Evolution's End

¡Hola! Everybody...
A repost... Here’s to a great week.

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-=[ Evolution’s End ]=-

“There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.”

-- Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

I think people are under a false impression that I don’t watch TV. Actually, I watch tons of TV. My TV is on if I’m home. I watch a lot of garbage too: shit like Miami Vice reruns!

I also think people are under a false sense of security, thinking that if the don’t watch TV that they’re excluded from its influence. Nothing could be further from the truth: there’s a “cultural DNA” (memes) and unless you’ve been totally deprived you’re not immune from the larger external forces that shape our culture. I actually think keeping yourself ignorant of what goes on the boob tube is probably not a good strategy.

I mean, we all like to think we’re different, or smarter, or immune, but we’re not, we’re just like the next person in many respects, just as prone to social pressure as the average Jane. Doubt me? Well, I'm not in the mood to get all that deeply into it, but I’m sure you throw away more shit than you’re conscious of -- whether you want to or not. As a society, we let out a collective fart that’s choking the rest of the world. You consume to a disproportionate level compared to other people in the world. For example, we rationalize purchasing gas-guzzlers because “we have to drive the kids around,” or some such nonsense.

We drive to work when we can take public transportation. We are the target of so many messages -- about 80,000 a day -- that we’re barely aware of them. And all this shit seeps in. It’s not a matter whether we buy into it or not, but rather, the degree to which we have bought into these messages.

Please don’t intellectualize/ rationalize this fact thereby forcing me to cram it down your throat, ok?

I don’t think the Television is necessarily an evil thing in and of itself. It’s when we become passive observers that it becomes an issue and that’s the aim of marketing -- to make us passive consumers. It’s good for the economy.

When my son was young, I would use TV as learning opportunities. Buffy the Vampire Slayer became an opportunity to discuss a whole slew of interesting and relevant adolescent issues. Everything from peer pressure to the “horrors” of what it is to be a teenager in a postmodern world gone slightly mad. LOL

Watching TV, for my son became an opportunity to learn cultural studies and critical theory, except he didn’t know it! The drug commercials were the best. You know those commercials where there’s some woman in a filmy sun dress traipsing through a field of flowers (Claritin, maybe)? Then, towards the end of the commercial, there’s like a ten-second rapid-fire sotto voce disclaimer listing all these awful side effects? Like, anal leakage -- what the fuck is anal leakage?!?!

I think what I was teaching my son (and myself) was to be active observer. I was teaching him how to form the correct questions, to be a critical thinker. In this sense, TV was a tool for learning and we were fully aware of what was going on at some larger cultural level and in that way were able to inoculate ourselves -- to a degree! -- from the mindless push to consume.

I dunno, maybe it’s the influence of Tantric practice in which everything -- even what we consider negative -- can be utilized in the service of waking up. Shit, even fertilizer has its use, right? And isn’t waking up (not to be confused with analyzing, which is merely mental masturbation) -- isn’t waking up what it’s all about.

Love,

Eddie