Cultural Archaeology

Primitive man sought shelter in caves and spent his days foraging for food, hunting and getting busy with primitive woman in order to keep the population growing. We know this because these men and women left drawings on cave walls and cliffs depicting the world as they saw it and related to it.

The Indignant Citizen wonders: What clues about the way we live are we leaving for future civilizations to discover?

One clue might be the billboard the Indignant Citizen saw on Christmas Day. Looming over the Tri-State Tollway near the bridge over Pulaski Road, the sign showed a broad-smiling, dark-bearded man in a dark suit holding a pile of cash in his cupped, outstretched hands. He was wearing a Santa hat. Over him were the words “Need Christmas Cash? Borrow on your lawsuit!” Then there was a company name and phone number, but the Indignant Citizen missed them as we drove under the tollway.

No doubt for a certain sector of the motoring public, perhaps a sizable sector, this sign will resonate. It will hit them like bat to the head on clear blue day; a “Why Didn’t I Think of That Sooner?” bombshell, like the news of that guy in Colorado who printed out his own bar codes at home and bought a $150 i-Pod for $4.99.

Fucking brilliant.

If the Indignant Citizen were on the archaeology team that unearthed that billboard 10,000 years from today, here’s what the sign would say to him. That we were a culture obsessed with money and material possessions. That we believed in the doctrine of getting something for nothing, rather than through work. That lawyers and loan sharks occupied prominent positions in our culture. That our lives were so fast-paced only giant advertisements could get our attention.

If the archaeology team were to understand English the way we do today, the sign could confirm why we eventually perished, or offer a key clue that could lead the team to posit on our demise.

The Indignant Citizen is trying to notice these markers, our cultural detritus, more, and view them in this new context. Try it, it will give you a new lens through which to view the everyday.