N.W.O.
Politics.
Sometimes I wonder if it is possible to talk of anything else. Living in the DC Metro area, one tends to get the rather skewed perception that we are the center of the known universe (I’ll leave out the Dune references for those of you that are not total geeks). The News (print and media) are saturated with the smallest goings on of government, both local and federal (although they might as well be the same thing around here). I don’t even work on the hill and I feel dirty from it.
So what do I do? What every blogger does about it, of course – I write about it. After all isn’t that what blogging is for? To bitch about politics and vicariously live someone else’s sex life? (Unless of course you are on Live Journal, then of course you do it with bad grammar and all the drama of a High School lunchroom.)
Jesus Christ. It is like that bastard child of entertainment we call “reality” television without the little talking pictures. We want this garbage. We must, after all there is so much of it. Well, it is either that or the “entertainment” industry has completely run out of ideas. Oh who am I kidding? They HAVE run completely out of ideas. (There is a point here. Really, there is.) We (as a society) get the celebrities we deserve. We elevate these people and give them their 15 minutes of fame, thus holding true to the American ideal that you can be anything you want. That class/ race/ what have you are not a barrier to celebrity. Indeed, sometimes it is those very things that make celebrity (think Paris Hilton).
The Jeffersonian in me is screaming at the decline, it is crying in fact. Celebrity has become our drug of choice. Any one can be a celebrity; it doesn’t take talent to be one. God knows you can look at the current bumper crop of pop “divas” to see that. So talent is no prerequisite. Then what is it? Why do we idolize these people? Are they inherently better than us? More talented? Prettier? Cooler? It is like grade school all over again.
Is this really the decline of western civilization as we know it? Was Jefferson right? That we lost honor and began the decline when we stopped holding up the working man/woman as an ideal and began the cult of celebrity? I can (and occasionally do) point to what could be considered concrete examples of the decline and why we are going to fail (or, to put it in biblical terms – why we have become Babylon the Great, Babylon the Fallen, or Babylon the Harlot.) We look for excuses and refuse to take responsibility for our actions (trying to define the word “is” – come on guys).
We have to be better than this. Look at what we accomplished in a few short (hundred) years. I read somewhere once that we are creating two Americas or at least two kinds of Americans. Maybe they were right. Maybe we are making two Americas, one that harkens back to the Jeffersonian ideal of hard work and responsibility and one that tries to parse the word “is” and ends up furthering the decline.
I’m sure I could relate this back to the current presidential race, thus making a neat segue back to my original point, but I will not. Instead I choose to treat you, the reader, with some modicum of respect. I assume you have some modicum of intelligence, that you can make up your mind on the “issues” (read "issues" as “Whose image is better suited to hastening the decline”).
Part of me is like:
Weird thoughts for weird times.
More news from the front later.
PS - I know I jump around a lot. Too much coffee and too many stream of thought novels will do this to you. Take note kids.
Sometimes I wonder if it is possible to talk of anything else. Living in the DC Metro area, one tends to get the rather skewed perception that we are the center of the known universe (I’ll leave out the Dune references for those of you that are not total geeks). The News (print and media) are saturated with the smallest goings on of government, both local and federal (although they might as well be the same thing around here). I don’t even work on the hill and I feel dirty from it.
So what do I do? What every blogger does about it, of course – I write about it. After all isn’t that what blogging is for? To bitch about politics and vicariously live someone else’s sex life? (Unless of course you are on Live Journal, then of course you do it with bad grammar and all the drama of a High School lunchroom.)
Jesus Christ. It is like that bastard child of entertainment we call “reality” television without the little talking pictures. We want this garbage. We must, after all there is so much of it. Well, it is either that or the “entertainment” industry has completely run out of ideas. Oh who am I kidding? They HAVE run completely out of ideas. (There is a point here. Really, there is.) We (as a society) get the celebrities we deserve. We elevate these people and give them their 15 minutes of fame, thus holding true to the American ideal that you can be anything you want. That class/ race/ what have you are not a barrier to celebrity. Indeed, sometimes it is those very things that make celebrity (think Paris Hilton).
The Jeffersonian in me is screaming at the decline, it is crying in fact. Celebrity has become our drug of choice. Any one can be a celebrity; it doesn’t take talent to be one. God knows you can look at the current bumper crop of pop “divas” to see that. So talent is no prerequisite. Then what is it? Why do we idolize these people? Are they inherently better than us? More talented? Prettier? Cooler? It is like grade school all over again.
Is this really the decline of western civilization as we know it? Was Jefferson right? That we lost honor and began the decline when we stopped holding up the working man/woman as an ideal and began the cult of celebrity? I can (and occasionally do) point to what could be considered concrete examples of the decline and why we are going to fail (or, to put it in biblical terms – why we have become Babylon the Great, Babylon the Fallen, or Babylon the Harlot.) We look for excuses and refuse to take responsibility for our actions (trying to define the word “is” – come on guys).
We have to be better than this. Look at what we accomplished in a few short (hundred) years. I read somewhere once that we are creating two Americas or at least two kinds of Americans. Maybe they were right. Maybe we are making two Americas, one that harkens back to the Jeffersonian ideal of hard work and responsibility and one that tries to parse the word “is” and ends up furthering the decline.
I’m sure I could relate this back to the current presidential race, thus making a neat segue back to my original point, but I will not. Instead I choose to treat you, the reader, with some modicum of respect. I assume you have some modicum of intelligence, that you can make up your mind on the “issues” (read "issues" as “Whose image is better suited to hastening the decline”).
Part of me is like:
“Fuck it – bring on the decline. The sooner it falls – the sooner we can rebuild.”
Weird thoughts for weird times.
More news from the front later.
PS - I know I jump around a lot. Too much coffee and too many stream of thought novels will do this to you. Take note kids.
posted by depressoboy at 11:44 AM
2 Comments:
Hee hee...
Well! Stream-of-consciousness is the correct term... and they ARE interesting reading, I would say.
I don't care much about politics- not enough to write extensively about it, at least. I have enough to fill my mind and my time with already...
As for LiveJournal... hey, I use LiveJournal and I have more or less perfect language!
This is more of a silly sort of post, 'cos I'm really groggy from essay writing. Sorry to be filling up your mailbox with crap.
I know that I used the incorrect term. It is ok. I occasionally do that for fun.
I would rather not care about politics, but the way our president and his opponent are running the campaign this year, I seem to have little choice. I suppose that is part of the chore of growing up, accepting some civic responsibility - if nothing else, staying informed enough to vote on an issue. Many of my peers do not do that. Apathy, like a drug, has taken over my generation.
As for live journal, I use it too. It was just sort of a backhanded jab at the drama I have seen happen, even on my own friends list.
Do not worry about filling up my mailbox, I would rather talk to people than not.
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