Someone might be at the door right now but I’m not answering it. I’m learning to slip down secret passageways of text and just transfer the hidden whisperings in the dark corridors onto the page. I read today that there is nothing I can ever write that will be profound enough for me to stick with forever. That’s both sad and comforting. But mostly comforting, because it frees me from having to produce the masterpiece to end all others. That’s the pressure that keeps a person from the page, the instrument. And that person is me. You know how long I struggled with the first bad review of the OaKs? Truthfully it wasn’t that long - just a couple of weeks, but later there was a follow up interview with that same person, and I happened to mention this struggle during the interview. There were a lot of things said in that interview, but that made it in, while other things - more important things, lke how much he liked our live show now as opposed to back then - did not. We’re all human beings. That’s OK.
But mainly I’m learning how to give myself space to make art or not to make it. Either one. But sooner or later I know I have to say, gently, “OK. Enough is enough. Set up the drums and play.” and then I do and it’s tough for a little bit. But then something happens and the space opens up and I feel magnificent - things get larger. And I look at the clock after 15 minutes and realize that it’s really been an hour. What is that? “Flow” was the hip psychological term for it about 10 years ago. It may even be older than that.
But still, were I to refine this stuff down into something to be published, what would that be? See? That’s the kicker. If I’m never going to write something permanent and deep enough to stay with forever, then what is there to write? Does that mean I just have to settle for less? You cannot ever get away from the The Golden Mean - what Artistotle called the point of moderation (for more on this, go here). The maintaining of this point requires effort. It’s a constant balancing act that asks for vigilance at every step. The myth of Sisyphus . But that’s the temptation, isn’t it? Not to think? To rest in a fixed point that accounts for all effort towards digging beneath the surface, a surface that’s constantly being refilled with dirt from above (and below)?
This comes clearer no more than in an election year, but honestly, that’s what makes the United States of America such a great country. The naysayers may come forth and challenge “what’s so great about it,” citing a long history of civil and human rights abuses, a struggling economy, political corruption, natural disasters, personal issues, etc.” Fine. But the USA is great not so much for it’s realities as for it’s potentials. At the same time, it is in all the more danger of losing it’s greatness. Again the re-surfacing of The Golden Mean -- in the mean, there is the constant danger of slipping down either side of the mountain. Toward excess or deficiency. Towards excess = the far right of overzealousness, manifest destiny and radical nationalism of all kinds. Towards deficiency = anarchy, lackadaisical attitude, defeatism, poverty, nihilism. Surprisingly enough, we go in both directions in this country. I don’t think you can link either side to a particular political faction (e.g. conservatism or liberalism) but I do think you can diagnose the entire culture under one or the other, and link both back to the same symptom - unwillingness to do the work of thinking.
Thomas Jefferson knew how important it was for a democracy to remain vigilant, else it slip into sleep. He said “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Why is it that so much great literature is produced under totalitarian regimes, or constant threat of death, excommunication, oppression, etc.? Perhaps because there is a definite monolith to fight against. In such cases, the enemy (e.g. oppression) is an easily spotted object, and when the enemy is easy to spot, it is easy to write about or against.
But what plagues us today is all the more frightening - an enemy that cannot be seen, an enemy that seems like it’s not even there. An enemy that is not just outside us but within ourselves: Complacency. That is the real danger. That is the enemy for which we should be ticking color-coded terror threat levels across the bottom of the evening news stations. It was complacency that produced 9/11 from a security standpoint - all sides agree on this. And complacency continues to produce economic downturn and political corruption within our own borders. For as we choose to sleep in the face of the enemy, the enemy grows stronger.
As long as we feel that the production of strictly-conservative minded businessmen is more important than the production of strong minds no matter what the political or economic outcome, we will continue to undermine our own self-proclaimed goal of political sovereignty, family values, and historical greatness, in terms of the legacy we leave to future generations. None of this is worth speaking of if we turn to the founding principles of this nation only in word but not in spirit. And what is this spirit?
It surprises me that so much of Christian culture, especially fundamentalist Christian culture, is based solely on a literal interpretation of Old Testament Biblical law. I say “old,” because a fundamental aspect of New Testament thinking is precisely that - active thinking. Think of how Christ questioned the Pharisees before the multitudes. Think of how they would rather kill him than engage him in an honest debate and how they nailed him to a tree rather than concede that he might be offering something worth thinking about with regard to the interpretation of Scripture. And what about the atheist? It’s the same thing. To me, any blanket declaration about the definite state of a thing based on the lack of evidence to the contrary is still nothing more than a conjecture. Pharisee and Atheist stand together in their unwillingness to put forth the energy to ride with principle, to disengage the particular declarations of his or her individual perspective, and to ride the entanglement of the concepts out to their undeniably unpacked conclusions.
With the connections between religion and politics now both asserted and debated more than ever, it’s important to return to the notion of patriotism and re-examine it. What is it? Is it a simple unquestioning deference to the rule of law? Or is it an unmerciful challenge to the authority of the day? I think it’s neither. I think it’s the constant vigilance of a maintained balance, which is why the work being done by thinkers like George Lakoff is so important. The mental framing of political debates is something that works beneath the surface so much that it’s never even raised as an issue in the media.
I’ve often railed out against artists who do not use their highly influential positions for anything other than touting some new fashion line or shocking the public with another scandal. Not that I’m perfect or anything. But I think the media is in the same boat whenever they just pick up whatever concept they find lying on the ground just after its being thrown over the White House (or some other) fence, and drop it into a report without taking the time to sit down and unravel the implications embedded within the concept.
We’re talking about phenomenology here. We’re talking about the reinvigoration of this philosophical movement, that was weighed down so much by the very systematic ontologies it was invoked to unravel, that it sank to the bottom of the ocean of thought under the weight of it’s own examination, to rest with the other shipwrecks on the floor of the sea of philosophical tradition. What are you doing, FOX News? Yes. They come right out with it. They are biased, and try to mask the fact by calling themselves "fair and balanced." Is this anything new? It is usually the thief that is the first to say “You can trust me.” It is the quack who makes the strongest assertions as to the probability of your being cured by his treatment, especially the expensive ones. And, as throughout history, the cream of the intellectually dull rise to the top, and tune in night after night without questioning, or even searching the other stations for a comparative view. Whatever happened to the rule of consulting multiple sources that we all learned when writing our papers in middle school?
The same can be said for talk radio. As many compare Limbaugh’s unprecedented new $390 million Talk Radio contract, and find it nearly impossible to take their eyes off the dollar amount. Another talk show host, Michael Savage, went in a slightly different direction. “But I thought the economy was in danger! I thought media was struggling. Where did all this money come from?” Sadly, it seems, there is a easy answer -- it is the price of convenience that Americans are willing to pay - the convenience of not thinking. Of being able to turn on the radio and receive a free political vocabulary, fresh from the mouth of a man with absolutely no experience in the holding of a public office.
I wonder what kind of constitution we would have if the thinkers who met in those un-air conditioned rooms in Boston for hours on end would have walked in each day solely with heads full of ideas from some guy at a podium in the public square, a man spouting nothing but conjectures, hasty generalizations, false dichotomies, and straw-man versions of the political positions he happens not to like.
Is there any coincidence that right-wing talk radio is so much more prevalent than Progressive radio, and that the right-wing position is the one that favors big business and is favored by those with large amounts of political ad monetary capital? It is advertising that makes the information available, and made the $400 million contract happen, and it is advertising paid for by major broadcast media corporations, for people with money. Just the other day Limbaugh was talking about how the reason Talk Radio is doing so well in his case is because "Conservatives buy stuff." And they buy stuff because they have money. And they have money because that is what they prefer. That’s where they place their focus. That’s the manifestation of their creative energy in action in the land of the free. And I do not argue against the fact that buying things and keeping the economy alive is a good thing. But at what cost?
It used to be a mantra in this country, especially in the South in the 90s - “buy American!” I used to laugh at this - I used to counter this mantra with another in question form -- when Americans start making cars that compete with the value, reliability, and innovation of the Japanese, I’ll be the first person that goes down to the car lot to pick me up a new automobile. We should have been the ones to invent the hybrid. We should have been the ones to develop green technology and energy independence. But our excessive pride - a pride devoid of honest humility - has kept this torch from our hands. We fell into the very “symbolism over substance” that Limbaugh has made his mantra against the so-called "left" for the past 15 years.
Why am I picking on Limbaugh? For the same reason that I’ve called out the rich and famous with microphones in front of their faces and nothing important to tell us, for the same reason I’ve decried the media editors who squander their potential for the uplifting of their country on a daily and hourly basis - Mr Limbaugh, you have so much potential to dig deeper - to make your “Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies” a true institute of higher learning. But as long as you continue to seek out new audience members to expand your listening base, you can only go so deep, before they will find themselves as LOST as the audience of the show with that same name are when they try to jump in on Season 4 without knowing the backstory. You speak of the dumbing down of America that is taking place in our educational system, but have no idea that it is you yourself who is contributing to the dumbing down of the very Conservatism you champion. You are it, Mr Limbaugh. The torch is in your hands. Will you run with it, taking this light into new territory? Or will you shine the light in the same place, on your hill, standing still, with your audience ever growing around you, wanting more, yet unaware that there is anything more to be had?
Anyhow - that's what I was thinking about this morning.
Matthew
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