Sure, engaging in a little gossip here or there is fun and probably healthy, or at least, doesn't really hurt anyone, but when every news broadcast is a form of escapism in which the viewer is thanking God their neighborhood isn't going to shit like Ferguson, or their child hasn't killed their classmates, or their wife hasn't driven into a lake with their two young children strapped into their carseats, you have to wonder what is really going on. Furthermore, the validity of all of these news stories is confirmed for many viewers when degrees-for-hire (tv psychologists, sociologists, medical doctors, economic analysts, et al) nod their heads in time with the tsk-tsking of the news anchors. A panel of experts is ready to speculate on the character and motives of any perpetrator of any crime, and if you notice, what seems to always come across is how not-ordinary these "criminals" are in the end. They're diseased, they're troubled, they had a seedy past that no one really was aware of until now, they listened to Black Sabbath backwards, they did WEIRD things that the rest of us just don't do. And yet, when you hear a coworker go on and on about Casey Anthony's guilt, you can't help but wonder if we're all as fucked up as those that we watch crash and burn.
None of us are immune to the power of the "vicarious" - how we can impartially view terrible conditions away from our own lives without any real reflection or consideration as to what constant harping on such distractions might say about our own culture and our own lives. What sort of items are we missing out on that are being buried under hours of footage of OJ Simpson driving a Ford Bronco on the California freeway system? And is there an ulterior motive of instilling fear into the general population by constantly reporting the worst of the worst instead of anything positive? Does this fear let us, the viewers, be OK with more surveillance? More restrictions on our own lives in the name of safety? Less real choice?
When I was a sophomore in college, I was eating oatmeal and watching the news on a lovely Tuesday morning when a plane crashed into one of the two World Trade Center towers. As the news anchors were reporting on this terrible event, another jet crashed into the other tower ON. LIVE. TV. Everyone in my apartment was speechless. We had never seen anything so tragic as this on television ever. Maybe if I had grown up in the 1960s, the footage of Civil Rights clashes and the Vietnam War might have prepared me for this, but even those events were not shocking in the same way. We knew about those struggles. This event was a surprise for most Americans.
Since then, I've really hated watching the news - not because I fear I will see other iconic buildings struck by tragedy, but because since then, the news has become a cesspool of hate and fear. honestly don't think that America has ever recovered from that day. We're almost 15 years out from 9/11/01. What has changed is a lot. If America lost its innocence in Vietnam, it lost its hold on itself after 9/11. Our worldview was irreparably shattered by that day and the aftermath. Instead of being able to pick up the pieces and move on, as many affected have been able to, the collective consciousness (represented by the media) of this country has doubled down on tragedy. Furthermore, the political course of action since that day has carried through 4 presidential terms and marks an outdated, heavy-handed response to the problems that led to that fateful day in September. There has been no reflection on America's faults in order to learn and change, instead, whether led by a semi-literate goofball or a Harvard-educated professional, we're still coming to the table with Cold War era tactics of throwing our weigh around and expecting to get results. The world hasn't worked that way in some times. Having the most money, the most guns, the most technology didn't work in Vietnam, nor did it work in Iraq, and seems to be entirely hopeless in Afghanistan as well, but we're still sticking to it. I guess you really can't change a horse in mid-stream. Or so it seems. Our culture and our selves need to change or we're headed for an even bigger disaster than 9/11 -the collapse of this entire system.
Nietzsche's concept of "ressentiment" fits perfectly in with what we're experiencing as a culture. His idea here is that the weak-willed, the inactive, the petty, what have yous, are unable to move beyond themselves. "Things done to them" become their only focus. We've seen this historically in places like France after their embarrassing loss in the Franco-Prussian War, in Serbia after the annexation of "their" land by the Austro-Hungarian empire, in fascist Italy, Japan and Germany during the 1930s, in Rwanda after the Belgians left the Hutus in charge after years of repression. All of those situations ended poorly for everyone involved. Ressentiment keeps us tied to the past, never moving forward. Listen to the rhetoric supported by many American politicians as well as media outlets - are the problems in this country ever collective? Are people homeless or unemployed because there are real systemic issues that need to be changed or are they that way because they're not trying hard enough? Or because immigrants took their jobs? Or because they're so fixated on the "other" being the problem that they haven't been willing to move on and try something different within themselves? Imagine an America that went back to actual (Nietzschean? Pirsig-ian?) values of individualism and self-determination. To making something of yourself without hoping to get something out of it beyond satisfaction? To succeed on one's merits instead of playing political games and kissing ass? That could happen if 1. there was equity, not equality for all (which might mean that some get MORE now to make MORE of themselves in the long run), 2. people actually took time to reflect on how their own thoughts, attitudes and actions might be at fault.
Two quotes to consider:
“To be incapable of taking one's enemies, one's accidents, even one's misdeeds seriously for very long—that is the sign of strong, full natures in whom there is an excess of the power to form, to mold, to recuperate and to forget. Such a man shakes off with a single shrug many vermin that eat deep into others; here alone genuine 'love of one's enemies' is possible—supposing it to be possible at all on earth. How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies!—and such reverence is a bridge to love.—For he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to honor! In contrast to this, picture 'the enemy' as the man of ressentiment conceives him—and here precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived 'the evil enemy,' 'the Evil One,' and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a 'good one'—himself!” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo
“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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