Hope floats
I am currently very positive. I believe that the overriding age of stupidity which has, for the most part, been the guiding force in our nation's culture for the last fifty or so years may finally be over. "How so?", you say, "how can this be possible when stupidity is so obvious and in abundance?"
But that's the point isn't it? I don't think I have to discuss Foucalt here, but I could. Part of his argument in all of his books is that shit doesn't get dealt with until it is made public. Public shit cannot stand. Don't get me wrong, a million people are generally much stupider than any one, but they can smell a lie, let me tell you. They'll put up with a lot of shit, but a million people can divide the guilt of betrayal among them without there being much of an impact, and we are about to betray our idiots. They thought we were with them. Turns out, we aren't.
First of all, I'd like to elucidate my point. When I say that stupid has come to a head, I mean things like Reality Television. Sure there always has been the reality television contengent, but it comes to a head when there is ONLY reality television. It is then that we are forced to stare unflinching into the very heart of stupid. The same might be said about biassed news. When Fox is taken seriously, we must raise serious objections. It was no big deal when we read about the Loch Ness monster running for president in our newsstands; it is something entirely different when law professors at Harvard are brought in to discuss the fiscal policies of Nessie.
The truth is that the American Public seems like a beached whale--massive and important, but ultimately impotent, but in reality, we are not a beached whale-- but a disinterested giant. We excercise little by way of moral or intellectual objection--there will never be anything like true outrage--but force even the slightest crinkling of our nose and we will squash you like a gnat.
The effects of this are mmany, but I'd like to point out a few so that you also might share with me a feeling of hope.
Walmart: Insert whatever objection you have against the mega-store, crowned ruler of the box-mart, the greatest objection will always be that they are unstoppable. The narrative is simple and always the same: three Walmarts open in the same county (sometimes in the same city) and they compete against each other driving all the local businesses under, at which time, all but one Walmart closes and that store has a monopoly on that area's consumerism.
Great. Except, this isn't really happening. It looked good on paper, but for the most part, after the local stores close, Walmart can't just turn around and raise their prices. Why? Because everyone knows what Walmart does to the community and if they, for a second, tried to dodge out on their end of the deal by raising their prices by a nickel, the store would be burned to the ground. I mean really what is Walmart but a glorified Target. Unless their prices stay very very low they are in danger of being put out of business by KMart...and that's sad.
So, here's how they prop up their dying kingdom: they understaff. These staffing problems cause long long lines at the checkout counter which makes Walmart's need for lower prices more pronounced. After all, now not only do they have to undersell Target but they also have to undersell the convenience of Target. Think of CosCo. Why do people tolerate the lines at CosCo? Because the prices are really low. And now Walmart's lines are as bad as CosCo's. Of course, to make matters worse, there mistreatment of employees has made an unstable labor base. Honestly, if you don't want to work at Walmart anymore, do you have to give longer than 5 minutes notice. When you apply for another job, are they really going to care that you wouldn't put up with the way that Walmart treated you?... which only makes their understaffing problem worse.
You see, Walmart believed that we, the stupid American public, would lie down and let them take advantage of us. That was not a good idea. They were banking on the stupid and now they are paying the price. I imagine that in five years Walmart will declare bankruptcy. I know that they are large, but that only makes them more vulnerable. It takes a lot of money to keep an empire like that going.
This is what I mean by hope. The ridiculously stupid are losing here.
One more example: The academy awards have become a non-stop tirade against downloading pirated movies off the internet. The movie industry does not quite understand that its lack of intelligence is simply being punished. Oh, I imagine that there are a sizable group of people pirating movies, but for most of us, the need for four or five firewalls has made downloading anything prohibitive.
The real problem is that nothing coming out of Hollywood was written in the last ten years. The scripts are fifty years old, they just cast new actors and away they go. Maybe they make the Honeymooners black or maybe they make a sequal to Cheaper By the Dozen (there was a reason that the original didn't have a sequel), but make something new? Blasphemy I think our culture's total denial of the importance of art has finally hit home. We don't even have enough respect for art to pay people to come up with movie plots. Hollywood is banking on the fact that they don't need to pay writers because you're too stupid to know that you've already seen Superman. They don't even need a host of actors, just make every character in every movie playable by Ben Stiller or one of the Wilson brothers.
Well, we aren't that stupid and their movies are tanking.
That's enough for now. I'm sure I'll have more to say later.
But that's the point isn't it? I don't think I have to discuss Foucalt here, but I could. Part of his argument in all of his books is that shit doesn't get dealt with until it is made public. Public shit cannot stand. Don't get me wrong, a million people are generally much stupider than any one, but they can smell a lie, let me tell you. They'll put up with a lot of shit, but a million people can divide the guilt of betrayal among them without there being much of an impact, and we are about to betray our idiots. They thought we were with them. Turns out, we aren't.
First of all, I'd like to elucidate my point. When I say that stupid has come to a head, I mean things like Reality Television. Sure there always has been the reality television contengent, but it comes to a head when there is ONLY reality television. It is then that we are forced to stare unflinching into the very heart of stupid. The same might be said about biassed news. When Fox is taken seriously, we must raise serious objections. It was no big deal when we read about the Loch Ness monster running for president in our newsstands; it is something entirely different when law professors at Harvard are brought in to discuss the fiscal policies of Nessie.
The truth is that the American Public seems like a beached whale--massive and important, but ultimately impotent, but in reality, we are not a beached whale-- but a disinterested giant. We excercise little by way of moral or intellectual objection--there will never be anything like true outrage--but force even the slightest crinkling of our nose and we will squash you like a gnat.
The effects of this are mmany, but I'd like to point out a few so that you also might share with me a feeling of hope.
Walmart: Insert whatever objection you have against the mega-store, crowned ruler of the box-mart, the greatest objection will always be that they are unstoppable. The narrative is simple and always the same: three Walmarts open in the same county (sometimes in the same city) and they compete against each other driving all the local businesses under, at which time, all but one Walmart closes and that store has a monopoly on that area's consumerism.
Great. Except, this isn't really happening. It looked good on paper, but for the most part, after the local stores close, Walmart can't just turn around and raise their prices. Why? Because everyone knows what Walmart does to the community and if they, for a second, tried to dodge out on their end of the deal by raising their prices by a nickel, the store would be burned to the ground. I mean really what is Walmart but a glorified Target. Unless their prices stay very very low they are in danger of being put out of business by KMart...and that's sad.
So, here's how they prop up their dying kingdom: they understaff. These staffing problems cause long long lines at the checkout counter which makes Walmart's need for lower prices more pronounced. After all, now not only do they have to undersell Target but they also have to undersell the convenience of Target. Think of CosCo. Why do people tolerate the lines at CosCo? Because the prices are really low. And now Walmart's lines are as bad as CosCo's. Of course, to make matters worse, there mistreatment of employees has made an unstable labor base. Honestly, if you don't want to work at Walmart anymore, do you have to give longer than 5 minutes notice. When you apply for another job, are they really going to care that you wouldn't put up with the way that Walmart treated you?... which only makes their understaffing problem worse.
You see, Walmart believed that we, the stupid American public, would lie down and let them take advantage of us. That was not a good idea. They were banking on the stupid and now they are paying the price. I imagine that in five years Walmart will declare bankruptcy. I know that they are large, but that only makes them more vulnerable. It takes a lot of money to keep an empire like that going.
This is what I mean by hope. The ridiculously stupid are losing here.
One more example: The academy awards have become a non-stop tirade against downloading pirated movies off the internet. The movie industry does not quite understand that its lack of intelligence is simply being punished. Oh, I imagine that there are a sizable group of people pirating movies, but for most of us, the need for four or five firewalls has made downloading anything prohibitive.
The real problem is that nothing coming out of Hollywood was written in the last ten years. The scripts are fifty years old, they just cast new actors and away they go. Maybe they make the Honeymooners black or maybe they make a sequal to Cheaper By the Dozen (there was a reason that the original didn't have a sequel), but make something new? Blasphemy I think our culture's total denial of the importance of art has finally hit home. We don't even have enough respect for art to pay people to come up with movie plots. Hollywood is banking on the fact that they don't need to pay writers because you're too stupid to know that you've already seen Superman. They don't even need a host of actors, just make every character in every movie playable by Ben Stiller or one of the Wilson brothers.
Well, we aren't that stupid and their movies are tanking.
That's enough for now. I'm sure I'll have more to say later.