The World We Live In

This week has been a merry-go-round in a lot of ways. Instead of enumerating all of that I want to try to get to the higher-order thinking I've been doing. My face contorts in disgust when I see yet another liberal screed on some well-connected political 'news' site, hammering on the same ideals over and over again as if a continuous stream of complaints is the secret to fixing everything that is wrong with this country and the world that exists around us.

We rail against corrupt politicians and evil corporations, all the while wearing their clothes, sitting in front of their television shows, and sucking down their sugary drinks without giving it a second thought. We blame advertising, we blame the previous generation for not doing as great a job as the previously-previous generation; in this self-centred world it seems the only thing that doesn't revolve around the ego these days is responsibility for the fucked up sorry state of absolutely everything else.

We sit here and rationalize this: 'oh, I watch Koffee with Karan, I listen to News, I know what's really going on,' but that doesn't actually mean anything. You're a demographic. You buy Apple products because you're cool enough to walk around with them. Their advertisements told you so. Maybe you like Karan because he's funny. Or because he's gay. Either way, Program Operator knows who you are. They are targeting you with that program. You're just another part of the same old machine doing the same old thing.


But this is all old hat. Many say things, few act upon them. Why? Because there are only a few ways you can go. You can write poetry, music, theatre, make movies, but this eventually gets labeled as 'culture' and very little heed is paid to it

We do lack good information, that I will admit. It's almost impossible to find any sort of news or commentary that isn't irreparably twinged with bias one way or the other (it sells better that way, you know). The line has blurred so much between news and entertainment, truth vs. speculation — but gossip and bombast have always sold more reliably than facts and figures anyway.

So I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We are in trouble. And nobody knows what to do. We're all too busy with our twitter accounts and our facebook updates, concerned about our love lives and this all-consuming struggle to be happy in a world that is constantly pushing us to be anything but. We are the victims of our own hubris, this ridiculous thought that if we teach the children to step all over each other in their struggles to get ahead, the collective populace will eventually end up better-off. That somehow this pervasive culture of resentful, adversarial materialism will yield prosperity and harmony for all of god's creatures.

I used to think that I would only be an ideas man, but I'm starting to realize that advocacy for knowledge and understanding is also on the wane. Soon we'll all be stupid and apathetic. Post-secondary education will be little more than a few practical lessons in how to exploit the rest of the world's idiots for moderate personal gain, and that's all anyone is going to want.

Where are the titans? Where are the visionaries? What are we going to do?