A Permanent Revolution

I'm sure this won't get me on some sort of watchlist. I find it ironic sometimes that we glory in the American Revolution, but since then have suppressed all other revolts. After all Thomas Jefferson made this harrowing statement: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Sometimes when people ask why I support Obama's ideas or socialism--as a theory anyway--I can't really explain myself. But what it really is, is that capitalism is a broken system, and our culture is dying. These sort of dire statements is what comes from listening to too much NPR. As great as NPR usually is in terms of breadth and depth as well as its lack off sensationalism, news is news--and it's oftentimes depressing.

On Tuesday I heard this episode on Talk of the Nation where Chris Hedges talked about his new book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. This, and the fact that I'm currently re-reading Don DeLillo's White Noise--a biting satire of technology and mass media--has got me thinking about our current state of affairs. Hedges basic argument is that we have two societies in America: one that is literate and rooted in reality and able to distinguish illusion from truth, while the other sector is rooted in fantasy and instead of reading newsprint and books, they are watching reality TV and cable news and engaged in other spectacles; even our pop culture is more brain-dead than ever before. In this respect it's not entirely different from Neil Postman's thesis in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Furthermore Hedges argues that the latter section of society is growing while the former is shrinking. Even more distressing is that this is occurring at our elite universities where Hedges has both studied and taught. Today's universities are of course run like businesses that champion only analytical intelligence (over creative, moral, and humanistic intelligences) that does not ask broad questions or challenge structures but only supports the status quo. We see this in the drop of students who graduate in the humanities, and the lack of real intellectual investigation and inquiry which questions the structures of systems, and is by its very nature subversive. Where are our subversives, revolutionaries, and iconoclasts? We need them more than ever before. Hedges is not breaking new ground here though. Harold Bloom has polemically argued that our institutions of higher learning are currently media circuses, and White Noise--written 25 years ago, before the birth of the Internet--shows us professors who teach entire courses in spectacle including Hitler studies and car crashes.

And then today I listened to my RadioWest podcast and on this episode Ellen Rupel Shell talked about her book, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. It's a really good and thought-provoking show, and I recommend you all listen to it. Shell basically says that Americans are driven by price more than quality or service. In fact, most Americans believe service should be free while we also believe that we don't deserve quality. Furthermore, nothing excites our brains--yes, we're now talking bout neuroscience--like the thrill of a good deal, while nothing angers us more than high prices if we think we're being ripped off. So much so, that we would rather purchase inferior products, and when they fall apart we don't mind so much because they were so cheap. In talking about Ikea, she says that instead of demanding high quality, we have adjusted our lives around cheap products. Instead of buying high-quality, hardwood furniture, we learn how to stack our particle-board bookcases so they don't sag in the middle, or how to sit in softwood chairs so they don't break. Discount retailers like Wal-Mart, Ikea, Costo and their ilk have led to a lack in quality and an obsession with price. Cheap is also the opposite of frugal where we buy only what we need but at the best quality we can afford--and we won't compromise that quality. Furthermore, in the discount culture, we ship jobs off to China to save a buck. Median incomes have declined since the 1970s along with labor unions and job benefits, and the middle class is quickly vanishing. This is what I mean when I say capitalism is broken because the status quo can no longer support itself. And yet with entrenched special interests, the conglomeration of companies, and globalization, it is nearly impossible to change the status quo--the major players have "wrath of god money" after all. And somewhere along the way we mortgaged our spiritual birthright, which reminds me a little of my favorite Benjamin Franklin quote: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Our culture has given up the high road because the low road is so much easier, and I think we all know what Robert Frost had to say about that. And so I am calling for a permanent revolution--those Communists sure could write an eloquent phrase--because a revolution from the bottom up is perhaps the only way we can effect real change.

And on an entirely unrelated matter, here is a video of "Cooling" (not taken by me obviously) from the Tori concert I attended. The quality is pretty good too. Enjoy!