Life has become just another commodity. And it has become cheap. And that’s a great tragedy…..
So had practice for the new band last night. Left the practice room with a big smile on my face. Hard not to when you’re working on tunes like Happy Together by the Turtles and California Dreamin’ by the Mammas and Pappas…..I have a brand new Sixties’ tribute band going and I’m having more fun than you can shake a stick at – and there’s a really old expression for you. Anyway, after playing these really great, feel-good tunes, I got to thinking about the media for some reason – and the effect I think it has on virtually all passengers on Spaceship Earth. And here’s what I mean.
Back in the mythical Sixties – that decade of peace, love and violence – despite all the chaos and mayhem that was going on in society, the media continued to project mostly hopefulness and good vibes. Even though we had our “dark” figures in music, for example, like Jim Morrison and perhaps Jimi Hendrix and a couple of others, most of the music we listened to was pretty positive and upbeat – at least that’s my memory of it. There were lots of protest songs for sure, but even they were somehow catchy and positive. On TV, we were watching shows like Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres and Gilligan’s Island – shows that expected you to do nothing more than laugh. There were all kinds of goofy, but upbeat movies in those days. We basically lived in a sea of positivity regardless how bleak the actual world scene was….
And I think that contributed in a big way to the fact that young people in those days – and really pretty well everybody – felt pretty hopeful about the future – young people really and truly believed they could change the world for the better. It was in general terms a great time to be alive. Contrast that with today. Young people today are absolutely and totally buried in negative media….it’s all around them. Don’t know the modern music scene these days, but know most mainstream music – read rap and hip/hop – is not really upbeat and positive….many new movies are wildly dark and foreboding – lots of horror and shock type movies. The news is filled with all sorts of negativity…how we’re losing the battle with climate change, how there is war and carnage, people are starving, homelessness is all around, the work climate is filled with uncertainty….it’s really no wonder that two of the leading causes of death among young people are drug overdose and suicide….those are also perhaps the most tragic indicators in our societies that things have gone terribly wrong. How can we continue to let this crap happen? How insensitive and unfeeling are we? How terrifically stupid are we?
Anyway, I’ve mulled this over quite a bit. I see it this way in the here and now. The modern media is like a huge, dark cloud hanging over the planet, smothering most of the light – or good stuff. When good things happen, and there are lots of them, they are like tiny pin pricks of light piercing up through the darkness. Problem is this cloud of negativity has been institutionalized and become part of the planet’s psyche if you like. That’s because it’s mostly big, black-hearted corporations that are driving most of the media – and they have massive amounts of power and a tremendous capacity to snuff out anything that bucks the mainstream. On the other hand, it’s mostly much smaller organizations or individuals around the world who are doing the good stuff. In most cases, they are badly overmatched by the evil Establishment – at least, that’s what we used to call it.
And it is insidious. It has sort of rotted our societies from the inside out. And we have let it happen, my friends. While we have been cruising and golfing and staying at fantastically brilliant resorts in luxurious and exotic places, the Establishment has been eating our young….and we have been shovelling them into this great maw simply by not paying attention to what is happening. And so there are lots of drug overdoses and there is lots of suicide among young people because they’re buried alive in the bullshit. And they can’t see the sheer brilliance of the planet and now precious all life is….life has become just another commodity. And it has become cheap. And that’s a great tragedy…..