Professor J,
Excuse me, but are you finished with that soapbox? I'll give it right back. :)
Along
with this book I read What's the Matter With Kansas? on your
recommendation. That's a whole other discussion we could have at some
point but something he brought out meshed with some of what Hedges is
saying about the Christian Right (which he scatters throughout the book). The author of that book, Thomas Frank, points out
casually and maybe a bit mockingly, that the more vocal Christians have
been about the culture, the more the culture has deteriorated. His
rather amused perspective was a political one, but as a person of faith I
couldn't help thinking of his observation in spiritual terms. Because
he's right.
Over the last few decades while we have become more vocal
(and let's be honest, somewhat obnoxious) we have become less effective in
bringing about the change we want, not more. How is it that when
Christians were quietly going about their business doing the right
things (go to any city and look at the names of the hospitals), working
hard and being good neighbors the culture respected our message even if
they didn't necessarily embrace it? We seem blind to the fact
that our new tactics aren't working. We try harder. We get louder, more demanding,
shriller and don't understand the culture's growing aversion to our
message.
Maybe it isn't the message, but the messengers. We've become obsessed
with who is getting a free government lunch when we should be offering
to buy lunch for those in need. We should, if we are who we say we are,
be appalled that the government would need to supply so much for so many
when there are so many of us with so much.
Know, that before I am saying this to anyone else I am saying it to myself. I can certainly say with Paul that I am "chief among sinners."
Is it a
coincidence that recently while Christians in America have become more
politically focused we have seen an increasingly hostile response? God
didn't call us to go out and be registers of voters, but fishers of men.
Jesus didn't say to the disciples, "Okay guys, here's the plan: We are
going to load up the school boards, get the textbooks changed, bring
back prayer in schools." or "Let's get ourselves organized and get to
Rome where we can make a difference." Where is it written, "Let's make
sure everyone knows how we feel about every political issue and bring
this empire back to God"?
It isn't.
We
aren't instructed to do any of that. We should be asking ourselves,
"Why not?" If Christ who came to THE ROMAN EMPIRE didn't think it was
necessary to address all the political and social evils of His day but
instead focused on the hearts of individuals, the hurting, and the
broken, (when He wasn't rebuking religious leaders for their hypocrisy)
then isn't that what we should be concerned with? We worry about whether
or not our kids are going to be challenged in their faith by a
professor in a classroom. I've heard parents and pastors talk a lot
about them standing their ground and defending the faith. Maybe we
should be telling our children to show up prepared for class, work hard
and show love to everyone they come in contact with. We are called to
give an account for our faith...when asked: "But in your hearts set
apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give
an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that
you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." 1 Peter 3:15 (italics mine.)
Jesus
didn't say "Those people that hate you can be defeated at the ballot
box", or "by a boycott of their product." He said "Pray for those who
hate you and do good to those that persecute you. " Well, that doesn't
sound like fun. It does however sound very, well--Christlike. Mother Theresa, a Christian revered as a good example even by unbelievers, never gave her
political opinion. She quietly went about her business caring for the
poor with compassion and dignity. Perhaps she didn't have time to
give global politics much thought because she was so busy being an
example of what love looks like. American Christians, who have succumbed
so completely to conspicuous consumption, will wonder that she made such an impact
without the trite t-shirt or or fish on her car, (oh wait, she didn't
have a car either). No time to order the WWJD bracelet because she was
acting it out in her life.
More believers are waking up to the fact that
we have been numbed to the needs of others by our boundless consumerism
and selfishness. Dave Ramsey has been teaching a "live within your
means and avoid debt" lesson for years. Recently a more radical idea has
come to the forefront led by minister David Platt, author of Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.
Here's a quote from an interview with The Christian Post:
"I think with the way we have unprecedented material blessing, with the way we have a culture
built on self, self-esteem, self-confidence. All of these things we
begin to twist the gospel into something that it is not. We make it look
like us and fit into our lifestyle instead of adjusting our lifestyle
to the gospel. In the process we make following Jesus more American than
it is biblical. As a result there seems to be a major disconnect
between what it means to follow Christ in the first century and what it
means to follow Christ in our definition in the 21st century America."
We
have become so like the culture we rail against. Entangled. Enmeshed.
Embracing the materialism while criticizing many who need our help. For
Christians with a Biblical world view (to include belief in a literal
spiritual enemy) wouldn't this be a brilliant diversionary tactic? It
gives us the illusion of being busy with good things while letting the
things Christ actually told us to do, go largely undone. It comes with
the side benefit of drowning out a message of love.
Ten
or fifteen years ago I had the opposite opinion on all this. I was busy
lobbying, writing letters, calling my representatives, and not exactly
showing very much love to those who disagreed with me. It felt right to
be filled with such (probably self) righteous indignation. I
would have argued shamelessly with someone saying what I'm saying here.
But the proof should be in the fruit that comes of all this effort and
energy we've expended. What are we getting for all this? The culture is
getting worse, not better. Are our tirades winning hearts and minds to
Christ (isn't that our goal)? We have become the persnickety spinster
aunt of the culture who is miserable and doesn't want anyone having any
fun, instead of the wise family member with a gentle spirit whose
counsel is sought in hard times. Are we doing what Peter said and giving
an account of our faith with gentleness and respect to anyone who asks?
Is anyone asking?
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Shaking The Foundations On Purpose
Madame,
My forte? THAT’S a bit depressing! :)
You have well-spoken about the fixation on the present. A society that does not TRULY value (or at least the learning of lessons from it) what has gone before is a tool for the abusively powerful (how much better fortified we were when the classics were not pushed aside in curriculums as “irrelevant”!). And if the members of that society cannot or will not know, recognize, and become alarmed into action at how self-destructively similar they are to the Romans, then the future (and not the extremely far off future, either) will write a new chapter that replaces America and Americans, at least how we have known those terms. We may or may not be wiped off as a people and as a political entity (as the Romans were wiped), but the effect could be severe enough the distinction might not matter all that much. And after all, some of the Romans’ influences continued on (and some still do!) long after they themselves had ceased to exist.
And “living in the moment” is not even inappropriate advice much of the time. This frenetic culture does often need to focus on the now rather than always be working toward something else. Yet we don’t take our moments like African and other cultures do, but only as some sort of momentary diversion, a brief and often ineffective time-out from the perpetual “busyness” that rules our lives (and the mindlessness, as you’ve pointed out, that fills in when it isn’t). These twin poles of busyness and mindlessness chew up most all our TRULY rational decision making, and prevent our evaluating things clearly. “We cannot get a hold of the culture until we get a hold of ourselves. Lots of shaking will be necessary.” Oh, how very well said Madame!
Readers should pay extra heed to the wise words coming from Madame this week. They are especially hard-hitting and vitally relevant! I have been reading them over and over again. How very exacting she has described how we have disconnected ourselves by seeking only those like ourselves, by shutting our minds, by becoming extremely defensive when our propaganda is questioned, by clinging to things solely by emotion and then defending that by attempting “logic.” We have become a nation of extremes. Even the desire (a healthy one) to hold onto a piece of our inner child has been thrown to the other extreme of refusing to grow up (more irresponsibility, as you’ve pointed out). A nation of INDIVIDUALS who refuse to bear the responsibility of their own lives and their families is bad enough, but an additional (and wholescale destructive) side-effect is that those individuals aren’t stepping up to take responsibility and action for the future of their society. There is a marked lack of sufficient workers FOR the collective good. Many TAKERS, takers FROM the collective wealth of the society (social, institutional, infrastructural, financial, etc.), but few CONTRIBUTORS to that collective wealth. Civilizationist historians list that effect between the 2nd and final stages of a civilization’s downfall!
How a great people (should I say a “once great people”?) are falling by their own folly, weakness, selfishness, and willing abandonment of wisdom! WE ARE complicit, as you say, in refusing to evaluate. Too many of us are FAR too okay with being shallow, or leading what Socrates considered the greatest failure—the unexamined life. We let ourselves off the hook. How our descendants will despise us and what we’ve left them! That so many of us don’t even care about THAT is further evidence of how much our own ancestors would disown us if they could be present now. We would be Rosemary’s babies to them!
Those of us who have shaken off at least some of this seductive, sedative, enfeebling culture must shake the tree. People may get mad—actually, probably WILL—or ignore us, but we will despise ourselves if we do not take this stance. This is OUR moment in history. Others were given theirs, still others will be given theirs, but this is OURS. As Michael Jordan said: “I can accept failing. But I can’t accept not trying.”
Thomas Friedman—I don’t even agree with the guy a fair portion of the time—has, along with Michael Mandelbaum, written a book on what we used to be good at and how by getting back to that, we can get back to where we need to be. I hope it has an effect (and not just because it advocates a similar third-party stance as I’ve previously taken—Friedman, have you been sifting my ideas? Lol). For as I’ve stated before, it seems to me we are still at the stage where we have a great deal of latent strength, a great deal of possibility for correcting ourselves and not only jumping off this road to doom, but setting a good path. There are glimmers of recognition among some of the elites, like Republican governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana—another guy who I don’t agree with some of the time—that indicate some of the rich and/or powerful are awakening to the Potterville we have been forming and what is being lost in its wake.
As the year-long campaign “season” begins to accelerate, and as we try to “fix” the economy, we need armed with awareness. Hedges: “The most essential skill in political theater and a consumer culture is artifice. Political leaders, who use the tools of mass propaganda to create a sense of faux intimacy with citizens, no longer need to be competent, sincere, or honest. They need only to appear to have those qualities. Most of all they need a story, a personal narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. Those who are best at deception succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of entertainment, who fail to create a narrative or do not have one fashioned for them by their handlers, are ignored. They become ‘unreal.’” (48)
Over and over I hear the voice of one of my professors from school, shaking me out of lazy thinking and lazy accepting: “How do you know?” “HOW do you know?” How DO you know? How do YOU know? How do you KNOW?” Of course, even this questioning can be taken to an extreme too, but we are not questioning enough, and because of that, a small group at the top can control us. Meaning we have a democracy for the few.
The hour is SO late that our continued inaction will mean it indeed is too late (as Hedges largely believes it is). We have the Supreme Court ruling in favor of corporations and their allies in most instances, and one of the results has been a corrupted and abused campaign financing process. Lobbyists write much of the laws (witness, as one small example that is large in consequences, contractors being able to set their own expiration dates, meaning the government is forced to buy new things to replace “expired” ones), and blitzkrieg through the legislative sausage “process” what their corporate masters want. The revolving door spins so continually now that effective regulation and oversight have become the exception rather than the rule. So much money is offered for post-government employment that government officials and our representatives are often doing the bidding outright of their future corporate employers. A corporate-controlled media tailors and shades the political dialogue to suit itself and its fellow corporate allies. “Expert” news commentators, and “experts” in general, deceive a public paying scant attention anyway (only 4% of commenting “experts” on TV during the debt ceiling “crisis” were economists, for example, and yet hardly anyone commented on this. I say this, and I don’t even agree with the assumptive models and filters economists use!) The public then finds (when it does actually realize, which often isn’t the case) that its distraction, apathy, unexamined cynicism, and delusion have disempowered it. Their standard-of-living goes down, but instead of holding those responsible (and themselves), they lash out irrationally and are unwilling to consider alternate and relevant information. Corporate power increases, and the mechanisms of the republic become more of a sham. And as Hedges says, the worse this reality becomes for us, the less that we, the put-upon, want to hear about it.
It doesn’t need to be that way. Yes, we don’t need to become humorless curmudgeons devoid of enjoying some escapism from the pressures of modern life, but this entertainment/social media diverted/spectacle culture can no longer be embraced if we are going to make it.
Choosing not to resist means we are okay with the US in the not too distant future being a shadow of what it is today, let alone of what it was yesterday.
You’re not a baby anymore, America, so you both need and deserve the shaking!
My forte? THAT’S a bit depressing! :)
You have well-spoken about the fixation on the present. A society that does not TRULY value (or at least the learning of lessons from it) what has gone before is a tool for the abusively powerful (how much better fortified we were when the classics were not pushed aside in curriculums as “irrelevant”!). And if the members of that society cannot or will not know, recognize, and become alarmed into action at how self-destructively similar they are to the Romans, then the future (and not the extremely far off future, either) will write a new chapter that replaces America and Americans, at least how we have known those terms. We may or may not be wiped off as a people and as a political entity (as the Romans were wiped), but the effect could be severe enough the distinction might not matter all that much. And after all, some of the Romans’ influences continued on (and some still do!) long after they themselves had ceased to exist.
And “living in the moment” is not even inappropriate advice much of the time. This frenetic culture does often need to focus on the now rather than always be working toward something else. Yet we don’t take our moments like African and other cultures do, but only as some sort of momentary diversion, a brief and often ineffective time-out from the perpetual “busyness” that rules our lives (and the mindlessness, as you’ve pointed out, that fills in when it isn’t). These twin poles of busyness and mindlessness chew up most all our TRULY rational decision making, and prevent our evaluating things clearly. “We cannot get a hold of the culture until we get a hold of ourselves. Lots of shaking will be necessary.” Oh, how very well said Madame!
Readers should pay extra heed to the wise words coming from Madame this week. They are especially hard-hitting and vitally relevant! I have been reading them over and over again. How very exacting she has described how we have disconnected ourselves by seeking only those like ourselves, by shutting our minds, by becoming extremely defensive when our propaganda is questioned, by clinging to things solely by emotion and then defending that by attempting “logic.” We have become a nation of extremes. Even the desire (a healthy one) to hold onto a piece of our inner child has been thrown to the other extreme of refusing to grow up (more irresponsibility, as you’ve pointed out). A nation of INDIVIDUALS who refuse to bear the responsibility of their own lives and their families is bad enough, but an additional (and wholescale destructive) side-effect is that those individuals aren’t stepping up to take responsibility and action for the future of their society. There is a marked lack of sufficient workers FOR the collective good. Many TAKERS, takers FROM the collective wealth of the society (social, institutional, infrastructural, financial, etc.), but few CONTRIBUTORS to that collective wealth. Civilizationist historians list that effect between the 2nd and final stages of a civilization’s downfall!
How a great people (should I say a “once great people”?) are falling by their own folly, weakness, selfishness, and willing abandonment of wisdom! WE ARE complicit, as you say, in refusing to evaluate. Too many of us are FAR too okay with being shallow, or leading what Socrates considered the greatest failure—the unexamined life. We let ourselves off the hook. How our descendants will despise us and what we’ve left them! That so many of us don’t even care about THAT is further evidence of how much our own ancestors would disown us if they could be present now. We would be Rosemary’s babies to them!
Those of us who have shaken off at least some of this seductive, sedative, enfeebling culture must shake the tree. People may get mad—actually, probably WILL—or ignore us, but we will despise ourselves if we do not take this stance. This is OUR moment in history. Others were given theirs, still others will be given theirs, but this is OURS. As Michael Jordan said: “I can accept failing. But I can’t accept not trying.”
Thomas Friedman—I don’t even agree with the guy a fair portion of the time—has, along with Michael Mandelbaum, written a book on what we used to be good at and how by getting back to that, we can get back to where we need to be. I hope it has an effect (and not just because it advocates a similar third-party stance as I’ve previously taken—Friedman, have you been sifting my ideas? Lol). For as I’ve stated before, it seems to me we are still at the stage where we have a great deal of latent strength, a great deal of possibility for correcting ourselves and not only jumping off this road to doom, but setting a good path. There are glimmers of recognition among some of the elites, like Republican governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana—another guy who I don’t agree with some of the time—that indicate some of the rich and/or powerful are awakening to the Potterville we have been forming and what is being lost in its wake.
As the year-long campaign “season” begins to accelerate, and as we try to “fix” the economy, we need armed with awareness. Hedges: “The most essential skill in political theater and a consumer culture is artifice. Political leaders, who use the tools of mass propaganda to create a sense of faux intimacy with citizens, no longer need to be competent, sincere, or honest. They need only to appear to have those qualities. Most of all they need a story, a personal narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. Those who are best at deception succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of entertainment, who fail to create a narrative or do not have one fashioned for them by their handlers, are ignored. They become ‘unreal.’” (48)
Over and over I hear the voice of one of my professors from school, shaking me out of lazy thinking and lazy accepting: “How do you know?” “HOW do you know?” How DO you know? How do YOU know? How do you KNOW?” Of course, even this questioning can be taken to an extreme too, but we are not questioning enough, and because of that, a small group at the top can control us. Meaning we have a democracy for the few.
The hour is SO late that our continued inaction will mean it indeed is too late (as Hedges largely believes it is). We have the Supreme Court ruling in favor of corporations and their allies in most instances, and one of the results has been a corrupted and abused campaign financing process. Lobbyists write much of the laws (witness, as one small example that is large in consequences, contractors being able to set their own expiration dates, meaning the government is forced to buy new things to replace “expired” ones), and blitzkrieg through the legislative sausage “process” what their corporate masters want. The revolving door spins so continually now that effective regulation and oversight have become the exception rather than the rule. So much money is offered for post-government employment that government officials and our representatives are often doing the bidding outright of their future corporate employers. A corporate-controlled media tailors and shades the political dialogue to suit itself and its fellow corporate allies. “Expert” news commentators, and “experts” in general, deceive a public paying scant attention anyway (only 4% of commenting “experts” on TV during the debt ceiling “crisis” were economists, for example, and yet hardly anyone commented on this. I say this, and I don’t even agree with the assumptive models and filters economists use!) The public then finds (when it does actually realize, which often isn’t the case) that its distraction, apathy, unexamined cynicism, and delusion have disempowered it. Their standard-of-living goes down, but instead of holding those responsible (and themselves), they lash out irrationally and are unwilling to consider alternate and relevant information. Corporate power increases, and the mechanisms of the republic become more of a sham. And as Hedges says, the worse this reality becomes for us, the less that we, the put-upon, want to hear about it.
It doesn’t need to be that way. Yes, we don’t need to become humorless curmudgeons devoid of enjoying some escapism from the pressures of modern life, but this entertainment/social media diverted/spectacle culture can no longer be embraced if we are going to make it.
Choosing not to resist means we are okay with the US in the not too distant future being a shadow of what it is today, let alone of what it was yesterday.
You’re not a baby anymore, America, so you both need and deserve the shaking!
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Can We Rise and Shine?
Professor J,
You make a good, yet somewhat depressing, point (your forte! ;)) about the rescuers of the motorcyclist. Another indication of our shortened attention spans and short sighted vision. We see glimpses of hope but as you indicate they are disconnected and short lived. Hoping to extend it long enough to make any real difference in the culture may be like Elvis asking "Why Can't Everyday Be Like Christmas?"
"They live in the eternal present." Think how popular this kind of thinking has become over the last few years. How many times have we heard "Live in the moment" repeated by talk show hosts and pop psychologists? While in a spiritual context it is beneficial (when balanced with recognizing that we are momentary inhabitors of a section of history and that our actions have consequences), it has become the clarion call of a people who have no historical framework through which to view current events and no concern for the future and little for our descendants. A case could even be made that as more people decide not to have children for a variety of reasons, the link to the future and cause to be concerned about it is lessened still more. All that matters is right here, right now. This is the demanding self-centered thinking of a small child. We are perpetually selling our birthright of freedom, literacy, and critical thinking for the cultural stew of celebrity worship, entertainment, and fleeting amusements.
I'd add to all the obstacles to finding solutions for our current predicament that you've named, a certain mindlessness that we are all familiar with. We click links from one site to another and realize an hour later we have read nothing substantial. We eat mindlessly in front of the television, numbing ourselves with food paying no attention to the quantity we are eating (or watching) until we reach the bottom of an empty bag. Any mother will be familiar with looking around the room where she's been watching cartoons only to realize that her children left at some point to find something more interesting to do. While I would say that the "Live in the moment" mantra, which gives little thought to how our current actions may affect a rapidly approaching future, is dangerous, I would say that learning to be conscious in the moment might be quite enlightening. We cannot get a hold of the culture until we get a hold of ourselves. Lots of shaking will be necessary.
The literacy statistics found in this book and elsewhere are staggering. We've lost more than our ability to read and understand complex written material. We have lost our ability to think. We take in information, filtered by our already strongly held premises, and fortify our strongholds of illusion. We choose our friends, news channels, and reading material, on the basis of whether or not we can remained unchallenged in our positions. We brush away conflicting views, and become angry instead of curious when a contrary opinion is presented. Are our beliefs so fragile and ill thought out that we cannot bear discussion? We let our emotions rule our thought process and become reactive instead of reflective. The new illiteracy is worse than not being able to read a paper or decipher a lease; we have lost the ability to understand the predicament we are in. We know if we cannot read a street sign and know that we should be embarrassed, but we may not recognize at all that we have lost our ability to comprehend. We can easily find legions of other non-understanders to comfort us in our shallow thinking. Truly challenging problems seem to be increasingly framed in ever simplistic terms as Hedges points out. When all else fails the conspiracy theorists allow us to feel superior in our delusions since everyone else cannot see what is so obvious. What they have, oh-so-cleverly, figured out. Any serious issues or inconsistencies are simply swept away with "That's just what they want you to think." Reason is rendered useless.
You are correct when you say "We have given ourselves passes on too much." We are living in the land of irresponsibility. An endless childhood ("induced childishness"). Think of how many adults you have heard say something about how they don't want to grow up, and adolescence now seems to last until thirty. Hedges quotes Marc Cooper's book, The Last Honest Place in America:
"In a television-marinated society in which the boundaries between childhood and adulthood have been blurred if not erased, increasingly and dismayingly, children and adults dress the same, eat the same, and often talk the same, where they certainly endlessly watch the same TV shows, where simulation is often valued over authenticity (look no further than the acrobatic contrivances of so-called "reality TV" or the reclassification of steel and concrete hotels into "scenery"), it should come as little surprise that the phony lava eruption and the staged pirate-show next door should bring equal glee to the ten-year olds and their parents. Add to that a certain solace Americans find in the worship of technology, even technology at this infantle level, and the Strip begins to make sense." (pp. 65-66)
In the article by Ellen Gray of the Philadelphia Enquirer about the new fall TV lineup she points out that a couple of new shows like Pan Am and The Playboy Club are "set in the 'Mad Men' era of the early 1960s." Her article is gender related; she ends it with this: "Maybe TV, worried as the rest of us about staying employed, grows wistful for a world in which men are men and women are, well, girls."
Perhaps not only are we missing what was good about those days in male/female relationships (appropriate masculinity/femininity got thrown out with the bathwater of inequality), but we are missing that adults were adults and children were children. Mothers used to wear high heels and stockings-- their daughters? Lace socks and Mary Janes. Now we all run around in tennis shoes in an ever present overly friendly casualness that erodes respect. All the roles and lines of behavior are blurred; it adds to the confusion. I suspect it is part of what keeps us all feeling off balance. We may be hiding behind this new eternal childishness however, since responsibility is expected of grown ups. And as Jerry Seinfeld asked, "Who wants to be responsible?"
At some point we need to wake up and take a good look around. Whose fault is it if we can't read? Our first grade teacher's? ANY teacher's? How many parents have we seen interviewed who can't figure out their child's obesity, yet do all the purchasing of food for the household? How many hours do we think it's okay to spend in front of the TV? Are we depending on someone else to inform us? Care for our health? Educate us? We seem determined to pass responsibility for our lives off to others. At some point we may decide we don't like it that way, but it will be too late.
How many adults blame their ignorance on the fact that they didn't have an opportunity to go to college? Here's what Ray Bradbury had to say about that: "I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories." History is full of disadvantaged men and women who taught themselves complicated subjects like Latin and calculus, who solved problems and invented things. But if we aren't valuing history and reading biographies, how are we going to realize that? In this information age with so many resources available it is hard to watch people waste their health, minds, and opportunities. Whatever larger forces are at work (and Hedges covers them well) we are responsible; we are complicit in allowing things to continue the way they are.
Changing all that sounds like a lot of work.
Just as Plato feared, maybe we do prefer the flickering images after all.
You make a good, yet somewhat depressing, point (your forte! ;)) about the rescuers of the motorcyclist. Another indication of our shortened attention spans and short sighted vision. We see glimpses of hope but as you indicate they are disconnected and short lived. Hoping to extend it long enough to make any real difference in the culture may be like Elvis asking "Why Can't Everyday Be Like Christmas?"
"They live in the eternal present." Think how popular this kind of thinking has become over the last few years. How many times have we heard "Live in the moment" repeated by talk show hosts and pop psychologists? While in a spiritual context it is beneficial (when balanced with recognizing that we are momentary inhabitors of a section of history and that our actions have consequences), it has become the clarion call of a people who have no historical framework through which to view current events and no concern for the future and little for our descendants. A case could even be made that as more people decide not to have children for a variety of reasons, the link to the future and cause to be concerned about it is lessened still more. All that matters is right here, right now. This is the demanding self-centered thinking of a small child. We are perpetually selling our birthright of freedom, literacy, and critical thinking for the cultural stew of celebrity worship, entertainment, and fleeting amusements.
I'd add to all the obstacles to finding solutions for our current predicament that you've named, a certain mindlessness that we are all familiar with. We click links from one site to another and realize an hour later we have read nothing substantial. We eat mindlessly in front of the television, numbing ourselves with food paying no attention to the quantity we are eating (or watching) until we reach the bottom of an empty bag. Any mother will be familiar with looking around the room where she's been watching cartoons only to realize that her children left at some point to find something more interesting to do. While I would say that the "Live in the moment" mantra, which gives little thought to how our current actions may affect a rapidly approaching future, is dangerous, I would say that learning to be conscious in the moment might be quite enlightening. We cannot get a hold of the culture until we get a hold of ourselves. Lots of shaking will be necessary.
The literacy statistics found in this book and elsewhere are staggering. We've lost more than our ability to read and understand complex written material. We have lost our ability to think. We take in information, filtered by our already strongly held premises, and fortify our strongholds of illusion. We choose our friends, news channels, and reading material, on the basis of whether or not we can remained unchallenged in our positions. We brush away conflicting views, and become angry instead of curious when a contrary opinion is presented. Are our beliefs so fragile and ill thought out that we cannot bear discussion? We let our emotions rule our thought process and become reactive instead of reflective. The new illiteracy is worse than not being able to read a paper or decipher a lease; we have lost the ability to understand the predicament we are in. We know if we cannot read a street sign and know that we should be embarrassed, but we may not recognize at all that we have lost our ability to comprehend. We can easily find legions of other non-understanders to comfort us in our shallow thinking. Truly challenging problems seem to be increasingly framed in ever simplistic terms as Hedges points out. When all else fails the conspiracy theorists allow us to feel superior in our delusions since everyone else cannot see what is so obvious. What they have, oh-so-cleverly, figured out. Any serious issues or inconsistencies are simply swept away with "That's just what they want you to think." Reason is rendered useless.
You are correct when you say "We have given ourselves passes on too much." We are living in the land of irresponsibility. An endless childhood ("induced childishness"). Think of how many adults you have heard say something about how they don't want to grow up, and adolescence now seems to last until thirty. Hedges quotes Marc Cooper's book, The Last Honest Place in America:
"In a television-marinated society in which the boundaries between childhood and adulthood have been blurred if not erased, increasingly and dismayingly, children and adults dress the same, eat the same, and often talk the same, where they certainly endlessly watch the same TV shows, where simulation is often valued over authenticity (look no further than the acrobatic contrivances of so-called "reality TV" or the reclassification of steel and concrete hotels into "scenery"), it should come as little surprise that the phony lava eruption and the staged pirate-show next door should bring equal glee to the ten-year olds and their parents. Add to that a certain solace Americans find in the worship of technology, even technology at this infantle level, and the Strip begins to make sense." (pp. 65-66)
In the article by Ellen Gray of the Philadelphia Enquirer about the new fall TV lineup she points out that a couple of new shows like Pan Am and The Playboy Club are "set in the 'Mad Men' era of the early 1960s." Her article is gender related; she ends it with this: "Maybe TV, worried as the rest of us about staying employed, grows wistful for a world in which men are men and women are, well, girls."
Perhaps not only are we missing what was good about those days in male/female relationships (appropriate masculinity/femininity got thrown out with the bathwater of inequality), but we are missing that adults were adults and children were children. Mothers used to wear high heels and stockings-- their daughters? Lace socks and Mary Janes. Now we all run around in tennis shoes in an ever present overly friendly casualness that erodes respect. All the roles and lines of behavior are blurred; it adds to the confusion. I suspect it is part of what keeps us all feeling off balance. We may be hiding behind this new eternal childishness however, since responsibility is expected of grown ups. And as Jerry Seinfeld asked, "Who wants to be responsible?"
At some point we need to wake up and take a good look around. Whose fault is it if we can't read? Our first grade teacher's? ANY teacher's? How many parents have we seen interviewed who can't figure out their child's obesity, yet do all the purchasing of food for the household? How many hours do we think it's okay to spend in front of the TV? Are we depending on someone else to inform us? Care for our health? Educate us? We seem determined to pass responsibility for our lives off to others. At some point we may decide we don't like it that way, but it will be too late.
How many adults blame their ignorance on the fact that they didn't have an opportunity to go to college? Here's what Ray Bradbury had to say about that: "I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories." History is full of disadvantaged men and women who taught themselves complicated subjects like Latin and calculus, who solved problems and invented things. But if we aren't valuing history and reading biographies, how are we going to realize that? In this information age with so many resources available it is hard to watch people waste their health, minds, and opportunities. Whatever larger forces are at work (and Hedges covers them well) we are responsible; we are complicit in allowing things to continue the way they are.
Changing all that sounds like a lot of work.
Just as Plato feared, maybe we do prefer the flickering images after all.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Shake, Shake, Shake
Madame M:
Ron Paul, whether one agrees with him or not, was attempting to give a sophisticated answer to why we were attacked, an answer with complex truth in it, not the simplistic drivel put out by simpletons like Santorum or cynical manipulators like most of the rest of the candidates. If the audience is a measure of America, or at least a good portion of it, then it only illustrates in appalling fashion—and in spades—Hedges’ points.
The group of citizens rescuing the cyclist: humans, and Americans especially, react to emergency and short-term things. It requires only momentary focus, and also lifts them, momentarily, out of the purposelessness of many of their lives. Communal effort is a nice by product, but it is short-lived, because the underlying culture gives little to nothing to sustain it.
On the political stage that we still look to for answers, there are few to none to be found: “Celebrity culture has bequeathed to us what Benjamin DeMott calls ‘junk politics.’ Junk politics does not demand justice or reparation of rights. It personalizes and moralizes issues rather than clarifying them. ‘It is impatient with articulated conflict, enthusiastic about America’s optimism and moral character, and heavily dependent on feel-your-pain language and gesture,’ DeMott notes. The result of junk politics is that nothing changes –“meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices that strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage.’ It redefines traditional values, tilting ‘courage toward braggadocio, sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of brains.’ Junk politics ‘miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing threats from abroad. It’s also given to abrupt, unexplained reversals of its own public stances, often spectacularly bloating problems previously miniaturized.’ And finally, it ‘seeks at every turn to obliterate voters’ consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in their midst.’ Politics has become a product of a diseased culture that seeks its purpose in celebrities who are, as Boorstin wrote, ‘receptacles into which we pour our own purposelessness. They are nothing but ourselves seen in a magnifying mirror.’” (47)
Is that not what we have seen many times, perhaps most recently with the debt ceiling made an immediate crisis by the very people who were only too glad to pass it over 13 times when they were fully in charge? And then the very same people who hand every advantage to themselves and their fellow rich then take a hammer to the foundations of middle class survivability (let alone prosperity). Further, they divert attention (and often merely ignore it, because they are so powerful they can) and twist what attention remains so that they are never held accountable, but are, incredibly, put forward as “one of us!” by their rabid constituents whom they have effectively economically and socially disenfranchised. I am surprised that those who see the Devil’s hands in everything don’t see it in that one (unless the professed Master of Deception has that one covered too).
“Those captivated by the cult of celebrity do not examine voting records or compare verbal claims with written and published facts and reports. The reality of their world is whatever the latest cable news show, political leader, advertiser, or loan officer says is reality. The illiterate, the semiliterate, and those who live as though as they are illiterate are effectively cut off from the past. They live in an eternal present. They do not understand the predatory loan deals that drive them into foreclosure and bankruptcy. They cannot decipher the fine print on the credit card agreements that plunge them into unmanageable debt. They repeat thought-terminating clichés and slogans. They are hostage to the constant jingle and manipulation of a consumer culture. They seek refuge in familiar brands and labels. They eat at fast-food restaurants not only because it is cheap, but also because they can order from pictures rather than from a menu. And those who serve them, also often semiliterate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are usually marked with pictures. Life is a state of permanent amnesia, a world in search of new forms of escapism, and quick, sensual gratification.” (48)
Historians have been trying to tell people the dangers of cutting themselves off from the past, and especially the learning of the past, and the dangers of ridiculing the very idea of learning it. Mathematicians and business teachers have been shouting that dammit, it’s NOT okay to say “I’m not good at math,” or to be helpless for even basic stuff without a calculator or some shortcut. And the acquiescing numbing and anesthetizing of large segments of the population: once again, who does that serve? Who would benefit from the manufacture of the people's consent, or at least the appearance? Those who could use it as a means of social coercion and control! Political “leadership” that is mostly just about manipulation and exploitation is really nothing except “charlatans trying to build their own credibility by decrying other charlatans.” All that is a product of a culture that is far too okay with illusion, or even embraces it. It is difficult to listen to the truth, and even more difficult to live within it, but if you care anything for your free will, you will. Or you can effectively give that up to embrace some perverted predestination.
It might seem that we are giving the reader large chunks of Hedges’ masterful work. Not enough! The snippets the Housewife and I are giving you should merely prompt to want to absorb and infuse the complete work into one’s consciousness. We are leaving out much that is valuable. We earnestly want this work to be something other than a forgotten treatise by a latter-day Cassandra. As one commentator put it, we need to wake up from our state of induced childishness. We need to first recognize and then reject the different forms of propaganda, often disguised or dressed up as some form of entertainment. Recognize the diversion! Be distracted no longer! The foundations of the country are eaten out or dynamited when your attention is diverted.
Hedges titled his first chapter “The Illusion of Literacy.” If it is true that reading is becoming staid and boring by a majority of Americans, it is further alarming when we look at the type and quality of books that are read by the still large (but apparently declining) minority that do read. An examination of the top 20 or even 100 books in numbers sold seems to confirm Hedges’ intimation that we are abandoning the tools of analytical thought. Sure, some of this is overworked value workers who want to escape the analytical things they do at work, but much, too much perhaps, is willing embrace of the cult of distraction and the superficial, the
illusions and the celebrity culture Hedges so rightly condemns. A wise man once said that you become what you feed yourself, whether physical, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual. If we feed ourselves a steady diet of junk food for the mind, body, spirit, and emotions that allows or causes us to evade the central troubles of our times, are we not to blame by our actions and inactions? We have given ourselves a pass on too much. How are we, without being properly grounded, going to both expose and follow through on accountability the utterly treasonous greed of the predatory wealthy class and their corporate associates who have abandoned the rest of us? Will we not, in one person’s words, become an “increasingly docile, illiterate peasantry nursed by corporate feudalism and systematically degraded to one essentially ‘colonized’ by financial, technical, professional, managerial, and academic elites devoid of any real sense of the common good”? (from a forum discussion of the book, the location of which has become lost to me)
And if people choose to retreat back into delusion and denial, or if they can’t stay focused long enough, they advance the day when it will no longer matter—the Matrix will have come.
We the awake need to work earnestly to shake awake those whose cultural narcolepsy and sedation is tugging on them. For only when the “average” person no longer desires to be part of the sick, illusory culture can a transformation take place.
Ron Paul, whether one agrees with him or not, was attempting to give a sophisticated answer to why we were attacked, an answer with complex truth in it, not the simplistic drivel put out by simpletons like Santorum or cynical manipulators like most of the rest of the candidates. If the audience is a measure of America, or at least a good portion of it, then it only illustrates in appalling fashion—and in spades—Hedges’ points.
The group of citizens rescuing the cyclist: humans, and Americans especially, react to emergency and short-term things. It requires only momentary focus, and also lifts them, momentarily, out of the purposelessness of many of their lives. Communal effort is a nice by product, but it is short-lived, because the underlying culture gives little to nothing to sustain it.
On the political stage that we still look to for answers, there are few to none to be found: “Celebrity culture has bequeathed to us what Benjamin DeMott calls ‘junk politics.’ Junk politics does not demand justice or reparation of rights. It personalizes and moralizes issues rather than clarifying them. ‘It is impatient with articulated conflict, enthusiastic about America’s optimism and moral character, and heavily dependent on feel-your-pain language and gesture,’ DeMott notes. The result of junk politics is that nothing changes –“meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices that strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage.’ It redefines traditional values, tilting ‘courage toward braggadocio, sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of brains.’ Junk politics ‘miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing threats from abroad. It’s also given to abrupt, unexplained reversals of its own public stances, often spectacularly bloating problems previously miniaturized.’ And finally, it ‘seeks at every turn to obliterate voters’ consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in their midst.’ Politics has become a product of a diseased culture that seeks its purpose in celebrities who are, as Boorstin wrote, ‘receptacles into which we pour our own purposelessness. They are nothing but ourselves seen in a magnifying mirror.’” (47)
Is that not what we have seen many times, perhaps most recently with the debt ceiling made an immediate crisis by the very people who were only too glad to pass it over 13 times when they were fully in charge? And then the very same people who hand every advantage to themselves and their fellow rich then take a hammer to the foundations of middle class survivability (let alone prosperity). Further, they divert attention (and often merely ignore it, because they are so powerful they can) and twist what attention remains so that they are never held accountable, but are, incredibly, put forward as “one of us!” by their rabid constituents whom they have effectively economically and socially disenfranchised. I am surprised that those who see the Devil’s hands in everything don’t see it in that one (unless the professed Master of Deception has that one covered too).
“Those captivated by the cult of celebrity do not examine voting records or compare verbal claims with written and published facts and reports. The reality of their world is whatever the latest cable news show, political leader, advertiser, or loan officer says is reality. The illiterate, the semiliterate, and those who live as though as they are illiterate are effectively cut off from the past. They live in an eternal present. They do not understand the predatory loan deals that drive them into foreclosure and bankruptcy. They cannot decipher the fine print on the credit card agreements that plunge them into unmanageable debt. They repeat thought-terminating clichés and slogans. They are hostage to the constant jingle and manipulation of a consumer culture. They seek refuge in familiar brands and labels. They eat at fast-food restaurants not only because it is cheap, but also because they can order from pictures rather than from a menu. And those who serve them, also often semiliterate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are usually marked with pictures. Life is a state of permanent amnesia, a world in search of new forms of escapism, and quick, sensual gratification.” (48)
Historians have been trying to tell people the dangers of cutting themselves off from the past, and especially the learning of the past, and the dangers of ridiculing the very idea of learning it. Mathematicians and business teachers have been shouting that dammit, it’s NOT okay to say “I’m not good at math,” or to be helpless for even basic stuff without a calculator or some shortcut. And the acquiescing numbing and anesthetizing of large segments of the population: once again, who does that serve? Who would benefit from the manufacture of the people's consent, or at least the appearance? Those who could use it as a means of social coercion and control! Political “leadership” that is mostly just about manipulation and exploitation is really nothing except “charlatans trying to build their own credibility by decrying other charlatans.” All that is a product of a culture that is far too okay with illusion, or even embraces it. It is difficult to listen to the truth, and even more difficult to live within it, but if you care anything for your free will, you will. Or you can effectively give that up to embrace some perverted predestination.
It might seem that we are giving the reader large chunks of Hedges’ masterful work. Not enough! The snippets the Housewife and I are giving you should merely prompt to want to absorb and infuse the complete work into one’s consciousness. We are leaving out much that is valuable. We earnestly want this work to be something other than a forgotten treatise by a latter-day Cassandra. As one commentator put it, we need to wake up from our state of induced childishness. We need to first recognize and then reject the different forms of propaganda, often disguised or dressed up as some form of entertainment. Recognize the diversion! Be distracted no longer! The foundations of the country are eaten out or dynamited when your attention is diverted.
Hedges titled his first chapter “The Illusion of Literacy.” If it is true that reading is becoming staid and boring by a majority of Americans, it is further alarming when we look at the type and quality of books that are read by the still large (but apparently declining) minority that do read. An examination of the top 20 or even 100 books in numbers sold seems to confirm Hedges’ intimation that we are abandoning the tools of analytical thought. Sure, some of this is overworked value workers who want to escape the analytical things they do at work, but much, too much perhaps, is willing embrace of the cult of distraction and the superficial, the
illusions and the celebrity culture Hedges so rightly condemns. A wise man once said that you become what you feed yourself, whether physical, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual. If we feed ourselves a steady diet of junk food for the mind, body, spirit, and emotions that allows or causes us to evade the central troubles of our times, are we not to blame by our actions and inactions? We have given ourselves a pass on too much. How are we, without being properly grounded, going to both expose and follow through on accountability the utterly treasonous greed of the predatory wealthy class and their corporate associates who have abandoned the rest of us? Will we not, in one person’s words, become an “increasingly docile, illiterate peasantry nursed by corporate feudalism and systematically degraded to one essentially ‘colonized’ by financial, technical, professional, managerial, and academic elites devoid of any real sense of the common good”? (from a forum discussion of the book, the location of which has become lost to me)
And if people choose to retreat back into delusion and denial, or if they can’t stay focused long enough, they advance the day when it will no longer matter—the Matrix will have come.
We the awake need to work earnestly to shake awake those whose cultural narcolepsy and sedation is tugging on them. For only when the “average” person no longer desires to be part of the sick, illusory culture can a transformation take place.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Exceptional Delusion
Professor J,
I cannot agree more with your words about how "W and his administration squandered the goodwill of the world" and "the unity and communal fellowship we had with each other." I remember that day he came out to speak, I was waiting to see what words of wisdom he would impart. The spirit of the country was one that was ready to be told what work needed to be done, what sacrifices needed to be made. Go shopping? My heart sank. More than just squander an opportunity I think he did real damage to a national psyche that was then left without a way to channel the fervent desire to help. The country desperately needed something worthwhile to pour that energy into. Instead the lack of leadership left us feeling adrift and helpless.
While I'm writing this, CNN is showing a story about some New York Police Officers who were videotaped simulating sex acts under the guise of dance while patrolling a parade recently. The commentator is referring to the "further coarsening of our culture." I keep being surprised that I can still be shocked. Sometimes I feel positively quaint.
On to our illusions: Watching the GOP debate was excruciating. Lots of "truthiness" on that stage. But when Ron Paul offered up a more complex explanation of the motivations of the 9-11 terrorists than that they hate our American Exceptionalism, freedom, and opportunity, (Santorum's mantra) the hall erupted in raucous, loud booing. Watch the clip here. Hedges explains:
"We ask to be indulged and comforted by cliches, stereotypes, and inspirational messages that tell us we can be whoever we seek to be, that we live in the greatest country on earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities, and that our future will always be glorious and prosperous, either because of our own attributes or our national character or because we are blessed by God. In this world, all that matters is the consistency of our belief systems. The ability to amplify lies, to repeat them and have surrogates repeat them in endless loops of news cycles, give lies and mythical narratives the aura of uncontested truth. We become trapped in the linguistic prison of incessant repetition. We are fed words like war on terror or pro-life or change, and within these narrow parameters, all complex thought, ambiguity, and self-criticism vanish." (p.49)
The story the same news channel is now airing is about a group of citizens banding together to pull a motorcylist out from under a burning car. They quickly ascertained the situation, decided what needed to be done and worked together, risking their own safety, they used their combined strength to lift the car up and rescue the injured man. Would that we could translate that kind of behavior on a massive scale.
Just this once, your brevity is appreciated (and matched). This successful spectacle producer is recovering from massive amounts of joy, work, and partying. :)
I cannot agree more with your words about how "W and his administration squandered the goodwill of the world" and "the unity and communal fellowship we had with each other." I remember that day he came out to speak, I was waiting to see what words of wisdom he would impart. The spirit of the country was one that was ready to be told what work needed to be done, what sacrifices needed to be made. Go shopping? My heart sank. More than just squander an opportunity I think he did real damage to a national psyche that was then left without a way to channel the fervent desire to help. The country desperately needed something worthwhile to pour that energy into. Instead the lack of leadership left us feeling adrift and helpless.
While I'm writing this, CNN is showing a story about some New York Police Officers who were videotaped simulating sex acts under the guise of dance while patrolling a parade recently. The commentator is referring to the "further coarsening of our culture." I keep being surprised that I can still be shocked. Sometimes I feel positively quaint.
On to our illusions: Watching the GOP debate was excruciating. Lots of "truthiness" on that stage. But when Ron Paul offered up a more complex explanation of the motivations of the 9-11 terrorists than that they hate our American Exceptionalism, freedom, and opportunity, (Santorum's mantra) the hall erupted in raucous, loud booing. Watch the clip here. Hedges explains:
"We ask to be indulged and comforted by cliches, stereotypes, and inspirational messages that tell us we can be whoever we seek to be, that we live in the greatest country on earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities, and that our future will always be glorious and prosperous, either because of our own attributes or our national character or because we are blessed by God. In this world, all that matters is the consistency of our belief systems. The ability to amplify lies, to repeat them and have surrogates repeat them in endless loops of news cycles, give lies and mythical narratives the aura of uncontested truth. We become trapped in the linguistic prison of incessant repetition. We are fed words like war on terror or pro-life or change, and within these narrow parameters, all complex thought, ambiguity, and self-criticism vanish." (p.49)
The story the same news channel is now airing is about a group of citizens banding together to pull a motorcylist out from under a burning car. They quickly ascertained the situation, decided what needed to be done and worked together, risking their own safety, they used their combined strength to lift the car up and rescue the injured man. Would that we could translate that kind of behavior on a massive scale.
Just this once, your brevity is appreciated (and matched). This successful spectacle producer is recovering from massive amounts of joy, work, and partying. :)
Sunday, September 11, 2011
The Squandering
I am aware that I am writing on this auspicious day. Others this day have made the usual speeches of remembrance, have said the words that should be said. Let me say briefly the words that should also be said, but usually aren’t:
W and his administration squandered the goodwill of the world. But WE are to blame for letting it happen, for being blind and undemanding. W and his ilk might have taken the actions, but W(e) are responsible for the loss of sympathy, of the loss of support of most of the world. W(orse), we squandered the unity and communal fellowship we had with each other. Instead of building on the reality and meaning we found in the aftermath, we let ourselves be diverted. Many of us took the president’s words and “went shopping” to further fuel an insane and unsustainable consumer culture. Others got distracted by the very spectacle illusion culture Hedges is describing in his book. And we piled up debt to enormous levels, and in the process even triggered the near meltdown of the country’s and world’s financial system, and near-enfeebled our opportunities for healthily recovering. And we paid (and pay) homage at the feet of our Wall Street and corporate gods and beg for their benevolence, like lost souls begging for relief from their devilish tormentors.
So did this tragedy of 9/11 make us better off by our reaction(s)? By what measure could we say that?
All right, enough soap box for today. Time to attend to Madame’s words!
I meant to say “ripe” not “rife,” in the second to last sentence of my previous post. Oh, well, I corrected it, a week late! :)
Madame has analyzed well. And I have felt these permeating waves of unease you describe. I cannot tell you how many people—of all ages—say to me that they couldn’t sleep the night before. Again. The country is anxious, and as you said, can recognize the not so subtle signs of the road to doom. Yet isolated or in willing delusion most remain, unable to connect meaningfully, the awesome power of what is arrayed against them seemingly so daunting as to discourage to the point of near-despair.
Indeed, what then when we have entire generations who only know this “reality” you have described? Astute Romans asked the same thing. And got no good answers. Because their culture was so rotten by that point that there was no salvaging it, let alone renewal and new course charting. Is ours? I don’t know. It still seems to have an enormous reservoir of possibility, of latent strength. But it remains untapped for very much productive purpose. Each day we cascade down this mudslide of doom, and become a bit weaker. I do hope that when we finally put our arms out to stop ourselves that we will still have the strength to arrest our fall (and hope beyond hope that we even have the strength to reverse it!).
The Professor will return to his usual wordy self next week. I am pausing to gather my thoughts that are flying in a dozen directions right now…
W and his administration squandered the goodwill of the world. But WE are to blame for letting it happen, for being blind and undemanding. W and his ilk might have taken the actions, but W(e) are responsible for the loss of sympathy, of the loss of support of most of the world. W(orse), we squandered the unity and communal fellowship we had with each other. Instead of building on the reality and meaning we found in the aftermath, we let ourselves be diverted. Many of us took the president’s words and “went shopping” to further fuel an insane and unsustainable consumer culture. Others got distracted by the very spectacle illusion culture Hedges is describing in his book. And we piled up debt to enormous levels, and in the process even triggered the near meltdown of the country’s and world’s financial system, and near-enfeebled our opportunities for healthily recovering. And we paid (and pay) homage at the feet of our Wall Street and corporate gods and beg for their benevolence, like lost souls begging for relief from their devilish tormentors.
So did this tragedy of 9/11 make us better off by our reaction(s)? By what measure could we say that?
All right, enough soap box for today. Time to attend to Madame’s words!
I meant to say “ripe” not “rife,” in the second to last sentence of my previous post. Oh, well, I corrected it, a week late! :)
Madame has analyzed well. And I have felt these permeating waves of unease you describe. I cannot tell you how many people—of all ages—say to me that they couldn’t sleep the night before. Again. The country is anxious, and as you said, can recognize the not so subtle signs of the road to doom. Yet isolated or in willing delusion most remain, unable to connect meaningfully, the awesome power of what is arrayed against them seemingly so daunting as to discourage to the point of near-despair.
Indeed, what then when we have entire generations who only know this “reality” you have described? Astute Romans asked the same thing. And got no good answers. Because their culture was so rotten by that point that there was no salvaging it, let alone renewal and new course charting. Is ours? I don’t know. It still seems to have an enormous reservoir of possibility, of latent strength. But it remains untapped for very much productive purpose. Each day we cascade down this mudslide of doom, and become a bit weaker. I do hope that when we finally put our arms out to stop ourselves that we will still have the strength to arrest our fall (and hope beyond hope that we even have the strength to reverse it!).
The Professor will return to his usual wordy self next week. I am pausing to gather my thoughts that are flying in a dozen directions right now…
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Lost on the Edge
Perceptive Blog Collaborator, :)
I almost hate to post this, thus knocking your thoughtful blog down the page, when everyone should read it (Dear Reader, that is a hint). I have only a few points to make and of course, clarifications! lol
It is sad that boxing now looks like the "civilized" sport by comparison, but it had rules and was organized in a way that remained unchanged for many decades. It was occasionally even used as a way for young men to settle disputes and channel anger in a supervised way. When I run across cage fighting I can't help but wonder how long it will be before someone thinks --Hey this would be so much more entertaining if they had knives!
My reference to "clearing the benches" is representative to me of all the things you mention, yes. Sportsmanlike conduct is becoming rarer and this is unfortunately filtering down even to youth sports where we see adults bad mouth the coach in the tamer examples, and give in to actual physical violence in the worst. I cannot repeat in this public forum some of the things I've heard--mothers (the new shrill version) often behave worse than men and yell from the stands. The oil of good manners and decorum hasn't been tended to and now we see the gears of civilized human interaction grinding and scraping against each other. Sometimes the screeching is unbearable. The thing is breaking down for lack of being operated properly. How did it used to work? We've forgotten.
This concept that we don't know how to behave anymore in any number of settings was a recurring theme throughout the book. Many of the things he uses as examples from reality television to the classroom to politics have this same thread running just under the surface. Our society now seems to be trying to think up ways to reward bad behavior.
But on to the printed word:
"Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking." ~ Edward Gibbon
One reason for the book buying statistic is, as you point out, that people are living at a frenetic (and perhaps frantic, although increasingly those words mean exactly the same!) pace, and reading requires sitting quietly, taming the mind, and focusing. But for most the extra time is only filled with feverishly paced entertainment. The mind, never getting a chance to be still and do what I call "processing" (sorting out the information it has and putting it in some sort of context), feels overwhelmed and joins what is an out of shape, exhausted body in vast segments of the population to drag them into a never ending downward spiral of lethargy and sluggish reasoning. "Reality is complicated. Reality is boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle its confusion." (p. 49) Ray Bradbury said "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Once again his words seem prophetic.
I suspect that while people have fallen into the trap of this physically and mentally lazy lifestyle, someplace in the back of our minds we feel that something is amiss. We may not always be able to name it or articulate its effects, but the shifting sand of social mores and truth send permeating waves of unease throughout the culture. Lacking a stable framework to process information through, a feeling of "lostness" takes hold. There used to be standards, but the media/ information saturated society is changing so rapidly that many give up and carve out a simplified place of understanding from which to view the world. We boil the information and our thoughts (or more accurately, our emotions) about it down to something we can deal with. We then stop taking in any new facts that might challenge us and make us rethink our positions. It may be one reason those college grads read even fewer books than the high school grads. They figured it all out (or all they want to try to figure out) in college. They're done.
"When opinions cannot be distinguished from facts, when there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the most valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe."
"The old production oriented culture demanded what the historian Warren Susman termed character. The new consumption-oriented culture demands what he called personality. The shift in values is a shift from a fixed morality to the artifice of presentation. The old cultural values of thrift and moderation honored hard work, integrity, and courage. The consumption-oriented culture honors charm, fascination, and likeability." (p. 51)
Once we've succumbed to this kind of thinking (or lack thereof), it is very difficult to shake the cobwebs from our minds and re-engage. We will quickly have an entire generation who know only this fractured version of things. What then?
I almost hate to post this, thus knocking your thoughtful blog down the page, when everyone should read it (Dear Reader, that is a hint). I have only a few points to make and of course, clarifications! lol
It is sad that boxing now looks like the "civilized" sport by comparison, but it had rules and was organized in a way that remained unchanged for many decades. It was occasionally even used as a way for young men to settle disputes and channel anger in a supervised way. When I run across cage fighting I can't help but wonder how long it will be before someone thinks --Hey this would be so much more entertaining if they had knives!
My reference to "clearing the benches" is representative to me of all the things you mention, yes. Sportsmanlike conduct is becoming rarer and this is unfortunately filtering down even to youth sports where we see adults bad mouth the coach in the tamer examples, and give in to actual physical violence in the worst. I cannot repeat in this public forum some of the things I've heard--mothers (the new shrill version) often behave worse than men and yell from the stands. The oil of good manners and decorum hasn't been tended to and now we see the gears of civilized human interaction grinding and scraping against each other. Sometimes the screeching is unbearable. The thing is breaking down for lack of being operated properly. How did it used to work? We've forgotten.
This concept that we don't know how to behave anymore in any number of settings was a recurring theme throughout the book. Many of the things he uses as examples from reality television to the classroom to politics have this same thread running just under the surface. Our society now seems to be trying to think up ways to reward bad behavior.
But on to the printed word:
"Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking." ~ Edward Gibbon
One reason for the book buying statistic is, as you point out, that people are living at a frenetic (and perhaps frantic, although increasingly those words mean exactly the same!) pace, and reading requires sitting quietly, taming the mind, and focusing. But for most the extra time is only filled with feverishly paced entertainment. The mind, never getting a chance to be still and do what I call "processing" (sorting out the information it has and putting it in some sort of context), feels overwhelmed and joins what is an out of shape, exhausted body in vast segments of the population to drag them into a never ending downward spiral of lethargy and sluggish reasoning. "Reality is complicated. Reality is boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle its confusion." (p. 49) Ray Bradbury said "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Once again his words seem prophetic.
I suspect that while people have fallen into the trap of this physically and mentally lazy lifestyle, someplace in the back of our minds we feel that something is amiss. We may not always be able to name it or articulate its effects, but the shifting sand of social mores and truth send permeating waves of unease throughout the culture. Lacking a stable framework to process information through, a feeling of "lostness" takes hold. There used to be standards, but the media/ information saturated society is changing so rapidly that many give up and carve out a simplified place of understanding from which to view the world. We boil the information and our thoughts (or more accurately, our emotions) about it down to something we can deal with. We then stop taking in any new facts that might challenge us and make us rethink our positions. It may be one reason those college grads read even fewer books than the high school grads. They figured it all out (or all they want to try to figure out) in college. They're done.
"When opinions cannot be distinguished from facts, when there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the most valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe."
"The old production oriented culture demanded what the historian Warren Susman termed character. The new consumption-oriented culture demands what he called personality. The shift in values is a shift from a fixed morality to the artifice of presentation. The old cultural values of thrift and moderation honored hard work, integrity, and courage. The consumption-oriented culture honors charm, fascination, and likeability." (p. 51)
Once we've succumbed to this kind of thinking (or lack thereof), it is very difficult to shake the cobwebs from our minds and re-engage. We will quickly have an entire generation who know only this fractured version of things. What then?
Monday, September 5, 2011
Labor's Day
Beleaguered Spectacle Anticipator [:)]:
This holiday is another example of the loss and meaninglessness in American life. For the mass of Americans, no thought will go through their heads on this day except that they have the day off (and increasingly, more and more don’t even get the day off, the very day that is meant to celebrate labor, the worker!). They will neither understand, nor seek to understand, the holiday. It is, like Memorial Day is for the beginning, merely a holiday to book-end the summer season. As my father was fond of telling me, they will be unsupportive of, or even actively against, labor unions, until one day the scales fall from their eyes and they see yanked away or destroyed most or all that collective bargaining got for them in both their workplaces and the collective society. If it wasn’t important to keep up illusions, this holiday might already be renamed Corporate Day, to celebrate all the wonderful things corporations have done for us.
How coarse and shallow our culture seems on examination, as you have shown. We “honor” our predecessors, yet it seems we feel little compulsion to actually live out their principles! And here we are fomenting a culture producing successive generations that are increasingly absent or degraded ethical or compassionate moorings. It seems to me I have seen a great place go down (emphasis on the down) this road before…
How far we must have regressed into cultural barbarism, when boxing looks like the civilized sport! :) Have we really become so into blood sports that we seek that entertainment as a primary? That most of us are not remotely tough enough to actually dish out or receive the physical violence speaks additional volumes. Again, this is all so eerily familiar it should give us pause, but there is little to no recognition—we are carrying out Santayana’s words (even if he meant them in a slightly different way) to the sickening T.
The part about clearing dugouts and benches: Your linkage is not clear to me as you have written it my good Madame. Do you mean that there is a general coarsening of the culture, the loss of manners, respect, decorum, etc., both cause and effect of the spectacle barbarism we crave? Or do you mean something else? The Professor calls for clarification from Madame! :)
Your brevity is well-excused my good woman! Even though you are, in your view, attending to a little spectacle yourself, attend you must, and play your role well (or, if you prefer, endure with decorum)! Have no apprehension, for I have windage enough for both our sails! :)
You have brought up Hedges’ examination of Jane Goody, using her as an example of the millions who see their lives as unworthy if they attain no fame, as failed if they retain anonymity. “The emptiness of those like Goody who crave this validation is tragic. They turn into clowns. This endless, mindless diversion is a necessity in a society that prizes entertainment above substance. “ (43) And, as Hedges says, it is effortless entertainment at that: if an entertainment requires a mass audience to think, it is judged a failure. Hedges reminds us that Hannah Arendt pointed out the dumbing down of the culture, in that works of complexity and nuance, whose very essence hinges on those, are made merely entertainment, ironically by intellectuals in service to the spectacle culture. Arendt: “There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.” (as quoted on page 44 of Hedges). Culture for Dummies anyone? This goes a good deal beyond the usual “the book was much better” lament as some written work is translated poorly to another medium.
A sixth-grade reading and comprehension level is set as the standard for mass communication, and has steadily fallen to this level over a number of years (yet in some ways, has not been far from this mark all along). Sixth grade. And sixth grade not as how it perhaps should be, but sixth grade AS IT IS. Would you give your life’s decision making, and the decisions about the welfare of the country, over to the care of your 12 year olds? And wouldn’t those 12 year olds merely say, “Whatever you all think about that. Seems too complicated to us. We’ve got other things on our minds.” Since the plutocratic beneficiaries of a barely functional mass “literacy” seem to prefer it this way (or, in the views of some, actively and assiduously work in sinister fashion to effect it), control and direction of the distracted and basely thinking masses becomes much easier. “Functional illiteracy in North America is epidemic. There are 7 million illiterate Americans. Another 27 million are unable to read well enough to complete a job application, and 30 million can’t read a simple sentence. There are some 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate—a figure that is growing by 2 million a year.” (44) As you’ve brought up before, 1/3rd of high school “graduates” never read another book in their lives, and, bizarrely enough, even MORE college “graduates” never read another book. “In 2007, 80 percent of the families in the United States did not buy or read a book.” (44) Those families were wrapped in the frenetic pace of American life, perhaps, but also diverted by electronic distractions of social media, cell phones enrapture, and of course television. “Television, a medium built around the skillful manipulation of images, ones that can overpower reality, is our primary form of mass communication.” (44)
And those who question all this are branded “elitist,” with the plutocratic controllers and their lackeys working up the everyday man and woman to despise the “haughty liberal snobs who try to manipulate our lives.” Thus, those who question the system are marginalized and made ineffective. And anyone in education who is not in denial can tell you that, except for the rare exceptions, public education has become a falsely “functioning” processing center for non-critically thinking streams of the middle and lower classes. As is asked time and again in this forum, who does that serve? For those who don’t critically think, are, as they have been throughout history, the easily manipulated pawns of demagogues, and subtle purveyors of half-truths, misleading out of context statements, and craftily packaged lies. Those with enough money can overwhelm the information avenues, and the average (again, non-critically thinking) person operates subliminally upon the premise of “if I see and hear it enough times, it must be true, especially when I don’t hear hardly anything to counter it, except from the lousy liberals who everyone knows are the ones responsible for screwing things up in the first place.” Even explanations become a burden on the average person. “I don’t even understand what you’re saying. You talk over my head amd make my brain hurt. Just chill out and be down-to-earth. All that stuff you worry about will work itself out somehow anyway. Besides, everyone knows it’s the (insert group)’s fault, and if we just get rid of them, everything will be fine (Prof’s Note: Despite the lack of, or even counter-factual, evidence to support the assertion).”
Ever watched sports commentators? Their level of expertise, their level of historical knowledge, their level of analysis—all often truly remarkable. The culture both sanctions and encourages such, and rewards it greatly. But where are all the great, energetic minds to do the work of not only keeping the civilization together, but securing its future? What we value and what we neglect both have their price, and collection comes due, regardless of whether you are living in your illusion at the time or not…
Hedges again: “We have transformed our culture into a vast replica of Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, where boys were lured with the promise of no school and endless fun. They were all, however, turned into donkeys—a symbol, in Italian culture, of ignorance and stupidity.” (44)
We are enraptured by our electronic mediums, most of all television. “Television speaks in a language of familiar, comforting clichés, and exciting images. Its format, from reality shows to sit-coms, is predictable. It provides a mass, virtual experience that colors the way many people speak and interact with one another. It creates a false sense of intimacy with our ‘elite’ (Prof’s quotation marks)—celebrity actors, newspeople, politicians, business tycoons, and sports stars. And everything and everyone that television transmits is validated and enhanced by the medium. If a person is not seen on television, on some level he or she is not important. Television confers authority and power. It is the final arbitrator of what matters in life.” (45) Do we not recognize this played out? Those that the corporate media deem okay to cover get attention. Those like, as you’ve pointed out, Ron Paul, who are not deemed okay (a threat, perhaps?) get marginalized. What is “news” is hence actually a construct in many instances (some colleagues of mine would argue it is a construct in every instance).
The process of acculturation is seemingly mild to moderate in its individual instances. It is the cumulative effect that is desired by plutocrats. “Just turn off the tv or computer or cellphone, if you don’t like things or want to escape the barrage,” we are told. But how many of us do that? Like crack addicts who know at some level how bad it can be for us, yet unable to even remotely moderate use, we stay plugged in. What, says, Hedges, are the effects of all that? “Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, we are bombarded with the cant and spectacle pumped out over the airwaves or over computer screens by highly-paid pundits, corporate advertisers, talk-show hosts, and gossip-fueled entertainment networks. And a culture dominated by images and slogans seduces those who are functionally literate but who make the choice not to read. There have been other historical periods with high rates of illiteracy and vast propaganda campaigns. But not since the Soviet and fascist dictatorships, and perhaps the brutal authoritarian control of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, has the content of information been as skillfully and ruthlessly controlled and manipulated. Propaganda has become a substitute for ideas and ideology. Knowledge is confused with how we are made to feel. Commercial brands are mistaken for expressions of individuality. And in this precipitous decline of values and literacy, among those who cannot read, and those who have given up reading, fertile ground for a new totalitarianism is being seeded.” (45)
Jefferson would be frantic at the road we’re on, seeing the situation like a rope pulling a prisoner to its doom.
We have, like another great power that once ruled the world but is only relics today, the appearances of the people’s input, but little of the actuality. Real power lies elsewhere (yes, I am aware of the double meaning—knowingly expressed—in those words). “Those captive to images cast ballots based on how candidates make them feel. They vote for a slogan, a smile, perceived sincerity, and attractiveness, along with the carefully crafted personal narrative of the candidate. It is style and story, not content and fact, that inform mass politics. Politicians have learned that to get votes they must replicate the faux intimacy established between celebrities and the public. There has to be a sense, created through artful theatrical staging and scripting by political spin machines, that the politician is ‘one of us.’ The politician, like the celebrity, has to give voters the impression (Prof’s note: But again, often not the reality) that he or she, as Bill Clinton used to say, feels their pain. We have to be able to see ourselves in them. If this connection, invariably a product of extremely sophisticated artifice, is not established, no politician can get any traction in a celebrity culture. The rhetoric in campaigns eschews reality for the illusive promise of the future and the intrinsic greatness of the nation (Prof’s Note: Just like that four letter R word from the past!). Campaigns have a deadening sameness, the same tired clichés, the concerned expressions of the sensitive candidates who are like you and me, and the gushing words of gratitude to the crowds of supporters.” (46)
A populace that has no use for the tools that can empower them, bolster them, and truly connect them, is ripe for pseudo-serfdom and pseudo-slavery.
Awaken, Neo, awaken!
This holiday is another example of the loss and meaninglessness in American life. For the mass of Americans, no thought will go through their heads on this day except that they have the day off (and increasingly, more and more don’t even get the day off, the very day that is meant to celebrate labor, the worker!). They will neither understand, nor seek to understand, the holiday. It is, like Memorial Day is for the beginning, merely a holiday to book-end the summer season. As my father was fond of telling me, they will be unsupportive of, or even actively against, labor unions, until one day the scales fall from their eyes and they see yanked away or destroyed most or all that collective bargaining got for them in both their workplaces and the collective society. If it wasn’t important to keep up illusions, this holiday might already be renamed Corporate Day, to celebrate all the wonderful things corporations have done for us.
How coarse and shallow our culture seems on examination, as you have shown. We “honor” our predecessors, yet it seems we feel little compulsion to actually live out their principles! And here we are fomenting a culture producing successive generations that are increasingly absent or degraded ethical or compassionate moorings. It seems to me I have seen a great place go down (emphasis on the down) this road before…
How far we must have regressed into cultural barbarism, when boxing looks like the civilized sport! :) Have we really become so into blood sports that we seek that entertainment as a primary? That most of us are not remotely tough enough to actually dish out or receive the physical violence speaks additional volumes. Again, this is all so eerily familiar it should give us pause, but there is little to no recognition—we are carrying out Santayana’s words (even if he meant them in a slightly different way) to the sickening T.
The part about clearing dugouts and benches: Your linkage is not clear to me as you have written it my good Madame. Do you mean that there is a general coarsening of the culture, the loss of manners, respect, decorum, etc., both cause and effect of the spectacle barbarism we crave? Or do you mean something else? The Professor calls for clarification from Madame! :)
Your brevity is well-excused my good woman! Even though you are, in your view, attending to a little spectacle yourself, attend you must, and play your role well (or, if you prefer, endure with decorum)! Have no apprehension, for I have windage enough for both our sails! :)
You have brought up Hedges’ examination of Jane Goody, using her as an example of the millions who see their lives as unworthy if they attain no fame, as failed if they retain anonymity. “The emptiness of those like Goody who crave this validation is tragic. They turn into clowns. This endless, mindless diversion is a necessity in a society that prizes entertainment above substance. “ (43) And, as Hedges says, it is effortless entertainment at that: if an entertainment requires a mass audience to think, it is judged a failure. Hedges reminds us that Hannah Arendt pointed out the dumbing down of the culture, in that works of complexity and nuance, whose very essence hinges on those, are made merely entertainment, ironically by intellectuals in service to the spectacle culture. Arendt: “There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.” (as quoted on page 44 of Hedges). Culture for Dummies anyone? This goes a good deal beyond the usual “the book was much better” lament as some written work is translated poorly to another medium.
A sixth-grade reading and comprehension level is set as the standard for mass communication, and has steadily fallen to this level over a number of years (yet in some ways, has not been far from this mark all along). Sixth grade. And sixth grade not as how it perhaps should be, but sixth grade AS IT IS. Would you give your life’s decision making, and the decisions about the welfare of the country, over to the care of your 12 year olds? And wouldn’t those 12 year olds merely say, “Whatever you all think about that. Seems too complicated to us. We’ve got other things on our minds.” Since the plutocratic beneficiaries of a barely functional mass “literacy” seem to prefer it this way (or, in the views of some, actively and assiduously work in sinister fashion to effect it), control and direction of the distracted and basely thinking masses becomes much easier. “Functional illiteracy in North America is epidemic. There are 7 million illiterate Americans. Another 27 million are unable to read well enough to complete a job application, and 30 million can’t read a simple sentence. There are some 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate—a figure that is growing by 2 million a year.” (44) As you’ve brought up before, 1/3rd of high school “graduates” never read another book in their lives, and, bizarrely enough, even MORE college “graduates” never read another book. “In 2007, 80 percent of the families in the United States did not buy or read a book.” (44) Those families were wrapped in the frenetic pace of American life, perhaps, but also diverted by electronic distractions of social media, cell phones enrapture, and of course television. “Television, a medium built around the skillful manipulation of images, ones that can overpower reality, is our primary form of mass communication.” (44)
And those who question all this are branded “elitist,” with the plutocratic controllers and their lackeys working up the everyday man and woman to despise the “haughty liberal snobs who try to manipulate our lives.” Thus, those who question the system are marginalized and made ineffective. And anyone in education who is not in denial can tell you that, except for the rare exceptions, public education has become a falsely “functioning” processing center for non-critically thinking streams of the middle and lower classes. As is asked time and again in this forum, who does that serve? For those who don’t critically think, are, as they have been throughout history, the easily manipulated pawns of demagogues, and subtle purveyors of half-truths, misleading out of context statements, and craftily packaged lies. Those with enough money can overwhelm the information avenues, and the average (again, non-critically thinking) person operates subliminally upon the premise of “if I see and hear it enough times, it must be true, especially when I don’t hear hardly anything to counter it, except from the lousy liberals who everyone knows are the ones responsible for screwing things up in the first place.” Even explanations become a burden on the average person. “I don’t even understand what you’re saying. You talk over my head amd make my brain hurt. Just chill out and be down-to-earth. All that stuff you worry about will work itself out somehow anyway. Besides, everyone knows it’s the (insert group)’s fault, and if we just get rid of them, everything will be fine (Prof’s Note: Despite the lack of, or even counter-factual, evidence to support the assertion).”
Ever watched sports commentators? Their level of expertise, their level of historical knowledge, their level of analysis—all often truly remarkable. The culture both sanctions and encourages such, and rewards it greatly. But where are all the great, energetic minds to do the work of not only keeping the civilization together, but securing its future? What we value and what we neglect both have their price, and collection comes due, regardless of whether you are living in your illusion at the time or not…
Hedges again: “We have transformed our culture into a vast replica of Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, where boys were lured with the promise of no school and endless fun. They were all, however, turned into donkeys—a symbol, in Italian culture, of ignorance and stupidity.” (44)
We are enraptured by our electronic mediums, most of all television. “Television speaks in a language of familiar, comforting clichés, and exciting images. Its format, from reality shows to sit-coms, is predictable. It provides a mass, virtual experience that colors the way many people speak and interact with one another. It creates a false sense of intimacy with our ‘elite’ (Prof’s quotation marks)—celebrity actors, newspeople, politicians, business tycoons, and sports stars. And everything and everyone that television transmits is validated and enhanced by the medium. If a person is not seen on television, on some level he or she is not important. Television confers authority and power. It is the final arbitrator of what matters in life.” (45) Do we not recognize this played out? Those that the corporate media deem okay to cover get attention. Those like, as you’ve pointed out, Ron Paul, who are not deemed okay (a threat, perhaps?) get marginalized. What is “news” is hence actually a construct in many instances (some colleagues of mine would argue it is a construct in every instance).
The process of acculturation is seemingly mild to moderate in its individual instances. It is the cumulative effect that is desired by plutocrats. “Just turn off the tv or computer or cellphone, if you don’t like things or want to escape the barrage,” we are told. But how many of us do that? Like crack addicts who know at some level how bad it can be for us, yet unable to even remotely moderate use, we stay plugged in. What, says, Hedges, are the effects of all that? “Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, we are bombarded with the cant and spectacle pumped out over the airwaves or over computer screens by highly-paid pundits, corporate advertisers, talk-show hosts, and gossip-fueled entertainment networks. And a culture dominated by images and slogans seduces those who are functionally literate but who make the choice not to read. There have been other historical periods with high rates of illiteracy and vast propaganda campaigns. But not since the Soviet and fascist dictatorships, and perhaps the brutal authoritarian control of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, has the content of information been as skillfully and ruthlessly controlled and manipulated. Propaganda has become a substitute for ideas and ideology. Knowledge is confused with how we are made to feel. Commercial brands are mistaken for expressions of individuality. And in this precipitous decline of values and literacy, among those who cannot read, and those who have given up reading, fertile ground for a new totalitarianism is being seeded.” (45)
Jefferson would be frantic at the road we’re on, seeing the situation like a rope pulling a prisoner to its doom.
We have, like another great power that once ruled the world but is only relics today, the appearances of the people’s input, but little of the actuality. Real power lies elsewhere (yes, I am aware of the double meaning—knowingly expressed—in those words). “Those captive to images cast ballots based on how candidates make them feel. They vote for a slogan, a smile, perceived sincerity, and attractiveness, along with the carefully crafted personal narrative of the candidate. It is style and story, not content and fact, that inform mass politics. Politicians have learned that to get votes they must replicate the faux intimacy established between celebrities and the public. There has to be a sense, created through artful theatrical staging and scripting by political spin machines, that the politician is ‘one of us.’ The politician, like the celebrity, has to give voters the impression (Prof’s note: But again, often not the reality) that he or she, as Bill Clinton used to say, feels their pain. We have to be able to see ourselves in them. If this connection, invariably a product of extremely sophisticated artifice, is not established, no politician can get any traction in a celebrity culture. The rhetoric in campaigns eschews reality for the illusive promise of the future and the intrinsic greatness of the nation (Prof’s Note: Just like that four letter R word from the past!). Campaigns have a deadening sameness, the same tired clichés, the concerned expressions of the sensitive candidates who are like you and me, and the gushing words of gratitude to the crowds of supporters.” (46)
A populace that has no use for the tools that can empower them, bolster them, and truly connect them, is ripe for pseudo-serfdom and pseudo-slavery.
Awaken, Neo, awaken!
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