Saturday, October 01, 2005
The Present Crisis
One of the most exasperating aspects of this moment in America is the willingness of so many people who are basically decent, to believe the absolute worst of those who disagree with them. We are challenged by enemies who take no notice of our differences, which seem colossal to us. Faced with a choice between a spitting, hostile Rush-attuned conservative and a liberal waving a Fahrenheit 9/11 ticket stub, they will cheerfully saw the heads off BOTH. Repeatedly, events have shown that these enemies recognize no limits, nor place any restraints on themselves. They are the fanatical Islamic jihadists, who are slaughtering their own coreligionists as busily as they are Westerners, attempting to impose their “pure” Islam around the world.
This not new. There have always been humans who yield only to greater force, not civilized appeals to fairness or negotiation. In just the last century many TENS of MILLIONS of defenseless civilians have been slaughtered by their own governments, calmly, systematically, without particular passion. Much of that has gone forward during the lulls between the great conflicts that riveted our attention. Yet, despite ample evidence to the contrary, there are many Americans who insist that our own government generally, and George Bush in particular, are the only persons in the world we need to fear.
Back in the mists of time--- in the 1960's--- Marshall McCluhan described the world's transformation into a single “global village” resulting from the connection made by instantaneous communications. His phrase “The Medium is the Message” conveyed a hopeful conjecture that television was helping us shed the chrysalis that had bound and blinded us for centuries.
He proposed the notion that human society was evolving toward a higher consciousness as we shifted from the LINEARITY imposed on our thought processing by the linearity of the characters (Oh, cruel hobbling technology hoary with age!) printed on a page. That higher consciousness was supposed to be able to handle the emerging everything - at - once - all - the - time - for - the - rest - of - our - lives culture, unfolding first as the “cool” auditory medium of radio, then through the “hot” visual medium of television.
The good doctor McLuhan made these observations at a time when there were — count them — THREE national TV networks in the U. S. of A. Depending on where you lived, you might not even have access to all three of those. (Among the seven or eight folks reading this, I'm sure there are some who've never known a time when you only had THREE channels to choose from. But, believe it; it's true.)
In the late 1960's when Marshall McLuhan's ideas were reaching the general public, television sets were only able to deal with 13 VHF channels and maybe a handful of UHF channels. The number of LOCAL stations broadcasting regular programming in VHF in 1950 was about 100; the total did not increase even past 200 until 1980 after several critical refinements in signal broadcast stabilization and reception technology, changes in legislation and FCC regulatory changes, and availability of consumer tv sets that incorporated all the improvements. What a genius McLuhan must have been to dimly see the future from that juvenile state of affairs!
Well, it's been pointed out that any idiot in 1900 should have been able to predict mass production would make the automobile commonplace, but it takes a far-seeing mind to anticipate nationwide traffic jams. It would have taken some similar transcendent wisdom to foresee that having hundreds and hundreds of information sources to choose from, the most privileged and wealthy populace of the world would almost universally choose to watch “Gilligan's Island” “Baywatch” and so-called reality programming where acting-school wannabes directed by fourth-rate producers throw fake emotional tantrums over artificial conflicts in contrived wildernesses.
Poor Doctor McLuhan. Poor deluded optimist. He was counting on technology as a positive force for good, without taking into account the opposing pull of Marxist dogma. How could he have guessed that radicalized liberals and teachers' unions would make it a national goal to nullify grading of students' performance; to insulate incompetent teachers from being fired; to set policies that dare not penalize assault and violence, but expel a student for sharing a cough drop; to insist on continuing to lavish dollars on multi-lingual and multicultural experiments long after they have demonstrably hobbled the students they were meant to help?
How could he have anticipated that despite spending a far greater percentage of our national budget on public education than ever before, we are graduating the highest proportion of functionally illiterate students in U.S. history? Students that are manifestly unprepared for self-sufficiency in a modern technological culture...
Come to think of it, several million high school graduates that can't think their way out of an open toilet stall make a very receptive voting block for unprincipled demagogues. Something to keep in mind as you keep track of exactly which group is determined to resist any change to a public education system circling the drain, and simultaneously obstructing the choices of anyone wanting to opt out .
We humans are a perverse lot, aren't we? Communication technologies were expected to liberate us, enlarge us, give us godlike vision and understanding and make us come together as a world-encompassing brother-sister-neighborhood. Instead, we swamp the internet with billions of adverts designed to exploit every known human weakness. We use sophisticated miniature audio technology to blot out the people next to us on the bus, in the McDonald's, at the airport, on the plane, on the street. People walk around with their headphones on listening to music set loud enough to be heard thirty feet away--- which deafens them in the LONG term as well as in the moment. Maybe they figure that's just gravy.
Here in America we have public libraries in almost every city, town and hamlet, even bookmobiles that travel from school to school so kids aren't limited to the paltry raggedy volumes on their own library's shelves. The humblest person has access through public libraries to the accumulated wisdom of many thousands of years of human experience; to the wide world of thought, literature, debate, inspiration, science, faith, even how to build a backyard barbecue. Just find the book on the shelf and sit down to read.
There are videos, DVDs, old LP disks, CDs, and audiocassettes. Within limits that are constantly expanding, you can examine ideas that are controversial, debated with present passion. You can absorb books and ideas for the mere reading of which many other cultures and governments imprison and kill their citizens.
Yet most people ignore this resource, and place far more importance on time-wasting trivialities. There are many millions of people that can give you a thorough discography of P-Diddy, but can't distinguish between a verb and an adverb; more millions that can tell you that nuclear power is evil, but can't tell the difference between a proton and a crouton; more tens of millions that can tell you who J-lo or Brittany is screwing this week, but can't tell you which decade North Korea invaded South Korea.
Oh, yeah! I hear someone out there right now saying “But the CONSERVATIVES are cutting budgets for libraries EVERYWHERE, so the hours the libraries are open are shorter and shorter!"
Sorry. That is plain BULL SHIT, buddy.
It's NOT the conservatives doing that.
I arrived in Fremont, California a few years back, and the first week I was there, I went to the Alameda County Library to get a card. On the door was a sign announcing they were cutting hours because of budget shortfalls, for which they apologized. At the desk, as I handed the staffer my application, I asked what was the fine for overdue books.
"Fines? We don't impose fines for late returns."
"Uh, Excuse me? You're saying there is no fine for returning a book after the due date?"
"No, it's against our policies."
This is just staggeringly, SEETHINGLY screwed up. The library was cutting back on hours of operation, and at the same time its own policy REFUSED to address the hemorrhage of books kept indefinitely by irresponsible borrowers.
I had to go sit down and think about that for a minute. I wanted to scream something,but I realized it wouldn't help anything to holler at the person there at the desk--- it was a policy established at a far higher level in the governmental bureaucracy. Maybe even dictated by a referendum. In the minds of those self-styled progressives who make decisions at every level of our culture there is a broken connection between choices and their consequences.
BUT... After all, that's just one pebble in the avalanche of idiotic ideas that characterize the culture of California, and it shows up around the rest of the country more and more.
How could a mayor allow himself to be stymied as one of the most deadly hurricanes in history bears down on his city, by piss-ant union rules that he claims prevented him commandeering school buses to evacuate his citizens in peril?
How could a governor faced by the same storm, reject assistance from the Red Cross, from Amtrak, and from the National Government, for whatever reasons she may cite afterward?
Watching the slow motion train wreck resulting from the indecision and incompetence of the local and state executives, how could FEMA and the White House stand by paralyzed in their turn by their own worries about second-guessing and criticism that comes inevitably as a cost of taking decisive action?
What it comes down to is this: We are creating an increasingly dysfunctional subgroup within our culture. There is a relentlessly burgeoning population characterized by their deficits: inability to analyze hazards, or identify goals, inability to distinguish success from failure, inability to criticize constructively, inability to compromise, inability to take responsibility, inability to function as autonomous beings. It is going to overwhelm us if we don't stop adding to the burden.
This not new. There have always been humans who yield only to greater force, not civilized appeals to fairness or negotiation. In just the last century many TENS of MILLIONS of defenseless civilians have been slaughtered by their own governments, calmly, systematically, without particular passion. Much of that has gone forward during the lulls between the great conflicts that riveted our attention. Yet, despite ample evidence to the contrary, there are many Americans who insist that our own government generally, and George Bush in particular, are the only persons in the world we need to fear.
Back in the mists of time--- in the 1960's--- Marshall McCluhan described the world's transformation into a single “global village” resulting from the connection made by instantaneous communications. His phrase “The Medium is the Message” conveyed a hopeful conjecture that television was helping us shed the chrysalis that had bound and blinded us for centuries.
He proposed the notion that human society was evolving toward a higher consciousness as we shifted from the LINEARITY imposed on our thought processing by the linearity of the characters (Oh, cruel hobbling technology hoary with age!) printed on a page. That higher consciousness was supposed to be able to handle the emerging everything - at - once - all - the - time - for - the - rest - of - our - lives culture, unfolding first as the “cool” auditory medium of radio, then through the “hot” visual medium of television.
The good doctor McLuhan made these observations at a time when there were — count them — THREE national TV networks in the U. S. of A. Depending on where you lived, you might not even have access to all three of those. (Among the seven or eight folks reading this, I'm sure there are some who've never known a time when you only had THREE channels to choose from. But, believe it; it's true.)
In the late 1960's when Marshall McLuhan's ideas were reaching the general public, television sets were only able to deal with 13 VHF channels and maybe a handful of UHF channels. The number of LOCAL stations broadcasting regular programming in VHF in 1950 was about 100; the total did not increase even past 200 until 1980 after several critical refinements in signal broadcast stabilization and reception technology, changes in legislation and FCC regulatory changes, and availability of consumer tv sets that incorporated all the improvements. What a genius McLuhan must have been to dimly see the future from that juvenile state of affairs!
Well, it's been pointed out that any idiot in 1900 should have been able to predict mass production would make the automobile commonplace, but it takes a far-seeing mind to anticipate nationwide traffic jams. It would have taken some similar transcendent wisdom to foresee that having hundreds and hundreds of information sources to choose from, the most privileged and wealthy populace of the world would almost universally choose to watch “Gilligan's Island” “Baywatch” and so-called reality programming where acting-school wannabes directed by fourth-rate producers throw fake emotional tantrums over artificial conflicts in contrived wildernesses.
Poor Doctor McLuhan. Poor deluded optimist. He was counting on technology as a positive force for good, without taking into account the opposing pull of Marxist dogma. How could he have guessed that radicalized liberals and teachers' unions would make it a national goal to nullify grading of students' performance; to insulate incompetent teachers from being fired; to set policies that dare not penalize assault and violence, but expel a student for sharing a cough drop; to insist on continuing to lavish dollars on multi-lingual and multicultural experiments long after they have demonstrably hobbled the students they were meant to help?
How could he have anticipated that despite spending a far greater percentage of our national budget on public education than ever before, we are graduating the highest proportion of functionally illiterate students in U.S. history? Students that are manifestly unprepared for self-sufficiency in a modern technological culture...
Come to think of it, several million high school graduates that can't think their way out of an open toilet stall make a very receptive voting block for unprincipled demagogues. Something to keep in mind as you keep track of exactly which group is determined to resist any change to a public education system circling the drain, and simultaneously obstructing the choices of anyone wanting to opt out .
We humans are a perverse lot, aren't we? Communication technologies were expected to liberate us, enlarge us, give us godlike vision and understanding and make us come together as a world-encompassing brother-sister-neighborhood. Instead, we swamp the internet with billions of adverts designed to exploit every known human weakness. We use sophisticated miniature audio technology to blot out the people next to us on the bus, in the McDonald's, at the airport, on the plane, on the street. People walk around with their headphones on listening to music set loud enough to be heard thirty feet away--- which deafens them in the LONG term as well as in the moment. Maybe they figure that's just gravy.
Here in America we have public libraries in almost every city, town and hamlet, even bookmobiles that travel from school to school so kids aren't limited to the paltry raggedy volumes on their own library's shelves. The humblest person has access through public libraries to the accumulated wisdom of many thousands of years of human experience; to the wide world of thought, literature, debate, inspiration, science, faith, even how to build a backyard barbecue. Just find the book on the shelf and sit down to read.
There are videos, DVDs, old LP disks, CDs, and audiocassettes. Within limits that are constantly expanding, you can examine ideas that are controversial, debated with present passion. You can absorb books and ideas for the mere reading of which many other cultures and governments imprison and kill their citizens.
Yet most people ignore this resource, and place far more importance on time-wasting trivialities. There are many millions of people that can give you a thorough discography of P-Diddy, but can't distinguish between a verb and an adverb; more millions that can tell you that nuclear power is evil, but can't tell the difference between a proton and a crouton; more tens of millions that can tell you who J-lo or Brittany is screwing this week, but can't tell you which decade North Korea invaded South Korea.
Oh, yeah! I hear someone out there right now saying “But the CONSERVATIVES are cutting budgets for libraries EVERYWHERE, so the hours the libraries are open are shorter and shorter!"
Sorry. That is plain BULL SHIT, buddy.
It's NOT the conservatives doing that.
I arrived in Fremont, California a few years back, and the first week I was there, I went to the Alameda County Library to get a card. On the door was a sign announcing they were cutting hours because of budget shortfalls, for which they apologized. At the desk, as I handed the staffer my application, I asked what was the fine for overdue books.
"Fines? We don't impose fines for late returns."
"Uh, Excuse me? You're saying there is no fine for returning a book after the due date?"
"No, it's against our policies."
This is just staggeringly, SEETHINGLY screwed up. The library was cutting back on hours of operation, and at the same time its own policy REFUSED to address the hemorrhage of books kept indefinitely by irresponsible borrowers.
I had to go sit down and think about that for a minute. I wanted to scream something,but I realized it wouldn't help anything to holler at the person there at the desk--- it was a policy established at a far higher level in the governmental bureaucracy. Maybe even dictated by a referendum. In the minds of those self-styled progressives who make decisions at every level of our culture there is a broken connection between choices and their consequences.
BUT... After all, that's just one pebble in the avalanche of idiotic ideas that characterize the culture of California, and it shows up around the rest of the country more and more.
How could a mayor allow himself to be stymied as one of the most deadly hurricanes in history bears down on his city, by piss-ant union rules that he claims prevented him commandeering school buses to evacuate his citizens in peril?
How could a governor faced by the same storm, reject assistance from the Red Cross, from Amtrak, and from the National Government, for whatever reasons she may cite afterward?
Watching the slow motion train wreck resulting from the indecision and incompetence of the local and state executives, how could FEMA and the White House stand by paralyzed in their turn by their own worries about second-guessing and criticism that comes inevitably as a cost of taking decisive action?
What it comes down to is this: We are creating an increasingly dysfunctional subgroup within our culture. There is a relentlessly burgeoning population characterized by their deficits: inability to analyze hazards, or identify goals, inability to distinguish success from failure, inability to criticize constructively, inability to compromise, inability to take responsibility, inability to function as autonomous beings. It is going to overwhelm us if we don't stop adding to the burden.
# posted by Mad Fiddler @ 10:44 PM 
