One of my favorite things about the weekend is listening to On the Media. Saturday mornings are always a kind of "in the shower" moment for me anyway; I reflect on the past weeks events, and wonder at the correlations. On the Media often has a very interesting way of reflecting back to me some of the points from a very interesting perspective.
And today, this was even more the case than usual. For the past week I've been noticing that ways in which we as human beings make ourselves and each other out to be grotesque monsters and invincible heroes. The familial backdrop has to do with family members going through relationship issues, plus sibling rivalries, and more. The level of drama is amazing, and excruciating. What is most surprising, is that it appears that we can't live without that drama. We bring it on ourselves. Perhaps not consciously or willingly, but by our own subconscious choices.
An example. My daughter and son can get along quite nicely, but there are times when they mercilessly taunt one another. You know, when they both want to use the same computer. The other computer right next to it, just won't do, so they poke and jab, taunt and jiggle the other until somebody explodes. Then, they both plead that "I'm innocent, it's all their fault." From the outside, I just wish one of them would pull a Rodney King moment, "can't we all just get along?"
So, this morning, the NPR headline that preceded On the Media was Floyd Landis' failed drug test. Watching Floyd go through the protestations that there is an explanation for all of this that has him still come out as victor in the Tour de France feels like watching my kids argue about who is right. I can't help but think that on some level, Floyd believes it. [Important side note: I can't know the truth, but this isn't about Floyd, it's about the importance of self-deception in the human psyche. I can recall several times in which another and I were completely sure of our fact, and those facts we're diametrically opposed. I remember pausing to think, "we can't both be right, and yet we both think we are. Maybe it's me that's confused." Sometimes I was right, and sometimes I was wrong. I couldn't tell based on my convictions. Is it possible that Floyd is in the same boat? Can self-deception be that pernicious?]
Then the stories from this week's On the Media:
Perilous Times: Supressing freedom of expression during war-time [resonant theme: manufactured truth for the good of the story of unity].
Keeping Secrets: War correspondant reporting about the bombing of Nagasaki is on the War Dept. payroll. [resonant theme: manufactured truth for apparent unity]
Pornucopia: Food Network's camera work is strikingly similar to the way porn is shot. This is a great story, but listen to the end: it's more about our perceptions, and they ways they are manipulated than the simple link between food and sex. [resonant theme: manufactured truth for the purpose of self-deception. Best moment: bars now televise sports and the Food Network (thanks to Emeril for making cooking manly) so a lonely schlub can sit by himself munching on pretzels and have the experience of having a gourmet meal being prepared for him and friends by a chef who also serves as entertainment.]
Baseball Announcers: The purity of radio sportscasting as opposed the the pollution of televised coverage. [resonant theme: in the manufacturing of truth it is important to hold traditional ideals as sacred and to rail against the corrupting influence of new perspectives]
The Sporting Life: Fantasy sports [Need I say more? Actually, this is where it gets interesting. Allowing fans to mix and match players from various teams to compete in fantasy sports blurs the lines of fandom. Its no longer just about the team you follow. It gets very complicated. But the star become sport itself. This following is a stretch: Sports is a simulacra for war, allowing us to fight without killing one another. Fantasy sports is an even higher abstraction, allowing us to follow competion at both the team and hero level. This is a Sim-Sports world, were we are the fan is the owner/manager. This involvement promotes a deeper committment to sports in general, but I would argue it also gets very deep into the psyche of our culture, and starts to mimic the kind of team-like interaction of acquaintances that happens in MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft. Is the move toward Dan Pink's vision in Free Agent Nation a move toward reconfiguring the workplace into a kind of fantasy entrepreneurship? Maybe that's a good thing? Is this what the Bootstrap Network is facilitating? I think it could be.]
Woodstein's Muse: Is breaking of the Watergate Scandal a story of corruption in politics, or the power of the media? It is the epitomizing of the pen is mightier than the sword. Conventionally, the reporter is hero, and on a show like On the Media, this has a particularly recursive (in a down-the-rabbit-hole/through the looking glass kind of ring to it). But I wonder if the OTM staff realize that their collection of stories really points more to something like the downfall of the mighty free press in an era when anyone can be a reporter? The fourth estate? Have they seen the Googlezon/Epic 2014 flash video? Have they listened to Doug Rushkoff's Renaissance Prospects podcast?
My biggest passion these days is finding the voice of culture. I think we find it in the stories that resonate with us. Some of these stories have resonant themes that start to bring forth the mythologies that Joseph Campbell focused on so brilliantly. How do we listen to ourselves as collectives? By paying attention to what we are paying attention to. The mirror on the wall may not show us the fairest of them all. But, maybe, if we study our Lewis Carroll, we can figure out how to hack that mirror and actually make it through the looking glass. Or is that desire too simply an expression of our propensity for self deception?
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