Elevation
This Article is really interesting. Thanks to Cat Rambo for passing this along. It rather immediately reminded me of the Gandhi quote “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Since this seems to be media day here at policywank, this struck a nerve with me about the role of the media in our culture. I’ve long believed and commented that one of the greatest victories for the right wing, for the corporations, and the forces of reaction generally in this country was to turn apathetic cynicism into the definition of cool in youth culture. Once infected with that notion, I don’t believe that most people have any desire to overcome it. Many who have the desire lack the tools or committment to do so.
In order to see the kind of world that humanists and leftists wish to see, you have to have people who are committed to the belief that people aren’t inherently bad. You have to have people who believe that there’s more to “human nature” than self-interest. You have to have people who are willing to live our higher impulses without expecting to ever see a reward for it. You need some selflessness.
The article notes that even after viewing video evidence of these elevated behaviors, people were in an elevated state. They were inspired to do better things, filled with feelings of love and playfulness, etc. Our media does nothing but promote fear, aggression, violence, and our basest instincts. That’s certainly not a new critique. It’s not even necessarily a leftist critique, especially not in this country where the left is often reduced to the laissez faire banality of “if you don’t like it, change the channel”. I suppose the logical end of that line of reasoning is that if you don’t like any of it, you should unplug. For most people, that’s not a practical option. It is simply a fact that a certain degree of familiarity with the mainstream media is necessary as a social lubricant and is often necessary in that regard to success in our chosen careers, etc. The entertainment media seems to serve no other political purposes than to spur consumption and to harden our hearts with cynicism. If people were to believe that they could change things, they might just try.
I think our media could be put to a better use, a use that wouldn’t even necessarily be partisan. I think there are basic acts of human goodness that are as admired by the typical american on the left as they are by the typical american on the right and most americans in between. This can be done without resorting to hoaky attempts to tug on the heart strings or provide sanitized “family friendly” schlock. We have the regulatory power to promote that kind of programming. And if you wanna stay neo-liberal, theoretically, we have the market power to force the change.
I wonder just what modern life would be like if our media focused more on acts that demonstrate and inspire the elevation discussed in that article. Might it not help to contribute to the inverse of the downward spiral that our culture has been in during recent decades?
