Americans live in a corporatized, media paradise of non-stop sports, entertainment (often masquerading as news), and artificial dramas. Grasping Reality, which is always a considerable challenge for humans under "normal" circumstances, is flat-out impossible in this environment.
On 1950's TV, they used to say that this [game, news, entertainment, drama] is brought to you by some sponsor which paid for the programming. Once this paradigm was put into place, Reality didn't stand a chance. Now, there is hardly any separation between the regular programming and the advertisements. It appears that our corporate overlords would prefer that you not be able to tell the difference, and really, there is no difference.
The "commercials" which are inserted among the programming always feature unbelievably dumb and unconscious people—they are skilled actors—but then again, so does the programming. The Urban Dictionary calls this Commercial Dumb.
Commercial dumb is the idiocy the people in TV commercials tend to show. They say and do things that no one in their right mind would ever do in reality. And the others in the ad are so dumb that they don't even find that behavior bizarre.
I am told this is done intentionally, and I can certainly believe it because conscious, discriminating people can not be so easily manipulated, and therefore can not be shown swallowing the kool-aid. Dumbing down in commercials must work or else the advertisers wouldn't do it.
This media world is a fantasy world, but it's not just any fantasy world — it has been specifically designed with you in mind. Underlying every single thing you see on TV, in the movies, and at the most popular web sites like the Huffington Post or The Business Insider, there is a commercial motive. Somebody is trying to sell you something. Otherwise, the fantasy world would not exist.
I am describing a horrible nightmare, some weird combination of Huxley and Orwell which neither could have foreseen.
Yesterday I asked is this the best the humans can do?
Let me expand on that a bit with respect to this 21st century fantasy world, which seems to some to be an exclusively American world.
From the start, America was an experiment. Madison, Jefferson, and all the rest were men of the 18th century Enlightenment. But we don't have enlightenment; we have a horrible nightmare. What went wrong?
Nothing went wrong. In the American experiment, as described in its founding documents, Americans were explicitly given the right to act freely, including freedom from overbearing religious intolerance, which had dominated most previous complex human societies. The history of Progress tracks the expansion of those rights. There is much more I could say about this, but suffice it to say that the American experiment gave birth to the nightmarish world we live in today.
That said, the American experiment can also be viewed as a human experiment. In short, if you allow humans to act freely in accordance with their nature, what you see (the commercial fantasy) is what you will eventually get. That's why America is special, and that's why I don't worry much about cultural variation, especially in so-called traditional, often authoritarian cultures which are still dominated by religion.
Other cultures did not implement this experiment, at least to the degree to which the Americans did. If you take any modern human society, and give the people in it the freedom to act as we did in the United States, you will eventually get some version of our corporate commercial paradise.
In short, the corporation itself, which is nearly a pure expression of commercial human interests, is also a "natural" product of Enlightenment freedom and human rights. I don't much believe in contingency in human affairs. Beneath the surface, American "culture" is not an accident, it is not merely a product of random historical events. It can not be, although it is often viewed that way, if we consider this technological "improvement" or that convenient interpretation of the law over time.
Contingency is overrated. Human societies do not arise out of the some vacuum. They do not arise out of the famous "blank slate" which appeals to and comforts so many people (usually intellectuals) because it permits them the illusion of Free Will. All societies reflect the nature of the humans who created them. America is not an exception, of course, but it is special in the way I've briefly described.
These may strike you as a radical statements, and really, all this is one of my working hypotheses about the way humans work. To say that the American corporate fantasy is simply an arbitrary cultural product does not explain its awesome power and persuasiveness, and its universal appeal. Something very deep is going on here.
The usual political reform story, which says we can overthrow our commercial overlords and return to a more equitable, less cutthroat "natural" state, has little historical or contemporary evidence to support it.
The dog-eat-dog American commercial fantasy appears to me to be a natural outcome of unprecedented freedom of human action. American "culture" is what humans can "achieve", if that's the right word, given the opportunity and means to do so. Nothing mysterious or perverted is going on here in the United States.
I'll talk about this in more detail at some future date. It's Friday, I'm burned out. There will be a remedy tomorrow, and I'll (probably) have some new material for you on Monday.
Have a nice weekend.
In this culture (called "Western" or "American" or whatever) we have a system whereby the elite control both the hardware (governmental control) and the software (informational programming received by the citzenry, i.e. the media and educational agendas) without the need for religious control. You're right in that this formula is seen in religion-dominated cultures, too. The classic examples would be the Islamic states or feudal Christian states. Again, the elite control the hardware and software (although they lack the high-octane commercial agenda that we have).
It's probably true that America becoming the America of today was inevitable. We have rushed it along with some of the choices we've made along the way, but it's likely we would have gotten here eventually.
My notion is almost certainly utopian, but it's just that a society with a more democratic form of control on the hardware and software sides COULD produce a different outcome, at least in the short-term. But all things end, and the highest probability would be eventual elite control.
On American culture's popularity: this appeal is driven simply by the promise of living a more comfortable life, which as you know is simply a function of energy and resource inputs. And also as you know, with a high enough adoption rate, this does lead to one outcome.
Dave, you can't affect the hardware end of our culture, but you CAN affect the software end for at least a handful of us. I know it's a lot to ask, though. Thanks again.
Posted by: Jim | 04/19/2013 at 12:03 PM