"How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul, dada is the pawn shop. Dada is the world's best lily-milk soap. Dada Mr Rubiner, dada Mr Korrodi. Dada Mr Lilienstein. In plain language: the hospitality of the Swiss is something to be profoundly appreciated. And in questions of aesthetics the key is quality."
- Hugo Ball, Dada Manifesto 1916
Hugo Ball, a German poet, wrote the Dada Manifesto in favor of the Dadaism movement. In the quote, Ball tries to show how much importance is placed on the term "dada" even though it actually has no importance. The term "dada" literally is a nonsense word ie a word with no meaning. Ball glorifies this unimportant term by suggesting it is the key to success and eternal bliss. The reason why Ball does this is to show that anything without meaning can be given meaning. He is taking a jab at society around him. He feels that people are very easy manipulated and will believe anything during this time period.
I personally agree with Hugo Ball. I feel that a lot of people who are uneducated and ignorant follow the "dada". For example, when I say that my parents are from Afghanistan, people are so quick to ask me if I know where Osama bin Ladin is or whether I am involved with the Taliban. Funny, I was born and raised in America, and before 9/11 most of my peers did not know that Afghanistan was a country, but in today's society anybody who is associated with Afghanistan is part of the Taliban. This is the problem with "dada" as Hugo suggests, people whom do not do enough thinking for themselves but go along with society, will continue to be ignorant.
This is especially problematic with our society today. Media, religion and even the internet can easily manipulate their uninformed followers. Another example of today's "dada", are the social pressures to be a thin. Women are photo shopped to look smaller, and runway models are typically a size 2 when back in the 1950's they were of a healthier size 8-10. There are websites that can terribly influence women into becoming anorexic or bulimic. Celebrity are slandered and ostracized when they gain weight. These are horrible tools to manipulate women but, we as a society, fail to recognize this. Instead we further criticize and allow this to occur. Aren't we the educated America? Aren't we the land of the free thinking and free expression? It is scary to think how we as a society allow each other to disregard our responsibility to the society. This is one of Ball's central themes in the Dada Manifesto. How something like a person's weight can be so glorified like "dada" however, there are other important issues we should concern ourselves with in order to improve society.
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