Not quite sure where to begin here, except to say that right now I feel I am holding on to my sanity like a hopeless bum clings to a fifth of bourbon, as he huddles next to a fiery trashcan in a filthy alley on a blustery Northern night, wrapped in a urine-soaked Army jacket. I know that’s all so poetic and exaggerated, as I sit in my comfortable, tastefully-decorated Los Angeles apartment, listening to good music, drinking bourbon and Coke, and typing on my thousand-dollar laptop. All the same, the sentiment rings true, the emotions are there, for however long they may persist, and there you have it. From the heart. Honest.
I have some work lined up for three days this week and plans to drive up to San Francisco to spend Thanksgiving among friends, so it’s not like I am going to lose my shirt and/or starve to death and die alone and be forgotten. But there’s just such a dreary, world-weary, give-up-the-fight, what’s-the-point-of-trying-to-make-it-in-this-shitty-world wave of emotion riding up through me that I can’t ignore it. I must explore it, I must put it to paper and see where my thoughts lead me.
To clear up a point, I am not suicidal. In fact, as I sat through “Good Night and Good Luck” this afternoon, as the report of one of the newsmen’s suicide came across, I thought to myself “what the fuck is the point of suicide? Why would anyone choose to give up on life? Why not live for your ideals, live for yourself, live for the possibility of something better to come along?” Move to Mexico, hide in the mountains, and live off the land.
I say this because I feel just as cynical about the world today, a world far worse than the world of McCarthy-era Red Scare politics and the fear of nuclear war, if you can believe that.
Because I live in a world--“we” live in a world--that has swallowed that whole now-hilarious episode and not learned from it one bit.
Because we live in a world that is, in actuality, MORE vulnerable to nuclear annihilation, or some other worse fate our beloved scientists might be dreaming up right this very moment--beneath a football stadium near you!
Because we live in a world where people believe what their corrupt politicians tell them, what their corporate-biased news anchors tell them, what greedy deranged televangelists tell them, and what their own debased morals and warped thought-processes lead them to believe all on their own.
Because we live in a democratic world where the majority rules and the sad reality is the majority of this country, and the world, aren’t intelligent and tolerant enough to prudently govern themselves. Not that I’m saying I know of any political system that would rule more effectively than our American pseudo-democracy--I’m not that arrogant or deluded--but rather that this world has arrived at a point where we are unable to effectively function at all, under any political system, with any ruling class, elected or otherwise.
I was reading “Point, Counter Point” earlier this afternoon, as I could say of almost any afternoon for the last two months because it has been taking me an inordinate amount of time to read through this particular Huxley novel, and not for the first time, a passage struck me as particularly astute, even today, many decades after it was written. The two most intelligent characters, of the dozens that play a part in the story, were having a discussion about the future of the world, the future of society, the future of man, and the causes of the problems man and society are facing. A very broad topic that essentially boiled down to the fact that, over the last several hundred years-- or more, but at the very least since the onset of the industrial revolution-- man has been systematically bringing about its own demise with great ignorant glee by subjugating itself to the machine and absurdly specialized labor, all in the name of progress.
One of the characters, Mark Rampion, suggested that if the world is to be salvaged for his children, then we must abandon the machine and the youth must be taught to exist as “natural beings.” In other words, as I understand it, as men and women who are able to survive in this world by themselves: hunter-gatherers, free-thinkers, versatile laborers, consummate social beings. They must learn to have emotion, tolerance, free-thinking critical intelligence; they must know how to love and respect and provide.
Decades later, things are much worse than probably even Huxley could have imagined. Men and women across the globe have master’s degrees in useless fields like “communication consulting” and “public relations” and “financial management.” Where would these people be, should the fabric of society be rent irrevocably and we were to subsist on our individual skillsets? If money couldn’t buy you respect and admiration and survival? They would starve to death, they would have no idea how to survive on their own, and, ironically for some, no idea of how to actually, effectively communicate with people who aren’t begging to be TOLD something, to be brainwashed.
“Communications” today is a one-way street. People study how to convincingly TELL people what they want and how they can give it to them for X dollars. The American people, and by extension all those in Europe and Asia and beyond who have become an extension of the great corporate-conquistador, America, no longer devote any time to actually thinking for themselves, doing research, DOUBTING what somebody in authority tells them, thinking critically about issues of political, social, or moral importance. They are too busy consuming, keeping up with the Joneses, escaping into one of the many products put forth by the $10 billion a year video game industry, or the inane world of homogenized television sitcoms or forensic dramas or tough-cop series or manipulated-“reality” shows. They are too busy racing cigarette boats across man-made reservoirs or sun-tanning on billion-dollar cruise ships or downloading crappy over-produced drivel from the corporate music industry or being scared of terrorists or trying to survive after a hurricane wiped clean their life’s slate. Or, as is the case for most, too busy working two or three minimum-wage jobs to afford baby formula, McDonald’s cheeseburgers, and a volatile tenement home.
We shake our heads with disbelief at a time when McCarthyism went unchallenged by the popular media (til Murrow), without stopping to realize (most of us) that we live in an even MORE restrictive media environment today. One that derides “leftist” protests against our President or our Congress or our nation’s foreign policy. Any attempt to question a matter of policy, or speak out against an alleged wrong, is met with dismissive ridicule. Rights are violated, speech is suppressed, events are fabricated. These “crazed leftists” (read: Communists! Terrorists!) threw stones at honest blue-collar policeman! They hate freedom! They wish Al-Queda lived in the White House! They all read these ridiculous things on the Internet, these lies, these fabricated stories that say your government is dishonest, manipulative, greedy, selfish, and hypocritical! Never mind the truth behind it; the truth will never get out. Nobody believes the educated and honest minority.
At least, until they become the majority. As soon as the opinion poll of 100 people at a North Carolina NASCAR event reveals that 51% of the “country” doubt their President’s integrity, wheels roll into motion. The “hard-working, truth-seeking” press that “works for you” suddenly starts to question the President and our government. But not before, because until that number breaks fifty those 49% are all communist quacks who hate freedom and don’t believe in God. Why? Because, as an obscure man named DJ Quik once said, “if it don’t make dollaz, it don’t make sense.”
Our media panders to the majority because that is where the money is. They are businesses. The media is not unbiased, can never be unbiased, as long as they exist to make money. They are, in fact, INHERENTLY biased. They depend on advertising revenue, which is based on viewer/readership. Why would they report unfavorable information, no matter how true? Do you think FoxNews would ever report that NewsCorp was found guilty of tax fraud? That would be absurd. Do you think Universal Pictures would ever release a movie that showed the world the environmental atrocities committed by its parent company, General Electric NBC Universal?
Media aside, however, the scariest thought I had today is that even if 100% of the country thought our President lied to us, and our government helped him lie to us, and the media and corporate world conspired to help them all accomplish this, what recourse is there? Are we to fire our entire government and start over? Are we honestly to believe that this new government wouldn’t eventually end up equally as arrogant, manipulative, and selfish? Who, when given the power men and women in government have, would not end up serving their own interests?
And what does it all matter anyway when the country is actually ruled by big businessmen who are not elected, people who never do the time for crimes even when they’re convicted? Occasionally, when offenses become too egregious, are too obvious, can actually be proven, accidentally get leaked to a rival media conglomerate that acts out of pure self-interest, corporations go down (Arthur Anderson, Enron, WorldCom, etc.). But do the orchestrators of these massive swindles ever truly “pay the price” for their arrogance and deceit? Nope. They get a slap on the wrist, pay a fine equal to perhaps 5% of what they stole, if we’re lucky, and then move on to head up some other company, the taxpayers foot the bill, if any, and we all collectively forget.
We forget because nobody in the media follows up or demands that anything be done. Because the entire system we have set up feeds into the corporation. Who funds political campaigns? Powerful corporations and the individuals who are rich as a result of working for or owning stock in those corporations. Who owns the media? Powerful corporations. Who pays for television shows, radio programming, newspapers, magazines, websites? Powerful corporations, through advertising dollars. Who can afford, in this competitive environment, to lose a sponsor? Who wants to shoot themselves in the foot?
How do we expect anyone to serve justice when everyone lives only to serve themselves? When everyone strives to make it rich at any cost? When job security preempts any moral judgment? How do we ever expect to change this? Socialism? Right. The mere word would cause 80% of this God-fearing, terrorist-fighting, “freedom”-loving nation to hurl rocks at each other until we all lie bloody and cold.
And yet, socialism is no worse and no better. It is just as flawed. Why? Because at the heart of it lies faith in your fellow man. We would have to have faith that everyone does their fair share, that those who work for the state have the interest of the people at heart, that nobody will become corrupt, that nobody will take advantage of anyone else. How on Earth would that ever happen? Man is too corrupt, too selfish, too lazy, too gluttonous by nature to ever allow any kind of fairness into the world, to ever allow harmony and ‘goodwill toward men’ to actually overpower the evil within us.
And so here we are...hopeless. Pessimistic, negative, demented...or is it? Has there ever been an organization of men that could prove wrong anything I have said? Has there ever been a period of man’s existence where there was no war, no fighting, no back-stabbing, no gluttony, no dishonesty, no selfishness? How could we ever think that by INCREASING the population, INCREASING the ethnic, religious, and political diversity, that we would have a BETTER chance at peace and harmony? Who would ever think that by downgrading every man, woman, and child to a cog in the wheel of industry, we would increase happiness, satisfaction, morality, and honesty? The only way we can combat the dreary conclusion to the human experiment which at this point is, more or less, unavoidable extinction by our own hands, a suicide of sorts, is to, as Mark Rampion, and by extension Aldous Huxley, suggests-- rewind to a simpler time. Forget the machine, forget specialization of labor, forget “progress.” Get back to nature. Invest in man, instead of the machine, instead of profit. Would it work? Doubtful, but it seems our only chance.
Do you think we’ll take it? Do you think 51% of the world would ever request that opportunity? Doubtful.
Why? Because there ain’t no money in it.
