Dissent Decree

As each new day unfolds it seems the United States of America becomes more disunited, impatient and uncivil. What passes for entertainment, education and political discourse, particularly in the media, is rarely more than sensationalism and the exchange of insults and shouting. And with the exception of few good newspapers, magazines and websites, along with the Public Broadcast System (PBS) and C-Span, there is little balanced and meaningful reporting.

Moreover, I believe there is a tacit conspiracy to make Americans more ignorant and thereby gullible and easily led. This is done by flooding the media with crass entertainment and pseudo news—programming that appeals to people’s base desires and prejudices and which is aimed at the sociopath, sadist, fool, ignoramus, intellectually lazy, self loathing and narcissistic. How else can the following television programs, which currently air in prime time, be explained? Admittedly most of them are on cable but surprisingly many of them run on the networks. Here is a sampling: Ghost Whisperer, Medium, Smackdown (wrestling), Criminal Minds (profiling serial killers), Kitchen Nightmares, I’m Alive, I Shouldn’t be Alive, Gangland, Swamp Loggers, UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship cage fights), Pride (more cage fights), Dirty Jobs, Project Runway, What Not to Wear, Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, Disorder in the Court, Full Throttle Saloon, Inside American Jail, Most Daring, Most Shocking, Speeders, Ice Road Truckers, Monster Quest, Nostrademus Effect, Pawn Stars, World War II in HD, UFO Hunters, Ghost Lab, 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, and the list goes on.

In addition to the programs that exemplify the inane, insane, base, violent and idiotic there are others dedicated to smart-mouth sniping and howling outrage. This category is peopled by such luminaries as: Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Chris Matthews and others of the same ilk who have become wealthy by reducing serious issues to the level of a poorly written comic book.

So what now represents typical prime-time programming principally falls in the categories of: cage fighting, so-called reality TV, sexual exploitation, the occult, political rant and ridicule, and murder and mayhem as entertainment. Edifying!

Glaringly underrepresented are thoughtful, meaningful and intelligent presentations of the arts, history, science, and social and political issues. That’s because the corporate heads of the media companies are as cynical and shrewd as they are grossly overpaid. They correctly reason that sex, scandal, crime and stupidity have greater appeal to far more people than anything demanding intelligence, sustained attention and serious thinking. They know that far more people will watch two men (or women) beat each other unconscious than will watch a documentary on the global water crisis or a serious presentation on the Constitution. They know many people love to watch other people’s tragedy and loss of dignity. And they know their audiences love to watch politicians insult each other and confess their sordid affairs in public.

So it is that as the American people become exposed to more and more that is superficial, irrational, hyperbolic, biased, and nonsensical they become collectively and individually less capable of sustained attention, reason and analytical thought—their senses having been dulled by all the shouting, quick cuts and decontextualized snippets of word, sound and image. Moreover, with nearly everything being presented as partisan or in the guise of contest there is ever less willingness on the part of the audience to hear, perceive and understand the deeper significance, potential and meaning of what is presented.

All of this contributes to a dumbing and numbing effect on the part of the general public which works to the advantage of the cynical politicians and corporate executives. There are of course good and well-meaning politicians and corporate executives, but they are increasingly being marginalized by the power of political action committees and the “bottom line.” As the saying goes, money talks. And where money talks, taste, ethics and morality walk.

As the public is bombarded with half-truths, nonsense, pseudo science, alleged reality, and spectacles of sex and violence, they become less able to distinguish fact from fiction or pay attention to how their basic human rights and dignity are being taken from them in the name of comfort, convenience, entertainment and security.

We are indeed living in the information age. We are certainly not living in an age where reason, wisdom, taste and compassion prevail.

© 2010 Michael Maurer Smith