Here is my half-baked unified theory essay based largely on idle car driving and long meeting daydreaming. Entire chunks could be rewritten and reversed, deleted even. I am too lazy to edit it any more and I am note convinced myself but, thought I, what the heck. I’m posting it for comment but given that I am calling it half-baked I would expect that the comment would not be of the “yor a moeron” sort. Pick out what you like, mix and match, compare and contrast.
I don’t know why the opening of Jane Taber’s column in the Globe and Mail last Saturday has clung to the back of my mind:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper spent last Saturday night at 24 Sussex Dr. fiddling with the TV, trying desperately to find the channel that carried Ben and Rachel’s favourite show, The Forest Rangers. It was the Harper family’s first Saturday night at the Prime Minister’s official residence — the family of four and their two beloved cats moved in just two days before — and the cable wasn’t hooked up. “I told Stephen I would arrange the channels on Monday, and he said, ‘No, let’s do it right now,’ ” Laureen Harper wrote in an e-mail this week. The Prime Minister proceeded to call the cable company…
It is not a sour thought at the sight of a Dad trying without any luck to figure out the electronics or a hapless moment for the new PM that saddens me. It’s that it was The Forest Rangers. Secretly, I hope it is a remake I have not heard of but I suspect it is that same show that was never part of my growing up – because even at 42 it was before my time. I suppose what makes me really sad is that in the last four and a half decades of entertainment communications there is nothing better for a couple of kids to watch than the show that made The Beachcombers seem like Shakespeare – even if their parents hold a pretty tight rein on the TV’s remote control. But I doubt it. Who would remake the Forest Rangers? Who now could?
Is this another post about the false promise of recent changes in mass communications? I suppose it is. This weekend, taking in a movie in a 1930s cinema as well as an excellent live hockey game, I was struck like I should not have been struck how the digital advance is something of a regression. We have a population that has, say, doubled in the last so many decades but the volume and variety of entertainments has exploded. And, while the technological advances have been impressive, has the content kept up? Is it possible that there could be so many more things with which to be entertained or informed without a relative dilution of the actual quality of content?
What have we given up due to the dilution? Audio fidelity in favour of tiny ear plugs. The ability to value excellence in favour of the ability to value what we choose or, worse, what we do. Even TV as a topic for water cooler talk is dumped in favour of the replacement of water cooler talk, the SuperNetWay. We have exchanged audience for authorship and awarded each of ourselves the same prize. Except maybe for Harper as Dad. For him there is that world of kids playing in a fort (without any explanation of who maintains it and on what budget) and helping with some sort of government administrative function in relation to lands and forests (despite the child labour laws). There is something back there in that show which is not here – the suspension of disbelief, that awareness that what your are taking is has acceptable flaws.
But we are such mooks now – suckered by belief in whatever we have placed before ourselves. All it takes is for a new self-flattering toy or medium to come along to make ourselves earnestly believe we must have it. And so with politics – we are so determined to be a vital player in the administration of government that we value our whim is as good as a policy borne of the toil of hundreds and the rulings of decades. We can no longer suspend our disbelief as consumers or citizens but are locked into our own certainty in relation to all things, creating a flat world where anything is pretty much as good as any other thing. We cannot defer. We must each be authority if we are also the personalize me. So no journalist is worth their salt, no policy can be trusted, no means to assert our own personal dominion of expression can dared be passed up. We each pick at the world yet pick each our own world. Less shared, less trusted. More me-like-ness.
Sometimes I think that the few years of this millenium have seen two changes which have melded unexpectedly: the rise of networked information technology and the rise of the fear and the security demand in response to terrorism despite almost five years now passing since, hopefully, the anomaly of 9/11 that shook us out of the sleep and pattern of tens upon tens being blown up here and there on a regular basis between nation upon nation, tribe upon tribe genocides. We can forget sometimes that there was life and community and many of the same problems in 2000, 1999 and before. We trick ourselves that all has been changed. About a year ago I wondered if we were post post 9/11. I wondered it again a few months later, the day before the bombings in London. But maybe the trick is on us, that the uni-mind of internet and homogenization of shared concern has left us burned a bit, blurred a bit even as we technologically assert our individual autonomy. So concerned with our fear of flying – even while we are on the ground – that we now have met unending earnestness and each of us shaken hands with it and made it our own. I thought there was an end to irony in the weeks after September 11th but now I think we lost more than just that as tools of surveillance and information merge in the one screen wired to the network, taking and giving, providing what we can say we have made up ourselves. We must believe now, nothing left to be suspended. Where would you stand during the suspension?
What to do? Doesn’t anyone think this is just a town full of losers to be blown out of? Maybe Steve does. Is the Harper family gathering around the black and white world of the past one way to assert the contrarian way? I still think it is a little sad but I don’t know why exactly. I wish them well.
[Original comments…]
Hans – February 23, 2006 8:50 AM
Some good lines:
–“What have we given up due to the dilution? Audio fidelity in favour of tiny ear plugs. The ability to value excellence in favour of the ability to value what we choose or, worse, what we do.”
–“All it takes is for a new self-flattering toy or medium to come along to make ourselves earnestly believe we must have it. And so with politics – we are so determined to be a vital player in the administration of government that we value our whim is as good as a policy borne of
the toil of hundreds and the rulings of decades.”
–“We can forget sometimes that there was life and community and many of the same problems in 2000, 1999 and before. We trick ourselves that all has been changed.”
I also like the Bruce Springsteen reference but I’m not sure its apt.
I see what you’re saying: we’ve got technology, but no content; because we blog, we think we’re all experts now on everything including politics.
You also identify the rise in networked technology and fear of terrorism as the two main vectors in current North American zeitgeist, which I think is accurate.
I see where you are going but I don’t know if you connected all the dots here.
Finally, While The Forest Rangers was before my time too, they had reruns sporadically on CBC in the 70s and I was fan. Plus, the kids on it had cool names like “Zeke”!
Alan – February 23, 2006 9:35 AM
All good. I know it is not tied up at all. But the Springsteen line’s point was this: there used to be dropping out of the scene, acceptance that what others proclaim and follow is all junk. The full line is something like “it’s a town full of losers and we’re pulling outta here to win”. There is such homogeneity now I don’t know if that is valued anymore, the rebel against the suits or in these times against the iPod and the clenched sphinter.
Hans – February 23, 2006 10:12 AM
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love the line. The whole song in fact is very punk in a DIY ethic sort of way. (Although musically much more theatrical). But I digress.
Alan – February 23, 2006 10:23 AM
I believe it to be the finest crossing of opera with the work of Meatloaf.
Hans – February 23, 2006 2:37 PM
…and I thought I was digressing….
ry – February 23, 2006 4:41 PM
Hmmm, I was cool with the essay but the further ‘there used to be golden times’ commentary is leaving me cold. Maybe one can say that Emo is just Prog Rock with a new title, like Grunge was a new title for rock music. But homogeneity as far as the eye can see? O’Captain, my Captain I don’t see it that way from my position on the Hill. Maybe this is why the Love Generation said that nobody over thirty was to be trusted—they’re jaded to the point of seeing homogeneity?
I dunno Al. There’s still lots of little counter cultures and enclaves for them. More so than in the past. Punk still lives. Indie rock die hards. Talk radio. Blogs that are essentially self defining tribes(the Kosacks and the Freepers). Celebutaunts and their hangers on. Goth. Granola Hippies living in Humbolt, CA. Etc.
When I look back at history I see much more monolithic counter cultures. Ones that just substituted one orthodoxy with another. I don’t see that today. Or is it that the decade of living that seperates us hasn’t shown me the same trends?(again, not argumentative or accusatory, but inquisitive in nature).
Is it possible that the similarity of tools(we all used walkmen at one point—and made bootleg tapes of each others albums, even of stuff like The Beat’s ‘Stand Down Margaret’ got included— is that really much different than the iPod with it’s mass cache of songs allowing the same thing) doesn’t really mean ‘same bland crap’ any more now than it did then(because you also had people bootlegging Judas Priest’s ‘Turbo Lover’ and getting that Robb Halford was talking about manlove back then along with those that didn’t get it)?
Or have I missed it entirely, that you’re railing against militant individualism as the new orthodoxy parading itself as counter culture(Cake: Excess ain’t rebellion.)? Are you saying that Ayn Rand got the last laugh and we’re regretting it?
I’m not sure I grok, Al.
ry – February 23, 2006 4:46 PM
Adendum: the little counter cultures are orthodoxies, but they aren’t vast. Just as doctrinaire, but not as big. Does that help make what I was saying make sense? There’s lots of little ones, each with their own little tent; instead of one big tent trying to encompass them all.
Alan – February 23, 2006 4:47 PM
Wouldn’t it be closer to say that we have each now been assumed into a sub-culture and it is not conceivable to individually opt out.
And it is, as always, those pointing at Ayn Rand, who have the last laugh as her ideas for what they are worth are now spouted as gospel by a large band of simpering yesmen abiding by a belief system unthinkingly.
ry – February 23, 2006 11:29 PM
“Wouldn’t it be closer to say that we have each now been assumed into a sub-culture and it is not conceivable to individually opt out. ”
I don’t know. I’m not sure that that’s the case, but I could be wrong. I see it more as I’m able to come here and use certain facets of my personality. Others at Argghhh!. Still others at school. I see it as you could point to multiple groups I am part of, but I don’t see them as defining me.
I see only three things really defining you, Al: Husband, male, and father. That’s it. All else is hobbies, not really an assumption of a role in a sub culture. Not even blogging.
I see it that way for most people now days too. Not just the two of us. There are those that are consumed by a part of a subculture—like the Kosacks or Freepers, Maureen Dowd and Ann Coulter, conservative and liberal— but most of us just stick our head in the door to see what’s going on, maybe come in to sit for a while, but never fully commit to a sub-culture.
But could I opt out of this?
That’s kinda like asking if there’s free will, ain’t it? Could I choose to force myself into one of the sub-cultures, and still be happy? I dunno. Maybe that’s why most sub-cultures are so angst ridden? People have to sublimate so much of themselves to trully be part, to gain acceptance, and it is one of those things that just eats at ’em? I dunno. In this you’re the teacher and I’m the student.
ry – February 23, 2006 11:36 PM
Oh, and I’m not a RAndian(for crying out loud, I’m Catholic!, how could I buy into Rand?). Maybe a Rationalist, a really bad one(I’m also a bad Catholic), if you really want to have a label. But not a Randian. I just tend to run into lots of them or those who operate along those lines.
It’s just that I’m also seeing lots of Randian philosophy in the pop culture. the ‘I gots ta gets mine’ of urban culture. The me-me-me-ism of celebutaunts. The ‘let them eat cake’ of the rich kids in toney places of NY and LA. It’s all the dark side of Ayn. Unfortunately, ‘self actualization’ seems to have to pay homage to Ayn too.
Hans – February 24, 2006 11:16 AM
“Wouldn’t it be closer to say that we have each now been assumed into a sub-culture and it is not conceivable to individually opt out.”
I think that’s exactly right, Al. That’s why I hated living in Toronto. If people could ascribe your dress or behaviour to a certain sub-culture they were unable and unwilling to interact with you. If you didn’t fit into mass media prescribed pre-conceptions you were a ghost. Big city folks were conditioned into not being able to understand or deal with individuality. It was quite depressing (especially trying to meet chicks!). There were few exceptions that I found and these people are fascinatingly unique people. But for the most part, I just wanted to move back to PEI where, for all its faults, you are understood and dealt with on an individual basis. Like John Cougar said: I can be MYSELF in the small town.
Hans – February 24, 2006 11:17 AM
dang. that should read “could NOT ascribe”.
Alan – February 24, 2006 11:21 AM
That is interesting as that was only way of looking at my dissatisfaction with PEI – failure to conform. I got the “weirdo” dirty PEI look a few too many times. I would suggest that the formula is “one can be oneself in one’s own hometown if you are lucky not to come from a town full of losers.”
Hans – February 24, 2006 12:02 PM
Yeah, it is kind of counter-intuitive that a small town can be more accepting than the big city, but maybe it does help if you do come from that small town.
cm – February 24, 2006 5:05 PM
If you didn’t fit into mass media prescribed pre-conceptions you were a ghost
Then I guess I’m aiming for ghosthood. Which makes sense in a way, as anonymity is the reason I live in a high-rise in the city.