Amused to Death

Neil Postman's groundbreaking report about the effects of TV on society might as well have been dropped in a bucket of fire, because things have gotten much worse.

Americans are the best-informed people in the history of the world but are also the most entranced by entertainment. This has created the unexpected side effect of distancing themselves from any real unpleasantness that they could be exposed to. Most of them behave as though they bear no personal responsibility for the deep human suffering all around them, and no obligation to try and alleviate it.
The world is like one big media show, featuring Paris, Jacko, and Saddam, a made-for-TV spectacle. They can change the channel if things get too ugly or uninteresting. Or just turn the television off. Genuine social consciousness has disappeared into the void.

For example: we are still at war in Iraq and Afganistan and the people who masterminded the attacks that killed 3,000 Americans are still living fat. Here in America, which is just now emerging from the recession, there are more homeless people than at any time since accurate records started being kept in the late 1970's. "It's the greatest number of homeless since the Great Depression," says Patrick Markee, a policy analyst with the Coalition for the Homeless. A survey of 25 cities showed an increase of 17 percent in requests for emergency food assistance and an increase of 13 percent in requests for emergency shelter.

A surge in botox and breast implants is news. Surges in hunger and homelessness are not. Issues like infant mortality, children in poverty, teenage suicide, heath insurance coverage and homicide rates are simply not at the forefront of social issues discussed or even known by Americans precisely because those issues are a downer. Why discuss that when we can discuss whether Tom and Kate’s relationship is a publicity stunt or whether the person voted off of the Bachelorette as a good decision or not?

The problem is not that people aren’t discussing these issues 24/7 because we do, after all, need to enjoy ourselves as well. The problem is that most people know much more about reality show news or celebrity gossip than real issues that are considerably more important to the well being of our country’s social, political and economic fabric. “Reality” has come to define pop culture instead of the living history of the modern world which, put simply, is an inaccurate view of the world and is twisting the human identity into mimics of the very TV personalities that are supposed to reflect “reality.” The results are people copying copies. Bush should worry more about these clones than the beneficial clones from stem cells that can cure diseases and solve some of the very problems that the public is unaware of. Perhaps the solution to making people pay more attention to real problems doesn’t lie in erasing the throng of mind-numbing programs, but instead finding a way to make reality amusing.

The Dismantling of Rob's ego

I write all the time. Too often I’d say. I work for the bloody UCLA Writing Project. I’ve been also busy with graduate school apps so when I have some free time I’ve felt less inclined to work on big personal narrative pieces. Therefore, I will showcase this fine following piece that I discovered while inebriated and bored one evening looking through my journal. For I do write almost daily about some kind of philosophical, theological, spiritual, political, historical, or personal issue that happens. If for nothing else, writing so often simply makes me a better writer for school. So the content is actually less important. But it’s a time that I get to just get something out, without formats, without rules, without having to worry about it slipping into the wrong hands. I mean, anyone can read it if I put it up here. And sometimes it’s not the best thing to share your most inner thoughts with people you don’t even know, or even people that you do know. It’s simply risky and unnecessary. Whenever you write for someone else is always different than if you’re just writing for yourself. The manner is different. The topic is different. There’s no need to be sensitive to anyone, “correct” on an issue, responsible to anyone. There are no boundaries. And that’s how writing is meant to be. Raw. Like music, like art, like everything else that’s good. The most unrefined, truly coarse and original stuff is always the best. I’m one of those guys that like demos better than albums. I love live shows.
So I’ve decided to share with you some of my journal writing. What I’ve done is taken the first line off every page and just placed them in sequence. Below they will be separated by “…”. I found some parts to be funny, some boring, others interesting. If you’re into this kind of shit, enjoy, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Unless you’re inebriated. Anything can be interesting then.

I really like this book. Ive been…This is because that individual sees…seeking in this life to never come back…doing the main storytelling. Hip-hop…Americans of this country. Everyone else…everyone who pays taxes should have a vested…and reasons that we are supposed…I am not going to try to force…Important lesson: when all else fails; try love…the case) how could I with a good… They must realize it by themselves…I feel like shit right now. I hate ignorance so…People have always seen my…So I’m done with finals. I am…and do something about the world. Or…This is the first morning that I…I just got back from watching…this generates hatred. And it calls…Well I just have to write this…Fulbright has me buying new books…brother - he’s a “big boy,” meaning…I am writing during my lunch break…I’m going to go now because I…I am sick. I am truly addicted to…the last journal entry, although a while…forming more and more negative opinions about…beginning of things that I will be…to a lifestyle, a culture, a way of life…a worth on things. Always find out…I have wanted to do this for a while…Well I might as well make a list…the American culture – or at least favor…Shane, his cousin, and Nick came…I also thought about the “what ifs”…what character to expect when I talk to…funny, in the past I’d say that…your first impulse should be: 2:45 am?...finish it (the personal)…page paper that I’m turning into…you can tell if something is art…Some people’s lives change after art…soldiers. They must believe they are…All this time has passed…while I could with Nagyi. Waiting…I don’t have much time to write…God it feels good. I’ve lost too…I think my greatest strength is…so quickly and, as I have seen…in applying for a Fulbright. Everything…Today I thought about my goth…I had strong political convictions, I’m…Its late and I have work tomorrow…I know that it sucks and I could’ve…When you hear the call to write…the natural human tendency to forget God…from it. It’s a difficult read, but…I have to write at least once…common and are the most alike…For what do we do this?...You don’t want to write for…And finally reading the New…Why do I press on so hard?...that one might always calculate in…things grow through caring…I just finished Dante’s Divine…human understanding, I feel more…Today was so amazing, I’m just…that I really didn’t want to…since February (in real life I am…money I have ever won…So did my prayer have anything…”We will always be at war”…Excellent job by Bush…very happy guy in 2013. I’ll…Does God want us to be productive…I really need to prepare for…Write down dream about…I steadily built up my rhythm…of joy, I woke up. But as I…I know now why I was…I’m actually quite sad right…they appreciated the highest high…inherently bad, but I believe…My Mom is way too proactive

Bohemian Rhapsody

I'm actually in the middle of something that I want to completely finish before I post it, although I might split it into two posts. We’ll see. It's quite different from anything I've posted so far. Much more introspective, poetic, and narrative. It's not about current events, hot-button issues, or (my apparent favorite) preachy in any sort of way. I had written a couple things that I wanted to publish - ranting on about the potential misuses and harms of the internet, and how everyone is trapped in their own matrix - but both times I stopped myself because I'm tired of displaying my displeasure to everyone. If you think luxury and fast cars and easy women are the best things since sliced bread, have it your way. I'm not going to stop you. I'm not even going to tell you that they're bad. Because that's not what I'm about. But somehow, it comes across that way in my blogs. I want to make people think, but I come off as arrogant and preachy. I know because people have been telling me this my whole life. So I just want to mix it up a little. Still give people something to think about, without the condemning part. Sounds good huh? You have no idea. So to keep your mind busy rolling up that rock only to have it perpetually fall back down again, here are some lyrics to put yer shoulder into...

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, No escape from reality
Open your eyes, Look up to the skies and see,
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go, Little high, little low
Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me, to me

Mama, just killed a man, Put a gun against his head
Pulled my trigger, now he's dead
Mama, life had just begun
But now I've gone and thrown it all away
Mama, ooh, Didn't mean to make you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters

Too late, my time has come
Sends shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time
Goodbye, ev'rybody, I've got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama, ooh, I don't want to die
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

(tell me you just read this without singing it and I won't believe you)

Where's the love?

Young people are afraid of making commitments, and the point is that love is commitment, and much more. Commitment is a word invented in our abstract modernity to signify the absence of any real motives in the soul for moral dedication. Commitment is gratuitous, motiveless, because the real passions are all low and selfish. One may be sexually attracted, but that does not, so people think, provide a sufficient motive for real and lasting concern for one another.

Part of the inability to make a commitment results from an ideology of the feelings. There is so much jealousy and possessiveness among people that the fear of getting hurt or losing someone has killed any motive for real and lasting concern. Moreover, the emphasis of authenticity in life has made it impossible to trust one’s own instinct. Why should a man or a woman be jealous if his or her partner has sex with someone else? A serious person today does not want to force the feelings of others. The same goes for possessiveness. The result is disassociation from commitment as well as from real love. It also makes me feel like I am living in a world of robots.

This ideology only works for people who have no experience of the feelings, have never loved, have abstracted from the texture of life. These people will never fear Othello’s fate. Kill for love! What can that mean? It may very well be that their distance is a suppression of feelings, an anxiety about getting hurt. But it also might be the real thing. People may have developed a new kind of soul. The availability of sexual possibilities is nothing new to today’s generation. But their lack of passion, hope and despair is incomprehensible to me.

“Relationships,” not love affairs, are what people have. Love suggests something wonderful, exciting, positive and firmly seated in the passions. A relationship is gray, amorphous, suggestive of a project, without a given content, and tentative. You work at a relationship, whereas love takes care of itself. In a relationship the difficulties come first, and there is a search for common ground. Love, on the other hand, is an illusion of perfection to the imagination and is forgetful of all the natural fissures in human connection.

I’m not saying that these people will be unable to live happy lives. But their conception of love cannot provide the soul with images of the beautiful, and it will remain coarse and slack. It is not that they will fail to adorn or idealize the world; it is that they will not see what is really there.