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…
Sunday, September 11, 2011
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!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Mirror Mirror On the Wall
Professor J,
I'm not trying to rush you on to chapter two, my dear man! In the end all the things he tackles are related and interwoven . Isn't everything? :) I suspect it is going to be difficult to keep subjects neatly contained by chapter or to keep the current theme on your blog from bleeding over. You are going to disagree with me? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you! ;)
What an insightful commentary by Ryan Marsh!
Charles Krauthammer did piece about the new Martin Luther King Memorial which is interesting in light of our current words vs. images discussion. He makes this observation which caught my attention:
"Behind the prophet, guarding him, is an arc of short quotations chiseled in granite. This is in keeping with that glorious feature of Washington’s monumental core — the homage to words (rather than images of conquest and glory, as in so many other capitals), as befits a nation founded on an idea."
The "imitative consumption" and "wild pursuit of status and wealth (have) destroyed our souls and our economy." (p. 38) Even this new "status" is an illusion compared to what real social status would have meant a few decades ago. Are there even any annoying social climbers anymore? Are they all just social purchasers, now? At least the old version were hoping to better themselves and much of the tacit price to be paid was a least feigning an interest in cultural activities and charity work.
The story of Jane Goody (p. 42,43) reminded me of several similar characters we see in classic literature who are uneducated and nearly illiterate. In literature we often see such characters as people to be pitied and helped, examples of the unfortunate effects of an unbalanced class system, or as shown at the beginning of a great metamorphosis. What we now often see is the person/character in question isn't even aware of their situation and are happy to receive media attention (because isn't that what life is all about?) while they are held up to public ridicule for the entertainment of others. What would Dickens or Austen think of us? Remember Knightly's scolding Emma for being unkind to Miss Bates? Vast portions of our culture need much the same thing. Of course Emma had enough of a heart to be truly sorry for her callousness and bad manners.
Hedges holds up a painful mirror for us to look in. As a result of using the misfortune of others for our own entertainment our capacity for empathy is diminishing. A study by the University of Michigan backs Hedges up:
"Compared to college students of the late 1970s, the study found, college students today are less likely to agree with statements such as "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."
In a related but separate analysis, Konrath found that nationally representative samples of Americans see changes in other people's kindness and helpfulness over a similar time period.
"Many people see the current group of college students—sometimes called 'Generation Me'—as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history," said Konrath, who is also affiliated with the University of Rochester Department of Psychiatry.
"It's not surprising that this growing emphasis on the self is accompanied by a corresponding devaluation of others," O'Brien said."
"Perhaps less overtly raw and savage than in the past, but perhaps even that change is only repressed and still latent" We are quickly devolving here it seems. Regular boxing with gloves and rules has been replaced with the explosion of cage fighting, which smacks of barbarism to me. How many times when you were a kid do you remember benches at a basketball game being cleared or dugouts at a major league game so they could all engage in a public brawl. They behaved better it appears before they all became millionaires.
I have so much more to say but must ask you to excuse my brevity this time. As you know I'm in the midst of producing a little spectacle of my own. ;)
I'm not trying to rush you on to chapter two, my dear man! In the end all the things he tackles are related and interwoven . Isn't everything? :) I suspect it is going to be difficult to keep subjects neatly contained by chapter or to keep the current theme on your blog from bleeding over. You are going to disagree with me? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you! ;)
What an insightful commentary by Ryan Marsh!
Charles Krauthammer did piece about the new Martin Luther King Memorial which is interesting in light of our current words vs. images discussion. He makes this observation which caught my attention:
"Behind the prophet, guarding him, is an arc of short quotations chiseled in granite. This is in keeping with that glorious feature of Washington’s monumental core — the homage to words (rather than images of conquest and glory, as in so many other capitals), as befits a nation founded on an idea."
The "imitative consumption" and "wild pursuit of status and wealth (have) destroyed our souls and our economy." (p. 38) Even this new "status" is an illusion compared to what real social status would have meant a few decades ago. Are there even any annoying social climbers anymore? Are they all just social purchasers, now? At least the old version were hoping to better themselves and much of the tacit price to be paid was a least feigning an interest in cultural activities and charity work.
The story of Jane Goody (p. 42,43) reminded me of several similar characters we see in classic literature who are uneducated and nearly illiterate. In literature we often see such characters as people to be pitied and helped, examples of the unfortunate effects of an unbalanced class system, or as shown at the beginning of a great metamorphosis. What we now often see is the person/character in question isn't even aware of their situation and are happy to receive media attention (because isn't that what life is all about?) while they are held up to public ridicule for the entertainment of others. What would Dickens or Austen think of us? Remember Knightly's scolding Emma for being unkind to Miss Bates? Vast portions of our culture need much the same thing. Of course Emma had enough of a heart to be truly sorry for her callousness and bad manners.
Hedges holds up a painful mirror for us to look in. As a result of using the misfortune of others for our own entertainment our capacity for empathy is diminishing. A study by the University of Michigan backs Hedges up:
"Compared to college students of the late 1970s, the study found, college students today are less likely to agree with statements such as "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."
In a related but separate analysis, Konrath found that nationally representative samples of Americans see changes in other people's kindness and helpfulness over a similar time period.
"Many people see the current group of college students—sometimes called 'Generation Me'—as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history," said Konrath, who is also affiliated with the University of Rochester Department of Psychiatry.
"It's not surprising that this growing emphasis on the self is accompanied by a corresponding devaluation of others," O'Brien said."
"Perhaps less overtly raw and savage than in the past, but perhaps even that change is only repressed and still latent" We are quickly devolving here it seems. Regular boxing with gloves and rules has been replaced with the explosion of cage fighting, which smacks of barbarism to me. How many times when you were a kid do you remember benches at a basketball game being cleared or dugouts at a major league game so they could all engage in a public brawl. They behaved better it appears before they all became millionaires.
I have so much more to say but must ask you to excuse my brevity this time. As you know I'm in the midst of producing a little spectacle of my own. ;)
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Celebrity Culture Matters
Most Madame M:
You’ve jumped to Chapter 2? I am still teasing out Chapter 1! I think we may have a few (small?) disagreements on Chapter 2, but will save them for later!
Your wondering about backlash has me wondering a bit of the same thing!
My sentiments exactly about the doll guy! Not only is he another example of removal from reality (and in a disconnected, odd, and as you said, disturbing way), but that his experience with pretty women has been apparently near-uniformly dismal concerning their mental and emotional health, well, that speaks volumes, loudly—because it is echoed and amplified by the agreeing shouts of legions of men. It is a complex issue, as you’ve pointed out. And I do believe there have been unfortunate consequences of the women’s movement. And while I partially agree with you that more women have casual sex because of the cultural norm, there is also the phenomenon (which I have, uhm, observed?) that self-confident women can often be as casual as men about sex, as long as it is with someone they have no more feelings for than a friend. And perhaps that is not entirely a negative thing. But we digress into the Dysfunction of the Genders thread on The Professor…
I have been to Las Vegas a few times. While much of it is the vacuous pseudo-culture you describe, and can leave one feeling a bit empty and disconnected, there are parts that can be enjoyable in the right vacation mindset. I would say it is a mixed bag, that for this traveler shaded slightly to the negative side.
As for your last paragraph above, I am in complete agreement and cannot add anything meaningful to your well said-ness! :)
This celebrity culture, Hedges says, promotes values that “urge us toward a life of narcissistic self-absorption. They tell us that life is to be centered on the practices and desires of the self rather than the common good.” This cult of the self “has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity, and self-importance; a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception, and manipulation, and the inability to feel remorse or guilt. This is, of course, the ethic promoted by corporations (Professor’s Note: See the book and movie The Corporation). It is the ethic of unfettered capitalism. It is the misguided belief that personal style and personal advancement, mistaken for individualism, are the same as democratic equality…We can do anything, even belittle and destroy those around us, including our friends, to make money, to be happy, and to become famous. Once fame and wealth are achieved, they become their own justification, their own morality. How one gets there is irrelevant. Once you get there, those questions are no longer asked.” (33) Amazing how this is dovetailing very congruently with the discussion over on the Professor…
And how does this play out on grand stages, like our very economy? “It is this perverted ethic that gave us Wall Street bankers and investment houses that willfully trashed the nation’s economy, stole money from tens of millions of small shareholders who had bought stock in these corporations for retirement or college. The heads of these corporations, like the winners on a reality television program who lied and manipulated others to succeed, walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses and compensation.” (33) And that’s just the top few; total compensation to the casino thieves of Wall Street run into the hundreds of billions. Per year. And is still ongoing.
You are always finding outside things to inject, so here’s one that appeared in a newspaper guest column: “The protection of our liberty is also dependent upon the electorate being educated, informed, and engaged. We haven’t been any of these for some time, and I believe it’s getting worse. To think critically and solve our future problems, we must have a comprehensive understanding of our history. Freedom requires an informed population. Between the half truths and blatant lies that are easily passed on a daily basis, it’s easy to be misinformed” and takes work. “It might mean occasionally turning off the game or our favorite reality TV show. Living free requires engaging in the democratic process. It’s easy to tune out and think our voice doesn’t matter, but when too many of us do that, we allow those with any power to proceed unchecked. How many of us have contacted our elected representatives, at any level of government? How many have written a letter to the editor? How many of us vote regularly? However, entering the voting booth without doing our homework is equivalent to picking a favorite team based on their colors or mascot—not likely to produce reliable results. Admittedly, I consider myself tardy to the party when it comes to meeting the criteria I’ve laid out. It’s only recently that I’ve concluded that ignorance is not bliss even if being informed leads to frequent frustration. Now, when politics and current events come up in conversation I won’t be looking to change the subject. As Thomas Paine said, ‘Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.’” Ryan Marsh, instrumental music teacher, Nebraska, in his local paper
Which won’t happen if we remain enamored of the celebrity culture and its related activities. “’If only that were me,’ we sigh as we gaze at the wealthy, glimmering stars on the red carpet. But we are as transfixed by the inverse of celebrity culture, by the spectacle of humiliation and degradation that comprise tabloid television shows…We secretly exult: ‘At least that’s not me.’ It is the glee of cruelty with impunity, the same impulse that drove crowds to the Roman Colosseum, to the pillory and the stocks, to public hangings, and to traveling freak shows.” (34) We are not so very different after all. Perhaps less overtly raw and savage than in the past, but perhaps even that change is only repressed and still latent.
“Celebrity is the vehicle used by corporate society to sell us these branded commodities, most of which we do not need. Celebrities humanize commercial commodities. But they peddle a fake intimacy and a fantasy. The commercial ‘personalizing’ of the world involves oversimplification, distraction, and gross distortion.” (37) These words of Hedges could work like electric prods if we are reflecting on them, for they can shock us out of superficial acceptance and instead get into looking at the world outside the illusive lens.
Hedges then goes on to mention the cult of distraction you have already accented. He joins another author in saying it “masks the real disintegration of culture. It conceals the meaninglessness and emptiness of our own lives. It seduces us to engage in imitative consumption. It deflects the moral questions arising from social injustice, growing inequalities, costly imperial wars, economic collapse, and political corruption. The wild pursuit of status and wealth has destroyed our souls and our economy. Families live in sprawling mansions financed with mortgages they can no longer repay.” People buy things because they seem to “confer a sense of identity and merit. Our favorite hobby, besides television, used to be, until reality hit us like a tsunami, shopping. Shopping used to be the compensation for spending five days a week in tiny cubicles. American workers are ground down by corporations that have disempowered them, used them, and have now discarded them.” (38)
But there is more to all this distraction than mere unreality. There is diversion. “Celebrities have fame free of responsibility. The fame of celebrities, wrote Mills, disguises those who have real power: corporations and the oligarchic elite. Magical thinking is the currency not only of celebrity culture, but of totalitarian culture. And as we sink into an economic and political morass, we are still controlled, manipulated, and distracted by the celluloid shadows…The fantasy of celebrity culture is not designed simply to entertain. It is designed to keep us from fighting back.” (38) Ominous. As you showed us when you gave us Postman’s words (quoted by Hedges) at the start of the in-depth review of Hedges’ book, this drowning in a sea of information and irrelevancy makes classic (political) totalitarianism perhaps unnecessary. Inverted (that is, economics controlling politics) totalitarianism can result. Do not many sense that this has occurred in many ways?
And one of the ways that control is effected is this absurd idea that everything can be made public fare, and that it is the public’s right to both know, and weigh in on, the strictly private lives of others, including public officials. Celebrity culture via reality shows, Hedges warns, says it “is normal, indeed enviable, to be constantly watched. For corporations and a government that seeks to make surveillance routine, whether to study our buying habits or read our e-mails or make sure we do not organize social protest, these shows normalize what was once considered a flagrant violation of our Constitutional right to privacy.” (40) Have we really become like the pig farmer who starts out recoiling from and resenting the smell of the pigs who are in close proximity all the time, but eventually doesn’t notice the smell anymore? Or the prisoners accepting the walls so poignantly described by Morgan Freeman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption?
I have quoted extensively from Hedges, but there is so much in this first chapter that begs for quotation and discussion! Mere paraphrasing or general idea relating will not suffice. The man’s words need exacting for the discussion to be placed in proper context! This book is that important! If we do not confront our illusory culture, what does most everything else matter?
And, STILL not all the way exhaled on this very first breath! :)
You’ve jumped to Chapter 2? I am still teasing out Chapter 1! I think we may have a few (small?) disagreements on Chapter 2, but will save them for later!
Your wondering about backlash has me wondering a bit of the same thing!
My sentiments exactly about the doll guy! Not only is he another example of removal from reality (and in a disconnected, odd, and as you said, disturbing way), but that his experience with pretty women has been apparently near-uniformly dismal concerning their mental and emotional health, well, that speaks volumes, loudly—because it is echoed and amplified by the agreeing shouts of legions of men. It is a complex issue, as you’ve pointed out. And I do believe there have been unfortunate consequences of the women’s movement. And while I partially agree with you that more women have casual sex because of the cultural norm, there is also the phenomenon (which I have, uhm, observed?) that self-confident women can often be as casual as men about sex, as long as it is with someone they have no more feelings for than a friend. And perhaps that is not entirely a negative thing. But we digress into the Dysfunction of the Genders thread on The Professor…
I have been to Las Vegas a few times. While much of it is the vacuous pseudo-culture you describe, and can leave one feeling a bit empty and disconnected, there are parts that can be enjoyable in the right vacation mindset. I would say it is a mixed bag, that for this traveler shaded slightly to the negative side.
As for your last paragraph above, I am in complete agreement and cannot add anything meaningful to your well said-ness! :)
This celebrity culture, Hedges says, promotes values that “urge us toward a life of narcissistic self-absorption. They tell us that life is to be centered on the practices and desires of the self rather than the common good.” This cult of the self “has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity, and self-importance; a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception, and manipulation, and the inability to feel remorse or guilt. This is, of course, the ethic promoted by corporations (Professor’s Note: See the book and movie The Corporation). It is the ethic of unfettered capitalism. It is the misguided belief that personal style and personal advancement, mistaken for individualism, are the same as democratic equality…We can do anything, even belittle and destroy those around us, including our friends, to make money, to be happy, and to become famous. Once fame and wealth are achieved, they become their own justification, their own morality. How one gets there is irrelevant. Once you get there, those questions are no longer asked.” (33) Amazing how this is dovetailing very congruently with the discussion over on the Professor…
And how does this play out on grand stages, like our very economy? “It is this perverted ethic that gave us Wall Street bankers and investment houses that willfully trashed the nation’s economy, stole money from tens of millions of small shareholders who had bought stock in these corporations for retirement or college. The heads of these corporations, like the winners on a reality television program who lied and manipulated others to succeed, walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses and compensation.” (33) And that’s just the top few; total compensation to the casino thieves of Wall Street run into the hundreds of billions. Per year. And is still ongoing.
You are always finding outside things to inject, so here’s one that appeared in a newspaper guest column: “The protection of our liberty is also dependent upon the electorate being educated, informed, and engaged. We haven’t been any of these for some time, and I believe it’s getting worse. To think critically and solve our future problems, we must have a comprehensive understanding of our history. Freedom requires an informed population. Between the half truths and blatant lies that are easily passed on a daily basis, it’s easy to be misinformed” and takes work. “It might mean occasionally turning off the game or our favorite reality TV show. Living free requires engaging in the democratic process. It’s easy to tune out and think our voice doesn’t matter, but when too many of us do that, we allow those with any power to proceed unchecked. How many of us have contacted our elected representatives, at any level of government? How many have written a letter to the editor? How many of us vote regularly? However, entering the voting booth without doing our homework is equivalent to picking a favorite team based on their colors or mascot—not likely to produce reliable results. Admittedly, I consider myself tardy to the party when it comes to meeting the criteria I’ve laid out. It’s only recently that I’ve concluded that ignorance is not bliss even if being informed leads to frequent frustration. Now, when politics and current events come up in conversation I won’t be looking to change the subject. As Thomas Paine said, ‘Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.’” Ryan Marsh, instrumental music teacher, Nebraska, in his local paper
Which won’t happen if we remain enamored of the celebrity culture and its related activities. “’If only that were me,’ we sigh as we gaze at the wealthy, glimmering stars on the red carpet. But we are as transfixed by the inverse of celebrity culture, by the spectacle of humiliation and degradation that comprise tabloid television shows…We secretly exult: ‘At least that’s not me.’ It is the glee of cruelty with impunity, the same impulse that drove crowds to the Roman Colosseum, to the pillory and the stocks, to public hangings, and to traveling freak shows.” (34) We are not so very different after all. Perhaps less overtly raw and savage than in the past, but perhaps even that change is only repressed and still latent.
“Celebrity is the vehicle used by corporate society to sell us these branded commodities, most of which we do not need. Celebrities humanize commercial commodities. But they peddle a fake intimacy and a fantasy. The commercial ‘personalizing’ of the world involves oversimplification, distraction, and gross distortion.” (37) These words of Hedges could work like electric prods if we are reflecting on them, for they can shock us out of superficial acceptance and instead get into looking at the world outside the illusive lens.
Hedges then goes on to mention the cult of distraction you have already accented. He joins another author in saying it “masks the real disintegration of culture. It conceals the meaninglessness and emptiness of our own lives. It seduces us to engage in imitative consumption. It deflects the moral questions arising from social injustice, growing inequalities, costly imperial wars, economic collapse, and political corruption. The wild pursuit of status and wealth has destroyed our souls and our economy. Families live in sprawling mansions financed with mortgages they can no longer repay.” People buy things because they seem to “confer a sense of identity and merit. Our favorite hobby, besides television, used to be, until reality hit us like a tsunami, shopping. Shopping used to be the compensation for spending five days a week in tiny cubicles. American workers are ground down by corporations that have disempowered them, used them, and have now discarded them.” (38)
But there is more to all this distraction than mere unreality. There is diversion. “Celebrities have fame free of responsibility. The fame of celebrities, wrote Mills, disguises those who have real power: corporations and the oligarchic elite. Magical thinking is the currency not only of celebrity culture, but of totalitarian culture. And as we sink into an economic and political morass, we are still controlled, manipulated, and distracted by the celluloid shadows…The fantasy of celebrity culture is not designed simply to entertain. It is designed to keep us from fighting back.” (38) Ominous. As you showed us when you gave us Postman’s words (quoted by Hedges) at the start of the in-depth review of Hedges’ book, this drowning in a sea of information and irrelevancy makes classic (political) totalitarianism perhaps unnecessary. Inverted (that is, economics controlling politics) totalitarianism can result. Do not many sense that this has occurred in many ways?
And one of the ways that control is effected is this absurd idea that everything can be made public fare, and that it is the public’s right to both know, and weigh in on, the strictly private lives of others, including public officials. Celebrity culture via reality shows, Hedges warns, says it “is normal, indeed enviable, to be constantly watched. For corporations and a government that seeks to make surveillance routine, whether to study our buying habits or read our e-mails or make sure we do not organize social protest, these shows normalize what was once considered a flagrant violation of our Constitutional right to privacy.” (40) Have we really become like the pig farmer who starts out recoiling from and resenting the smell of the pigs who are in close proximity all the time, but eventually doesn’t notice the smell anymore? Or the prisoners accepting the walls so poignantly described by Morgan Freeman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption?
I have quoted extensively from Hedges, but there is so much in this first chapter that begs for quotation and discussion! Mere paraphrasing or general idea relating will not suffice. The man’s words need exacting for the discussion to be placed in proper context! This book is that important! If we do not confront our illusory culture, what does most everything else matter?
And, STILL not all the way exhaled on this very first breath! :)
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Love American Style: Faking It
Professor J,
It's really difficult to find anything to quote in the second chapter! ;)
You pointed out that the author says in this kind of culture human beings become "commodities to be used up and replaced." This is most evident in chapter 2, The Illusion of Love, where we don't see anyone he interviews sugar coating exactly what is going on. Hedges bravely draws back the curtain on the porn industry and shines a harsh and depressing light on the ugliness of it. While throughout the book we see examples of people being ill-used by corporations or governments under the guise of something else, this chapter (which I felt was somewhat out of place and would have been an excellent idea for another book) isn't building any illusions. It isn't supporting any. It's the only place in the book where we see people admit openly in interviews that they are out to use, injure, and destroy other human beings without compassion.
I was at an estate sale recently and among the art and books there was a large collection of Playboy magazines from the 1960s. They was so tame as to be nearly amusing considering that you can practically get it in prime time today, and if you can wait until after 10:00 or if you want to pay, well... But having read this book and having some of the brutal images floating around in my subconscious caused me to notice something else... the women were being presented as pretty. So when women had little power, were channeled into specific jobs, and were denied opportunities, men, even those who would objectify them weren't trying to degrade and humiliate, at least not openly in a public forum. It was, in a way a celebration of them. (Let the feminist howling begin.) So is what we are seeing, with all the degradation and violence a sort of backlash? I wonder.
The guy who owned several anatomically correct dolls and who readily admits it is "really nice thing because you are in full control" and that they "take the stress out of wining and dining women"was disturbing. But when he said "women who look like these dolls are not mentally or emotionally in line" I had a sneaking suspicion in many cases he may be right. I couldn't help wondering how much of that would have been created by the way those women had been treated by men. I also wondered why it was more important for this guy to have some really "hot" (you know, after he covers them with electric blankets ;)) dolls than an average looking REAL woman. I hear Eldredge in the background...something about a man not wanting a woman who would challenge him.
There's a broader discussion to be had here at some point about whether or not while women made advances thanks to the feminist movement there were also, it seems unforeseeable consequences. I find all this intricately linked to the topic you are covering over on The Professor. We might add to that discussion Hedges comment about porn having won the culture war (which sounded very O'Reilly of him). But the real shocker, because I've suspected this to be true for a long time, was "Sexual callousness and emancipation have become synonymous." (p. 86) I suspect that a great number of young women who are having casual sex or having sex far earlier in a romantic relationship than they really want to are behaving this way because it's what the culture tells them it expects from them.
Right in the middle of all this "heartlessness" he gives us a reprieve from brutality but not from how ridiculous we've become with his description of one of America's favorite vacation destinations:
"Las Vegas sells a cartoon version of other cultures and other lands...A trip to Las Vegas is a visit to a sanitized, cutout version of foreign countries without the intrusion of foreign people, the hassle of unintelligible languages, strange habits different ideas and traditions, or bizarre food. Here everyone speaks English. Here you are surrounded by Americans." (p.64)
I thought he made an excellent point about Las Vegas. I have had a couple of opportunities to go there that I turned down. I'm not much on contrived experiences. Why would I want to go to an amusement park when there are mountains to ski and oceans to swim in? Who wants a fake Venice? Who wants "Italy" without Italian? Or without Italians? Depending on how much one loses in the casinos a trip to the real thing might be a bargain.
I was surprised that Hedges didn't have a chapter entitled The Illusion of Friendship. Facebook and Twitter are both mentioned in a quote by William Deresiewicz in chapter 1, but in connection to the "contemporary self" gaining attention and not as places where pseudo friendships may fool us into thinking we are connected. I thought it would have been a very appropriate thing for him to cover alongside fake travel and sex with dolls. Friendship with little time or effort invested is far too common, as I've said before our relationship landscape is now about 5 miles wide and an inch deep. This illusion has increasingly replaced deep meaningful friendships that require something of us. Not that there aren't any real friendships born and maintained via social networking, and used well it can be a great facilitator, but it demands a bit of extra work and trust that the other person will keep showing up. :)
It's really difficult to find anything to quote in the second chapter! ;)
You pointed out that the author says in this kind of culture human beings become "commodities to be used up and replaced." This is most evident in chapter 2, The Illusion of Love, where we don't see anyone he interviews sugar coating exactly what is going on. Hedges bravely draws back the curtain on the porn industry and shines a harsh and depressing light on the ugliness of it. While throughout the book we see examples of people being ill-used by corporations or governments under the guise of something else, this chapter (which I felt was somewhat out of place and would have been an excellent idea for another book) isn't building any illusions. It isn't supporting any. It's the only place in the book where we see people admit openly in interviews that they are out to use, injure, and destroy other human beings without compassion.
I was at an estate sale recently and among the art and books there was a large collection of Playboy magazines from the 1960s. They was so tame as to be nearly amusing considering that you can practically get it in prime time today, and if you can wait until after 10:00 or if you want to pay, well... But having read this book and having some of the brutal images floating around in my subconscious caused me to notice something else... the women were being presented as pretty. So when women had little power, were channeled into specific jobs, and were denied opportunities, men, even those who would objectify them weren't trying to degrade and humiliate, at least not openly in a public forum. It was, in a way a celebration of them. (Let the feminist howling begin.) So is what we are seeing, with all the degradation and violence a sort of backlash? I wonder.
The guy who owned several anatomically correct dolls and who readily admits it is "really nice thing because you are in full control" and that they "take the stress out of wining and dining women"was disturbing. But when he said "women who look like these dolls are not mentally or emotionally in line" I had a sneaking suspicion in many cases he may be right. I couldn't help wondering how much of that would have been created by the way those women had been treated by men. I also wondered why it was more important for this guy to have some really "hot" (you know, after he covers them with electric blankets ;)) dolls than an average looking REAL woman. I hear Eldredge in the background...something about a man not wanting a woman who would challenge him.
There's a broader discussion to be had here at some point about whether or not while women made advances thanks to the feminist movement there were also, it seems unforeseeable consequences. I find all this intricately linked to the topic you are covering over on The Professor. We might add to that discussion Hedges comment about porn having won the culture war (which sounded very O'Reilly of him). But the real shocker, because I've suspected this to be true for a long time, was "Sexual callousness and emancipation have become synonymous." (p. 86) I suspect that a great number of young women who are having casual sex or having sex far earlier in a romantic relationship than they really want to are behaving this way because it's what the culture tells them it expects from them.
Right in the middle of all this "heartlessness" he gives us a reprieve from brutality but not from how ridiculous we've become with his description of one of America's favorite vacation destinations:
"Las Vegas sells a cartoon version of other cultures and other lands...A trip to Las Vegas is a visit to a sanitized, cutout version of foreign countries without the intrusion of foreign people, the hassle of unintelligible languages, strange habits different ideas and traditions, or bizarre food. Here everyone speaks English. Here you are surrounded by Americans." (p.64)
I thought he made an excellent point about Las Vegas. I have had a couple of opportunities to go there that I turned down. I'm not much on contrived experiences. Why would I want to go to an amusement park when there are mountains to ski and oceans to swim in? Who wants a fake Venice? Who wants "Italy" without Italian? Or without Italians? Depending on how much one loses in the casinos a trip to the real thing might be a bargain.
I was surprised that Hedges didn't have a chapter entitled The Illusion of Friendship. Facebook and Twitter are both mentioned in a quote by William Deresiewicz in chapter 1, but in connection to the "contemporary self" gaining attention and not as places where pseudo friendships may fool us into thinking we are connected. I thought it would have been a very appropriate thing for him to cover alongside fake travel and sex with dolls. Friendship with little time or effort invested is far too common, as I've said before our relationship landscape is now about 5 miles wide and an inch deep. This illusion has increasingly replaced deep meaningful friendships that require something of us. Not that there aren't any real friendships born and maintained via social networking, and used well it can be a great facilitator, but it demands a bit of extra work and trust that the other person will keep showing up. :)
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Entertainted
Madame M:
You bring in stark focus how passive we are about, and sometimes even willing embracers of, the surveillance state. Everybody watches everybody, but not to uplift them or even to check their ethics, but merely to be entertained. How oracle-like Postman, who wrote his book before the era of the World Wide Web, seems to all this.
Yes, this Cult of Distraction is sobering to those who still resist it. You point out the example of the woman and her husband on the Springer show, yet there is a possibility that they may not be merely dupes, but as Hedges intimates repeatedly, so desirous of participation in the celebrity culture that they will do literally anything for their 15 minutes of fame. As for the compassionless, discern-less cheerleader with the mocking smile, alas, Madame, I have seen that many times in many otherwise attractive women. Your phrase “as if beauty earns her the right to be cruel,” recalled many unpleasant memories. Those women may be the bitch now, but karma will be the bitch eventually, maybe even after this life.
Hedges does a pinpoint job of conveying how this celebrity-spectacle (and, as you’ve put it, abrasive) culture promotes the view that an improved appearance will not only solve all relationship and self-esteem troubles, but may even be more important than employment, money, etc. “Only a life with status, physical attributes, and affluences is worth pursuing. The American oligarchy, 1 percent of whom control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, are the characters we envy and watch on television…and told that if we want it badly enough…we too can have everything. We are left, when we cannot adopt these impossible lifestyles as our own, with feelings of inferiority and worthlessness. We have failed where others have succeeded.” (26) This is how, as Thomas Frank alludes in his book “What’s The Matter With Kansas?”, we can see legions okaying tax relief for billionaires. After all, those people reason, those billionaires should pay less tax and not be “punished,” because we ourselves could become like them!
And the illusion is never far. Hedges: “The flamboyant lives of celebrities and the outrageous characters on television, movies, professional wrestling, and sensational talk shows are peddled to us, promising to fill up the emptiness in our own lives.” (27) And even beyond that, “faith in ourselves, in a world of make-believe, is more important than reality. Reality, in fact, is dismissed and shunned as an impediment to success, a form of negativity. Those who question, those who doubt, those who are critical, those who are able to confront reality and who grasp the hollowness of celebrity culture are shunned and condemned for their pessimism.” (27)
What does this mean for we American human beings? Hedges says we become a commodity, used up and replaced. “The juxtaposition of the impossible illusions inspired by celebrity culture and our ‘insignificant’ individual achievements, however, eventually leads to frustration, anger, insecurity, and invalidation. It results, ironically, in a self-perpetuating cycle that drives the frustrated, alienated individual with even greater desperation and hunger away from reality, back toward the empty promises of those who seduce us, who tell us what we want to hear. We beg for more. We ingest those lies until our money runs out. And when we fall into despair, we medicate ourselves, as if the happiness we have failed to find in the hollow game is our deficiency. And, of course, we are told it is.” (29)
People look around and see “everyone,” including the entertainment media that passes for news reporting, talking about celebrities, athletes, politicians, etc., and their dramas (often manufactured) and personal lives, and yet find too few who care about genuinely important things that affect the nation, the society, and the world. To modify a well-known phrase, it may be no measure of realism to be realistic inside a culture of omni-present illusions and delusions.
One reader of Hedges had this insight: “To the list of illusions that Mr. Hedges provides, I'd like to add one more: the illusion of inclusion. This is the illusion that we all have whereby we believe that we will be included among the fortunate few because misfortune happens only to those who deserve it. There are plenty of people who understand that the corporate model is one in which there are squeezers and those who are to be squeezed. This model requires a plantation economy morality that exalts the insiders and denigrates the outsiders. Those content with this arrangement obviously view themselves as insiders even when they work for companies that are actively shedding employees. Many of these people are happy to be making good money for digging shallow graves, never stopping to wonder if maybe someday one of those graves might be their own.”
Our “empire of illusion,” slips its velvet noose around our consciousness and our consciences, and dilutes our wills along with our focus. And so we ignore signs of impending disaster, apparently trusting in some unseen force to make it all right, or at least to make it all work out somehow, as if arrogantly believing that God will protect this place regardless of the actions or inactions of its inhabitants. The planet degrades, global capitalism brings not blessings but hardships and cruelty to many, we remain addicted to declining fossil fuels (a measure of insanity in every way), the near-collapse of financial markets via casino capitalism is followed by no true reform and so full collapse always looms as a possibility, and the dangers and connections of overpopulation almost never intrude on our delusive and illusive processes that pass for conscious thought.
Morality and decency effectively get obliterated. Hedges: “Education, building communities, honesty, transparency, and sharing are qualities that will see you, in a gross perversion of democracy and morality, voted off a reality show. Fellow competitors for prize money and a chance for fleeting fame elect to ‘disappear’ (Professor’s Note: an ominous word, bringing to mind the disappeared of Latin American countries from death squads and secret prisons) the unwanted. Life, these shows teach, is a brutal world of unadulterated competition. Life is about the personal humiliation of those who oppose us. Those who lose deserve to be erased. Compassion, competence, intelligence, and solidarity with others are forms of weakness.” (30)
This book is a rich treasure, to be mined for a plethora of gems and jewels. It is also like a wake-up jolt from a real Morpheus disconnecting us from the Matrix, to live in reality as human beings, not as manipulated slaves of illusion at every turn.
I have a lot more to expel on just this breath of wind alone. But this is a good pausing point. Back to you Madame!
You bring in stark focus how passive we are about, and sometimes even willing embracers of, the surveillance state. Everybody watches everybody, but not to uplift them or even to check their ethics, but merely to be entertained. How oracle-like Postman, who wrote his book before the era of the World Wide Web, seems to all this.
Yes, this Cult of Distraction is sobering to those who still resist it. You point out the example of the woman and her husband on the Springer show, yet there is a possibility that they may not be merely dupes, but as Hedges intimates repeatedly, so desirous of participation in the celebrity culture that they will do literally anything for their 15 minutes of fame. As for the compassionless, discern-less cheerleader with the mocking smile, alas, Madame, I have seen that many times in many otherwise attractive women. Your phrase “as if beauty earns her the right to be cruel,” recalled many unpleasant memories. Those women may be the bitch now, but karma will be the bitch eventually, maybe even after this life.
Hedges does a pinpoint job of conveying how this celebrity-spectacle (and, as you’ve put it, abrasive) culture promotes the view that an improved appearance will not only solve all relationship and self-esteem troubles, but may even be more important than employment, money, etc. “Only a life with status, physical attributes, and affluences is worth pursuing. The American oligarchy, 1 percent of whom control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, are the characters we envy and watch on television…and told that if we want it badly enough…we too can have everything. We are left, when we cannot adopt these impossible lifestyles as our own, with feelings of inferiority and worthlessness. We have failed where others have succeeded.” (26) This is how, as Thomas Frank alludes in his book “What’s The Matter With Kansas?”, we can see legions okaying tax relief for billionaires. After all, those people reason, those billionaires should pay less tax and not be “punished,” because we ourselves could become like them!
And the illusion is never far. Hedges: “The flamboyant lives of celebrities and the outrageous characters on television, movies, professional wrestling, and sensational talk shows are peddled to us, promising to fill up the emptiness in our own lives.” (27) And even beyond that, “faith in ourselves, in a world of make-believe, is more important than reality. Reality, in fact, is dismissed and shunned as an impediment to success, a form of negativity. Those who question, those who doubt, those who are critical, those who are able to confront reality and who grasp the hollowness of celebrity culture are shunned and condemned for their pessimism.” (27)
What does this mean for we American human beings? Hedges says we become a commodity, used up and replaced. “The juxtaposition of the impossible illusions inspired by celebrity culture and our ‘insignificant’ individual achievements, however, eventually leads to frustration, anger, insecurity, and invalidation. It results, ironically, in a self-perpetuating cycle that drives the frustrated, alienated individual with even greater desperation and hunger away from reality, back toward the empty promises of those who seduce us, who tell us what we want to hear. We beg for more. We ingest those lies until our money runs out. And when we fall into despair, we medicate ourselves, as if the happiness we have failed to find in the hollow game is our deficiency. And, of course, we are told it is.” (29)
People look around and see “everyone,” including the entertainment media that passes for news reporting, talking about celebrities, athletes, politicians, etc., and their dramas (often manufactured) and personal lives, and yet find too few who care about genuinely important things that affect the nation, the society, and the world. To modify a well-known phrase, it may be no measure of realism to be realistic inside a culture of omni-present illusions and delusions.
One reader of Hedges had this insight: “To the list of illusions that Mr. Hedges provides, I'd like to add one more: the illusion of inclusion. This is the illusion that we all have whereby we believe that we will be included among the fortunate few because misfortune happens only to those who deserve it. There are plenty of people who understand that the corporate model is one in which there are squeezers and those who are to be squeezed. This model requires a plantation economy morality that exalts the insiders and denigrates the outsiders. Those content with this arrangement obviously view themselves as insiders even when they work for companies that are actively shedding employees. Many of these people are happy to be making good money for digging shallow graves, never stopping to wonder if maybe someday one of those graves might be their own.”
Our “empire of illusion,” slips its velvet noose around our consciousness and our consciences, and dilutes our wills along with our focus. And so we ignore signs of impending disaster, apparently trusting in some unseen force to make it all right, or at least to make it all work out somehow, as if arrogantly believing that God will protect this place regardless of the actions or inactions of its inhabitants. The planet degrades, global capitalism brings not blessings but hardships and cruelty to many, we remain addicted to declining fossil fuels (a measure of insanity in every way), the near-collapse of financial markets via casino capitalism is followed by no true reform and so full collapse always looms as a possibility, and the dangers and connections of overpopulation almost never intrude on our delusive and illusive processes that pass for conscious thought.
Morality and decency effectively get obliterated. Hedges: “Education, building communities, honesty, transparency, and sharing are qualities that will see you, in a gross perversion of democracy and morality, voted off a reality show. Fellow competitors for prize money and a chance for fleeting fame elect to ‘disappear’ (Professor’s Note: an ominous word, bringing to mind the disappeared of Latin American countries from death squads and secret prisons) the unwanted. Life, these shows teach, is a brutal world of unadulterated competition. Life is about the personal humiliation of those who oppose us. Those who lose deserve to be erased. Compassion, competence, intelligence, and solidarity with others are forms of weakness.” (30)
This book is a rich treasure, to be mined for a plethora of gems and jewels. It is also like a wake-up jolt from a real Morpheus disconnecting us from the Matrix, to live in reality as human beings, not as manipulated slaves of illusion at every turn.
I have a lot more to expel on just this breath of wind alone. But this is a good pausing point. Back to you Madame!
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