Hello Escapist, I ran into some college students today at a sidewalk cafe.
I listened in on their merry little conversation, and now that my coffee is all gone, it's time for me to rant.
Objectivity and Subjectivity are funny things.
They can mean absolutely anything to the significance of a subject when related to any variety of things.
In the hands of people who think they now understand the whole damn world due to their "grasp" of media studies, philosophy, or a handful of documentaries they've watched, it can be a tool of great annoyance.
In a universe where even the very notions of color, sound and form can be questioned as subjective perceptions; people somehow finds ways make their entire worldviews into iron clad stalwarts of professor built and approved reasoning.
So when you get a handful of college students in a cafe, talking about TV, you get a sort of easily imitated wisdom, that can only come from an entirely subjective worldview being taught as irrefutable fact.
Some nuggets of wisdom:
"Dude, like why do people even watch that crap. Like didn't see they Idiocracy?"
"I mean you know that it's like the decline of society and stuff right? Just like in Brave New World Man! Infinite distractions bro!"
"It's like the dumbing down of America, yo!"
Of course, because when I think of societal decline, I think of REALITY TV. I mean, Rome fell OBVIOUSLY because of the sort of books and plays that were being written, not because of economic failure of global instability. Oh no, it was "dumbing down" or some cockamamie nonsense about lead in the water. If only the people in Darfur could just stop watching reality TV, then maybe their society wouldn't be falling apart.
Never mind that you're smarter than your grandparents could have ever imagined at your age, or that humanity has actually built a Large Hadron Collider. Oh no, all the Reality TV dribble CLEARLY means that we're getting dumber, right? Why don't you go ask your Gran what she was doing with maths at your age. You can do it on your Iphone.
Never mind that entertainment is entirely subjective, NOOO, I just watched an unfinished Mike Judge vanity project (that I only laughed at because I thought it was making fun of the idiots that used to bully me in high school) so I CLEARLY understand society better! It's not like people even YEARS ago watched stuff like the three stooges, oh no. They clearly watched ONLY the cherry picked best of the best that my film class chose to view.
Why can't EVERYONE in the world watch Bill Hicks COMEDY specials? They just opened up my mind bra! Like Joe Rogen podcast BRA! If everyone in the world just listened or read or watched what I THE EXACT SAME STUFF that I do, then we' d all like know everything!
Everyone who disagrees is like, Blind or like Un Aware, yo.
Like, Seth McFarlane may not be telling actual jokes or nothing, but if you like Criticize Family Guy, then you MUST OBVIOUSLY like Faux News or not be able to take a joke bra. Lol, I called it FAUX news, I'm so god damn clever!
Because we need villains, we need butt monkeys and most of all we need heroes.
The media fills that gap for us with easy targets and BRAVE SOCIAL COMMENTATORS to AWAKEN us to our sheeple status! Because that's how the discourse is set up. They turn entirely subjective opinions into issues of right or wrong. Who's they? I don't know. Maybe everyone to an extent.
"Like dude, you have a problem with Walmart? Lol Penn and Teller said that was BULLSHIIIIIT"
Oh yeah, because of pair of comedy magicians getting their info from a corporate think tank like the CATO institute is what I think of when I think about serious sources of fact!
I fear for what may become of the name "progressive". I also fear for the state of skepticism. When did we go from respectable experts like Richard Dawkins to loud mouth douchebags like Bill Maher. Is it because a story with a clear heroic thinker against hordes of the uneducated is a more compelling narrative than an academic calmly explaining his opinion with facts?
When did mockery and the ability to talk to down someone like an ass become more valuable?
I'm not saying that culture or taste isn't an indicator of something. It's an indicator of taste and personal philosophy. But could that ever be considered a marker of intelligence?
Where does objective fact come in and where does the smug stop? Is this any different from the way man was before? Well probably not. I'm probably just seeing more of it because of the media. Then again, the media itself used to be even more inflammatory and far less fact checked back in the day than now. Maybe it's that they have more reach or use the new technology. Oh but I like the new technology and telecommunications is so very important. But then how do we handle our divisiveness problem? Is it a problem? Isn't the news just entertainment? I said that entertainment was subjective. Does that make me wrong about everything?
Does any of that matter.
Well, I don't know but I don't think we'll get an answer. We're dealing with subjectivity here.
It's all subjective, so go ahead, LET LOOSE!
Strawmen! Allegories! Culture Criticism! Mockery!
Wear Family Guy T Shirts, because it such an edgy show, MAN!
Watch your Sut Jhally, stating the obvious exercises in Gerbner worship, because Dreamscapes just opened up you mind so much MAAN!
Blindly Worship some jerky teenage adult from London, because he was SUCH an ANARCHIST and a REVOLUTIONARY (like you even know what that means) MAAAAAAN!
Nevermind the halfhearted reunions of crappy experimental albums, NOOO, just remember three freaking songs that your professor loves.
Misquote Aldous Huxley, and Kurt Vonnegut, and George Orwell. Because you can win any debate you want with THOSE comparisons. Everyone else is just ignorant MAAAN.
Tell me that my tastes suck, believe as many lame brain stereotypes as you want about the people who don't watch the same TV as you, BE like David Cross' character on Mr. Show (you know, that guy he would turn into in real life after 2005.) Act like satire from the Bush Years still counts as witty analysis and go the hell on ahead acting no different than the Straussian Neo Cons that you demonized in the first place!
The world will be your god damn oyster no matter what you do for a living!
SO GO AHEAD AND FEEL SUPERIOR, YOU EXCLUSIONARY, SELF INDULGENT, ANTI SOCIAL PRICKS!
Because it's all subjective anyway.
According to some people within the field of contemporary theoretical physics, we may just be perceiving all of this anyway. For all we know, we look like a bunch of elephants dicks talking by rubbing into each others knobs and seeing by taking a big wee on whatever we want to look at.
What's a knob? What's an elephant?
What am I? Am I being pissed on?
I don't know, because I'm too busy enjoying life, free of imaginary windmills.
My name is Sada
and I have never actually been accosted or threatened by a TV screen.
Yay!
I listened in on their merry little conversation, and now that my coffee is all gone, it's time for me to rant.
Objectivity and Subjectivity are funny things.
They can mean absolutely anything to the significance of a subject when related to any variety of things.
In the hands of people who think they now understand the whole damn world due to their "grasp" of media studies, philosophy, or a handful of documentaries they've watched, it can be a tool of great annoyance.
In a universe where even the very notions of color, sound and form can be questioned as subjective perceptions; people somehow finds ways make their entire worldviews into iron clad stalwarts of professor built and approved reasoning.
So when you get a handful of college students in a cafe, talking about TV, you get a sort of easily imitated wisdom, that can only come from an entirely subjective worldview being taught as irrefutable fact.
Some nuggets of wisdom:
"Dude, like why do people even watch that crap. Like didn't see they Idiocracy?"
"I mean you know that it's like the decline of society and stuff right? Just like in Brave New World Man! Infinite distractions bro!"
"It's like the dumbing down of America, yo!"
Of course, because when I think of societal decline, I think of REALITY TV. I mean, Rome fell OBVIOUSLY because of the sort of books and plays that were being written, not because of economic failure of global instability. Oh no, it was "dumbing down" or some cockamamie nonsense about lead in the water. If only the people in Darfur could just stop watching reality TV, then maybe their society wouldn't be falling apart.
Never mind that you're smarter than your grandparents could have ever imagined at your age, or that humanity has actually built a Large Hadron Collider. Oh no, all the Reality TV dribble CLEARLY means that we're getting dumber, right? Why don't you go ask your Gran what she was doing with maths at your age. You can do it on your Iphone.
Never mind that entertainment is entirely subjective, NOOO, I just watched an unfinished Mike Judge vanity project (that I only laughed at because I thought it was making fun of the idiots that used to bully me in high school) so I CLEARLY understand society better! It's not like people even YEARS ago watched stuff like the three stooges, oh no. They clearly watched ONLY the cherry picked best of the best that my film class chose to view.
Why can't EVERYONE in the world watch Bill Hicks COMEDY specials? They just opened up my mind bra! Like Joe Rogen podcast BRA! If everyone in the world just listened or read or watched what I THE EXACT SAME STUFF that I do, then we' d all like know everything!
Everyone who disagrees is like, Blind or like Un Aware, yo.
Like, Seth McFarlane may not be telling actual jokes or nothing, but if you like Criticize Family Guy, then you MUST OBVIOUSLY like Faux News or not be able to take a joke bra. Lol, I called it FAUX news, I'm so god damn clever!
Because we need villains, we need butt monkeys and most of all we need heroes.
The media fills that gap for us with easy targets and BRAVE SOCIAL COMMENTATORS to AWAKEN us to our sheeple status! Because that's how the discourse is set up. They turn entirely subjective opinions into issues of right or wrong. Who's they? I don't know. Maybe everyone to an extent.
"Like dude, you have a problem with Walmart? Lol Penn and Teller said that was BULLSHIIIIIT"
Oh yeah, because of pair of comedy magicians getting their info from a corporate think tank like the CATO institute is what I think of when I think about serious sources of fact!
I fear for what may become of the name "progressive". I also fear for the state of skepticism. When did we go from respectable experts like Richard Dawkins to loud mouth douchebags like Bill Maher. Is it because a story with a clear heroic thinker against hordes of the uneducated is a more compelling narrative than an academic calmly explaining his opinion with facts?
When did mockery and the ability to talk to down someone like an ass become more valuable?
I'm not saying that culture or taste isn't an indicator of something. It's an indicator of taste and personal philosophy. But could that ever be considered a marker of intelligence?
Where does objective fact come in and where does the smug stop? Is this any different from the way man was before? Well probably not. I'm probably just seeing more of it because of the media. Then again, the media itself used to be even more inflammatory and far less fact checked back in the day than now. Maybe it's that they have more reach or use the new technology. Oh but I like the new technology and telecommunications is so very important. But then how do we handle our divisiveness problem? Is it a problem? Isn't the news just entertainment? I said that entertainment was subjective. Does that make me wrong about everything?
Does any of that matter.
Well, I don't know but I don't think we'll get an answer. We're dealing with subjectivity here.
It's all subjective, so go ahead, LET LOOSE!
Strawmen! Allegories! Culture Criticism! Mockery!
Wear Family Guy T Shirts, because it such an edgy show, MAN!
Watch your Sut Jhally, stating the obvious exercises in Gerbner worship, because Dreamscapes just opened up you mind so much MAAN!
Blindly Worship some jerky teenage adult from London, because he was SUCH an ANARCHIST and a REVOLUTIONARY (like you even know what that means) MAAAAAAN!
Nevermind the halfhearted reunions of crappy experimental albums, NOOO, just remember three freaking songs that your professor loves.
Misquote Aldous Huxley, and Kurt Vonnegut, and George Orwell. Because you can win any debate you want with THOSE comparisons. Everyone else is just ignorant MAAAN.
Tell me that my tastes suck, believe as many lame brain stereotypes as you want about the people who don't watch the same TV as you, BE like David Cross' character on Mr. Show (you know, that guy he would turn into in real life after 2005.) Act like satire from the Bush Years still counts as witty analysis and go the hell on ahead acting no different than the Straussian Neo Cons that you demonized in the first place!
The world will be your god damn oyster no matter what you do for a living!
SO GO AHEAD AND FEEL SUPERIOR, YOU EXCLUSIONARY, SELF INDULGENT, ANTI SOCIAL PRICKS!
Because it's all subjective anyway.
According to some people within the field of contemporary theoretical physics, we may just be perceiving all of this anyway. For all we know, we look like a bunch of elephants dicks talking by rubbing into each others knobs and seeing by taking a big wee on whatever we want to look at.
What's a knob? What's an elephant?
What am I? Am I being pissed on?
I don't know, because I'm too busy enjoying life, free of imaginary windmills.
My name is Sada
and I have never actually been accosted or threatened by a TV screen.
Yay!
