LISTENING
Bob Dylan "Live 1966: The 'Royal Albert Hall' Concert"
Bob Dylan "Self Portrait"
"Hotel Stadt Berlin: A Showcase of New Electronic Record Labels From Berlin"
READING
At least since the Frankfurt School's exile in Los Angeles in the 1940's (Marxist, modernist and Jews, these theorist had fled Germany in the early 30's), political thinkers of all kinds have been describing a certain condition: the public is supposedly the entity to which everyone belongs,and yet in practice "the public" becomes a set of mass-produced images and bureaucratic institutions almost no one feels he belongs to, or can address.
-Ben Kunkel
"Dangerous Characters" by Ben Kunkel
THINKING
Kunkel, in the above article, cites Hannah Arendt's observation in the book "On Violence" that the glorification of violence is "caused by the severe frustration of the faculty of action in the modern world" and makes the supposition that taking up arms is the only way to enter certain messages into general circulation.
I thought about this as I watched effete trust fund Neo-Conservative William Kristol's latest appearance on the PBS program "Charlie Rose" tonight.
I noticed Rose's deference to Kristol during the interview, leaving many of his questionable assumptions unchallenged.
This is the norm for major media in the United States when dealing with conservatives.
Contrast this with the handling of left-leaning guests (using the term "left" loosely since rarely is someone who is genuinely "left" on a major television program) where the host, be it Charlie Rose or Ted Koppel, most often feels obligated to interject the views of the right into the conversation in an attempt to overcome any accusation of "liberal bias" in the media.
So the situation is while the right-wing punditry is unfettered, allowing a projection of authority and control, the contrarian middle-left position is muted with pre-emptive, deflating counter-arguments, and the true left is absent.
No conspiracy theories here, simply the realities of established power and control.
Considering the right-wing's increasing use of methods of "un-reality" to advance their agenda, it has become problematic for me.
I am having difficulty adjusting to this new paradigm where truth is no longer a determining factor in assigning legitimacy to an argument.
A half-hour of "Daily Show" does not alleviates the sense of alienation from the status quo. It is now merely a pleasant diversion from the grim fact that the few rules that existed are out the window, everything is fucked up, and nearly all of us are on our toes looking over the fence at a party to which we were never invited in the first place.
Leaving us with the question: What next?
