Blog #8 - Getting myself lost and confused in the philosophy of post-modernism

Here is another example of more postmodern nonsense. Trying to use irony to describe reality doesn't result in reality being ironically different, it just creates seemingly philosophical contradictions. Saying that a metaphor has the ability to be more real than whatever situation it is referring to is, in my opinion, not feasible. A metaphor can help to present a intangible idea in a more tangible sense, this is true. However, the reality of intangible ideas, such as fears, is that they exist as something intangible. Putting them into a more tangible form does not make them more real, it simply presents them in a fashion that can be more easily understood and represented, and sometimes even related to. Doing so does create a fantasy, a fictional setting in which it does become a reality. It is a reality within the fantasy, but the fantasy is not real within reality. Metaphor can bridge the gap between reality and fantasy, but is unable to ever set fantasy above reality, despite what we may perceive. For example, the “M” from McDonald's seems to represent a hyper-reality where one can obtain fast food that is quick and always the same. This is not true, but we seem to associate the “M” with such things nevertheless. Thus the fantasy is presented, and within the fantasy presented by the “M,” the food is fast and identical.. Within the fantasy of the arches, that is all reality. However, the arches truly promise nothing, leading to the argument that the hyper-reality is what we perceive, and is thus more real than what actually constitutes our reality. This is false, as the consciousness does not make up reality through its assumptions, but the reality of what McDonald's truly is makes up reality. Although the “M” does not promise us fast and identical food, it is nevertheless connected to McDonald's, although a more realistic one. The reality is that the “M” is related to a realistic McDonald's, where the food is finite and contains minute differences. The “M” only represents a metaphor to the perfect McDonald's food, and even should we believe in the fantasy, it becomes obviously false once you get the food and reality sets in. The “M,” while being a metaphor for the perfect McDonald's, is unable to ultimately change our perception of the end reality of our food. Therefore, any hyper-reality is really only an illusion, and cannot last in the truth of our actual reality. In any fantasy, a metaphor can indeed become real. As the article describes it, Buffy takes metaphors and makes them more literal in order to better express something can be hard to communicate otherwise. These metaphors create an amusing fantasy, often ironic, to express something hard to express in reality. This fantasy where our fears are literal and tangible is a hyper-reality, an illusion similar to the perfect food promised by the “M.” However, the reality is that fears aren't tangible in the same way the food isn't perfect, and what's found in the confines of fantasy can't change reality, despite how we may perceive it.