We Like to Watch...

Yes... it's true... I usually refer to George Orwell and "1984," as the template for our modern dystopia, but it's actually Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," that we more closely resemble, especially here in good, old, USA. Don't get me wrong, we really are the children of Winston Smith, but Huxley's notion that we will "voluntarily sacrifice our rights," we will willingly give up our data, we will gladly submit to the surveilance state just for the ability to shop more efficiently is right on the mark.

Also Huxley is spot on with the idea that "people will medicate themselves into bliss." So many of us rely on the pharmaceuticals to get us to a bliss state. It's seems like a certain madness. How many folks do you know who have that glassy-eyed look? They are legion. There are the mood enhancers, the pain-killers, how many drugs do we have to load up on to face the reality of the day? There is a whole contingent of Pharma-Stepford-Folks!

How do we take Joseph Campbell's advice to "follow our bliss," when it's a manufactured state of our daily chemical cocktail? Purple Haze, baby. Can we face the day stone-cold sober? Can we find bliss then? Might be a bit more hard-earned, but probably more worthwhile. Just a thought.

We don't freaking read anymore. We just like to watch. Let the images fly over our eyeballs.  You know there's that famous Neil Postman book: "Amusing Ourselves to Death." Roger Waters made a record inspired by that book too.

"Postman asserts the presentation of television news is a form of entertainment programming; arguing that the inclusion of theme music, the interruption of commercials, and "talking hairdos" bear witness that televised news cannot readily be taken seriously. Postman further examines the differences between written speech, which he argues reached its prime in the early to mid-nineteenth century, and the forms of televisual communication, which rely mostly on visual images to "sell" lifestyles. He argues that, owing to this change in public discourse, politics has ceased to be about a candidate's ideas and solutions, but whether he comes across favorably on television."

Yes. Well. Not a new idea. We are living in a Reality TV World. What is on the screen is reflected in what's happening in our neighborhoods. So yeah, no one "reads the fucking report," everyone just watches the TV show... and it's all about how did the show go.

You actually end up with a Reality TV Buffoon running the fucking Government... what the fuck! Wake up, folks! This is not a show. It is your freaking life!