Culture Archives - Reason Bowl

The Commodification of Art – Redux

by Jason HollandFebruary 27, 2025February 27, 2025

A heavily reworked essay from years ago on the erosion of art under the process of commodification

Are You a Valid Person?

by Jason HollandMarch 30, 2024March 30, 2024

Are you a valid person at all? Are you over six feet tall? Are you working an important job? God forbid you’re one of …

Too Busy Treating the Symptoms to Address the Root Cause

by Jason HollandMarch 23, 2024

I argue that we need to consider a triage consciousness. Currently the present way conversing about our culture is primarily by focusing on symptomatic issues …

The Commodification of Art – Part II

by Jason HollandJune 20, 2021June 20, 2021

Part I of The Commodification of Art can be found here. “I could always live in my art but never in my life” – a …

Liberation From Squares

by Jason HollandMarch 29, 2019March 29, 2019

“…there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody’s …

A Small Reminder to Everyone Trapped in Capitalism – The Money Ain’t Fuckin’ Real.

by Jason HollandAugust 28, 2018September 10, 2021

It may sound ridiculously simple, but that’s exactly what it is, and that is to know all your money problems and worries around money can …

Mark of the Beast $$$

by Jason HollandSeptember 20, 2017September 10, 2021

Money and the power it imbues atrophies the living daemon in all who are subjected to capitalist games. It is a manipulator of perception, a …

“If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.”
― Lao Tzu

“They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machine and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.”

-George Carlin

Spanish proverb: honra y provecho no caben en un saco (Honour and money are not to be found in the same purse)

“I could not become anything; neither good nor bad; neither a scoundrel nor an honest man; neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am eking out my days in my corner, taunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot seriously become anything, that only a fool can become something.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground

“A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.” – Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda

Hunter S Thompson on the 60s & Bay area from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

“There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.” – Marcel Proust

Essays

How Science Ignores The Living World — An Interview With Vine Deloria

by Jason HollandJanuary 7, 20260

This interview of Vine Deloria by author Derrick Jensen, was published in July of 2000, by The Sun Magazine. Deloria passed away on November 13,…

Essays

The Commodification of Art – Redux

by Jason HollandFebruary 27, 2025February 27, 20250

Art resonates because there is something true behind it. All art has at least a grain of truth, and the more truth layered within a…

Essays

Hippie Jesus Isn’t Down with Capitalism

by Jason HollandApril 14, 2024April 14, 20240

I found some quotes in the Bible that I thought were pretty radical to the contemporary mindset. It seems convenient how so many Christians just…

Essays

On Rage and Non-Acceptance

by Jason HollandMarch 26, 2024March 26, 20240

There’s no doubt about it, I’ve struggled with numerous bouts of rage in my life. Those moments have become more rare as I age however…

Essays

Why Peace Is Impossible in Western Society Part III

by Jason HollandJanuary 23, 2024January 23, 20240

“They're profiting from your worry" - Andrew Bird, Bloodless To read prior installments: Here for Part I. And Part II here. In this series…