ABSTRACT
As I was driving to the university the other day, I was feeling well. I was driving my VW Jetta (“drivers wanted”); drinking Starbucks coffee (and, as the bag of coffee says, “Don’t you think it’s time to take this relationship to a deeper level right to our heart and soul”); and wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt (and we all know how much they cost) and Levi’s jeans (of course, they are slightly uncool, considering that Pepe, Polo Sport, Nautica, and Tommy Hilfiger have more costly and much more hip jeans). I was experiencing the lifestyle and fulfillment of the brand-name corporate order. We live in the time of the looking glass:
We want to be as warm on side of postmodernity as we were before we stepped through whatever looking glass it was and away from the modernist notions of self, truth, and meaning. Perhaps we are afraid that we will find on the other side of the mirror what Neo in The Matrix found when the mirror covered him and there was, indeed, the matrix. So, we deal with the uncertainty of our time and theorize about the possibilities of more meaningful times ahead. That is one of the many dilemmas of postmodern existence.
