CARVING A MORE HOPEFUL WORLD OUT OF THE HARDNESS SURROUNDING US

THE US AGAINST THEM BANQUET OF HORRORS

The world we inhabit is in large measure the externalization of our interior states. We project onto the landscape of our lives the cultivated assumptions and conclusions of our collective experience.

Day and night we are bombarded with stories of conflict. From continent to continent and from the uttermost corners of the earth there is the noise and destruction of national and internecine strife. The accounts of these are collected and fed to us in a steady and consistent menu designed to create among us  gluttons for blood and gore. Our collective insecurities are cultivated to serve the economic and existential needs of business interests that profit from our appetite for the us against them banquet of horrors.

A critical examination of the practices of the peddlers of information lead some of us to the conclusion that they have no real stake in the resolution of any conflict. For them every tragedy is a selling opportunity. The demand for high ratings is the primary driver in their business culture, and this dictates that they promote a veiled, yet callous disregard for the best interests of people. In news culture the saying “If it bleeds, it leads!”is a truism. One is almost left with an impression that there is something of a silent partnership between news organizations and those who create the means and the motives for the tragedies they report on. Almost.

MEDIA… THE BARKING DOGS

Through the pageantry of their news shows our popular media connects with the barking dogs in each of us. They use all the tools at their disposal to create a symbiotic relationship between us and them… much to our collective exasperation. And so we complain, but we return for more. We cringe, but can’t help the rubber-necking that keeps us distracted against our better judgment. We can’t help being strung along in the vainly redundant dramaturgy that is the “news of the day” – twenty four hours a day all year long. We are hooked because we see ourselves in the stories. The conflicts are our conflicts. The tragedies are our tragedies. We live. We suffer and die. And then we rise again in a never-ending vicarious melodrama.

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