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!