Distracting Ourselves to Death

"When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.”

― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

Don't Panic!

A 'moral panic' occurs when something or someone is classified as a threat to societal norms and values.
Typically magnified by the media and buoyed by opportunistic politicians, the so called threat, often centred on marginalised people, is exaggerated and outlined in simplistic terms for the public at large.
The media continue to fan the flames of the panic, with frequently little relation to the real situation, setting the narrative for how it is perceived.
The result is new laws or policies, often restrictive, leading to increased control of the public in general.
Or sometimes the public at large gets bored with the non-existent threat forcing the media to find another topic to hopefully grab attention and help sell cars and shampoo.

Look Away Now

“We’re all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.” 

- Bukowski

Top Marks

In University, Karl Marx's Political Economics professor noted that every day, the young man would get up halfway through class and walk out. One day, as Marx stood up to leave, the professor stopped lecturing and turned to him.
"I am curious, Mr. Marx, what it is about my teaching you find so intolerable that you cannot sit through more than half of any given lecture?"
"Oh, no, sir, it's nothing like that," said the young Marx. "I have a class on 'Proletariat ideology' that starts in five minutes and I'll be dropped from the course if I'm late."
The professor was confused. "You mean to tell me that the University registered you for two courses at the same time?"
"Yes, sir," Marx responded. "It's a class conflict."

The Misunderstanding

The sense of constantly living in a state of exile produces a profound skepticism or distrust in the myths and universal systems of belief which are alleged to give meaning and purpose to existence but in fact devalue and even negate it.

Survivor

Everyday,
I think about dying.
About disease, starvation,
violence, terrorism, war,
the end of the world.
It helps
keep my mind off things.

Survivor by Roger McGough

Across The Road And Into The Trees

Across from the house, to the right, there is a cemetery.
Every morning, I open the curtains and look out at it. Often you can see the sun shining back through the oak and chestnut trees.
As far as neighbours go, the residents are pretty quiet. They don't make any fuss, not anymore, all sound and fury spent.
The other day, a new one arrived. I watched as a small crowd gather, huddle, then disperse. One last person lingered, then turned his collar up and pulled his hat down and walked slowly away.
Every night, I close my curtains looking out across the darkness, checking for any movement in the shadows. Just in case. Zombies and vampires and mummies and all that.

And one day, hopefully not too soon, I may be looking back the other way.

Escape Entertainment

"Man alone, in nature, is incapable of enduring monotony, man alone wants something to happen at all costs — something, anything..." said Cioran.

Adorno said that we prefer to spend our limited free time on relaxing from the demands we place on ourselves and escaping the pressures of the everyday world consuming popular culture. Escape entertainment. As such, we become the willing consumers and reproducers of our own alienation by becoming consumers rather than producers of culture.

“If our condition were truly happy,” said Pascal, “we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it.”

My head hurts. Time for a beer and a bit of telly.

The Game Of Life Is Hard To Play

If life is meaningless and living is suffering then why do we put up with the futility of suffering?

I don't know.
But perhaps I should stop reading Camus.

Work isn't Working

"Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do." - Wilde

Work isn't working in that it is less and less a source of meaning, recognition or even security.

Which begs the question about not working.

Is not working working?