life, or attempt to connect to life.