A Conspiracy of Dunces

I suppose there doesn’t have to be any great conspiracy for Bush to be reelected. People just have bad taste. It’s a strange and sad world where most people like crap and only the minority dig deeper into what the world has to offer. I have found very often that it is rare to walk into somebody’s home and find a bookshelf. Are you kidding me?

I don’t want to sound arrogant here/supercilious, snake-like word. Most people just aren’t very curious. Most people don’t read. Most people don’t investigate all the music that’s been recorded--classical, blues, punk rock, old folk songs, whatever. Why don’t people want to learn about human achievement? It’s baffling.

The intelligentsia has been crying foul for centuries. The mainstream has always been devoutly dumb and good art has had to fight and claw to get noticed. Always. However, things seem worse these days. I used to dream of the better sixties--all the music, the intellectual talk, the idealism, and so on. I didn’t realize at the time that I was living in just as artistically vibrant a time. The bands on SST records are pretty amazing: Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Descendents, Black Flag, Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth. This was like another Beat Generation.

Perhaps I am not looking hard enough, but the world seems to be crumbling artistically. I think they have no idea the impact television will have on people over decades (or maybe they know exactly what will happen.) It’s incredibly dangerous. I know because I’ve medicated myself with television too many times. It is the great inebriator, the real opiate of the masses. It makes people believe in things that don’t matter. Worse yet, it makes things that do matter have less of an impact.

I imagine this is why music and movies have become so unimaginative. TV has something to do with this. People have been trained to not try very hard. This is true for both the audience and those who make music and movies. Nothing has to be good to be successful. You’d think that CGI would open up the imagination on screen because anything’s possible. Instead it’s drained meaning from movies. They’ve become less human, more like an infantalizing cartoon.

This ties into the election. I heard a commercial on the radio this morning for Pepto Bismol which advertised a new "delicious cherry flavor." Does anybody on Earth believe that Pepto Bismol is delicious? People have so much crap thrown at them via commercials, billboards, movies, TV shows, magazines, and other people, that George Bush can lie while smiling and it doesn’t matter, it seems like a normal part of the everyday fabric.

It’s a great irony that Hollywood is left-leaning, when they are very responsible in fostering the stupidity and blind hero-worship in America today. Americans love actors. It doesn’t matter if you are intelligent or even tell the truth, as long as you appear to be a hero. Despite what they say, Republicans like Hollywood just like they like Ralph Nader. It helps them win.

So if George Bush gets elected, don’t be surprised. The same dumb beast that makes Britney Spears successful will elect George Bush President. People are just getting progressively dumber and less involved. By the way, I am not really a great fan of A Confederacy of Dunces. People either love or hate that book. It’s for another type of reader, not me. This is starting to sound like I don’t like anything. That’s not true. I like writing.