Yes, it is.
The passivity generated by the modern media and its focus on a royal wedding of utter and complete insignificance, every kind of celebrity news down to shoes, and a deep and abiding concern for news of the strange, is damaging the fabric of our society.
The United States was founded at the very end of the Enlightenment. The basic ideas were that human reason and logic would enable human to make good decisions for the conduct of their lives, that humans were capable of self-improvement and were no longer locked into the roles of their parents or larger society.
Where is logic and reason now? How can we expect humans to self improve with these news-networks and their junk reporting? How can their be respect and usage of critical thinking in a society in which science is a punching bag for fools and industry financed front groups (organized fools)?
The simple, straight forward answer is, “It cannot.” We are either developing or are currently living in a thought free society focused on profit and a pathetic incoherence more expected of small children than of citizens in a democratic society.
I am not sure this can be remedied. There are many powerful interests whose purposes are well served by a non-thinking crown mentality. We live in the era of the mad billionaire, whose conduct is more that of one of the more unethical Bond villains than responsible citizens.
The supreme court’s bizarre respect for corporate persondom may well spell an end to any hope of a free people’s ability to govern themselves by elections.
There may well be no remedy except inevitable decline. The forces that are destroying our ability to think are happy with what they have accomplished living only for their own selfish interests and ever ready to abandon the United States once their economic greed has been satisfied and new pastures of exploitation beckon.
Nevertheless, I believe in struggle, in the good fight, and I will not walk away from it.
James Pilant
Thanks for the pingback and great post. Even with my local news all I hear about is sports and crime. (And of course the royal wedding) I live in Utah and heaven forbid that the media actually inform me of what’s going on with local government or the things in our community that actually effect me. Instead the news is all about Jimmer’s chances at getting into the NBA.
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