Opinion/Editorial
Fear and Loathing
There was a book, published many years back, written by a brilliant but truly badly damaged and addicted author. The book was called Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The legendary road trip across the deserts of the southern United States was nothing more or less than a surrender to the darker side of life and the author’s fictional character’s attempt to hide or block out the fear and loathing they were so experiencing along the way. Much of that fear and loathing was self-fear and self-loathing.
What has happened to the United States when such a book might not be taken as a fictional journey into addicted souls instead of a hard-bitten expression of the unadmitted reality of daily living today. Recently, on ‘Sunday Morning Today’ it was finally admitted by certain named major players in the mass media industry that it is their job to publish negative, fake, and awful material, even if that publishing leads to injury and death. The public has a right to know is an old media adage and descriptive when applied by people of principle, especially in the media or political areas.
The members of the media were never approached and probably would never have commented about the fact that the mass media, the Internet news, magazines, newspapers, and more are published only for money. They are not published to inform the public. Only the public believes that and is led to believe it by the men and women working only to keep the maximum number of people watching. Good news is not ‘popular’ because it doesn’t induce fear. Fear is what is attracting and holding audiences today.
People feared what Trump might do, and they still fear what he still might do, so they tuned in, not because they loved him but because they feared him. His followers to this day follow him and seemingly adore him because they are afraid not to. The effect of mass media on the population of today was impossible to predict only thirty years, or so, ago. That news anchors like Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity would earn upwards of forty million dollars a year apiece would have been inconceivable, and that what they announce as news, no matter what it is, would be held to be harmless and allowed, even in the face of hundreds of thousands dying who might follow its directions.
A real doctor gone into weird fake and conspiracy medicine conspiracies, named Dr. Oz, is actually running for a Senate office. Real credentials backed by real performance have disappeared from America’s requirements to serve in important or even vital positions. Neither Hannity nor Carlson have any credentials to be recommending anything of any scientific meaning to the public, but there they are, and millions of people follow and believe what they are saying. The Internet showed up almost all on its own, invented by unlikely scientists trying to pass information back and forth in an instant medium where they could also have others see the work. Many people have claimed to have invented the Internet, but in reality, it came about accidentally because of a few universities and labs coordinating their underpowered and telephone modem-connected networks. There was no intent to have a ‘social’ anything. Chat rooms came out of the need for these people to talk to one another in print and instantly without talking on the telephone or using email. They all could type at blinding speed. It all made sense but not what has happened because of their need and desire to effectively communicate. Televisions blended into ‘smart’ devices, like cell phones.
There is so much information available now, on this developed Internet, that it is impossible for any human to keep up with it, much less attempt to figure out what is real and what is not. There is no proctored or filtered data to look at, allowing complete idiots to say things that might sound true but definitely are not. There is no identity required to be on the Internet, which there damned well ought to be. There is no way to go after those who lie all the time about everything and, at least, expose who they are. Hospitals and energy grid systems are being extorted all the time for money, or they face hacked shutdowns, mostly caused by their own employees selling or giving away supposedly protected passwords, codes, and usernames. All of this stuff laid out at the beginning of this article to this point has created a general depression across the length and breadth of the country.
Bad news might give a person having a difficult time a lift, knowing that he or she is not alone, but the long-term effect of it is fear, and fear causes drinking, drugs, alienation, aggression and so many other bad things. How do we break this cycle as we begin 2022? Dr. Oz is not the answer, any more than Donald Trump, Hannity, Carlson, or any of the rest of the ‘populist’ leaders are.
The answer is in going back to teaching science, geography, culture, language, the arts and so much more. This kind of curriculum used to be called the liberal arts, until the word liberal was splashed with negative connotations by grasping, lying, and thieving idiots. The absolute only way to fight the rise of applied ignorance and idiocy is by going after improving education at every level across the land. Like having the lead pipes removed from drinking water supply lines, this way is fraught with problems in funding and in accepting the fact that its application will not see true effects until the people who institute it are long gone.
