We’re definitely not all in the same boat……

You know, a few years ago there was a pretty big hit TV show called, Breaking Bad. I only watched the first episode and thought it was sort of an evil show – but that’s only my opinion…..anyway, I remember seeing the stat on how many people watched the final episode of Breaking Bad on one of the networks – maybe HBO….about 4 million folks tuned to watch the show wrap up….sounds like a lotta people.

However, back in the 1970’s, there was a show called MASH…..it was a comedy about a bunch of doctors unwillingly serving in the Korean war. It was, in my humble opinion, one of the finest shows ever to grace the airwaves….when its final episode aired – and I’m not sure exactly when – about 1980-81, I think – about 40 million folks tuned in….that’s right….40 million. Now that’s some kinda audience….

Anyway, I cite these numbers for a reason – to demonstrate how fractured and splintered our society has become….everybody is sort of watching their own thing and what good shows there are out there in TV land are spread across a huge number of networks – or streaming services. In the old days, all the shows were packed onto just a few networks – and they were all free to watch on your aeriel….so everybody sort of ended up watching the same things….a good example of this was the Academy Awards – which almost everybody used to watch in the old days – even if you hadn’t seen any of the movies….

We used to be a relatively homogenous society…..we were sort of on the same wave length – everybody was sort of pulling in the same direction….these days, in television land, we’re all over the place…..there are about 900 networks and countless streaming services….and you’ve gotta pay for most of this stuff. In the old days, we watched everything for free….but, somehow, they figured out how to gouge and pillage us over our TV watching – and we let it happen…heard the other day on the radio, that an average household show be paying about $120-$130 a month for streaming junk….yikes…we’re at $12…..a little short….

And , of course, the very same thing has happened in the world of music…..back in the really old days, pretty well everybody listened to something called AM radio….most teenagers owned a small, transistor radio and listened a lot. Now, AM radio played “the hits”…..and, in those days, the hits were incredibly diverse – we were exposed to nearly all kinds of music….in one block of music, we might hear Jimi Hendrix, johnny Cash, the Monkees, Paul Anka, Elvis Presley, Charlie Pride, Janis Joplin…..anyway, you get the idea….

These days, everybody’s off in their own little world, because most commercial radio stations – does anybody listen to them anymore? – play a specific kind of music….so if you’re a rap/hip hop fan, you listen only to that – if you like new country, you only listen to that – if you like blues, that’s what you listen to…..no, everybody’s sort of off in their own little world, not really getting exposed to too much diversity…..which leads us all into a kind of grey, textureless pablum of a life…..

And then everybody’s walking around scratching their heads and wondering why we’re so divided politically – where it gets a little dangerous….and it’s the way of the world these days….everything is divided….social media, which everybody thought would connect the world, has driven even deeper wedges into society, through the use of something called “algorithms” which herd us all in the direction we’re already going and excludes differing and perhaps objectionable points of view….

Don’t get me wrong, either – diversity is a good thing. The mixing and mashing of our myriad of diverse cultures and beliefs should be a positive thing. But only if we allow ourselves to be exposed to this diversity and we learn to tolerate all that it brings….at the moment, there is a relative dearth of tolerance in our world…there is systemic racism, sexism and a few other “isms” as well….it’s come down to us through our checkered past.

Somehow, we must piece our society back together….we can’t all think the same…..we can’t all believe the same things – but we can still all pull in the same direction….saw this on Facebook the other day….I like it:

“We’re not all in the same boat - we’re all in the same storm….but some of us are in yachts and some of us are in canoes and some of us are drowning….we’re definitely not in the same boat…..”

Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may.