Where I work, one of the strategies we rely on most is, “Keep ‘em busy, stupid!” Since our main goal is to give our students an education and keep them out of trouble, we spend a lot of time making sure that the devil has few idle hands. While I was coming up with a few supplemental activities for this week, it occurred to me (far too late, I suppose) that our government has been using the same strategy with Americans since before the industrial revolution.
Americans work more and more, getting less sleep, less free time, and less time with our families. Our leisure activities make thinking unnecessary - movies, video games, YouTube, etc… Even our sports are becoming more solitary - running, biking, snowboarding, etc… Gone are the times when Americans sat around contemplating art, culture, music, and literature. Is anyone you know a member of a book club (one that offers more than just a discount on purchases)? When you’re at Starbucks, do you hear anyone discussing issues of national or social importance?
We’re moving away from each other, taught that it’s great to value individuality when what we’re really doing is isoloating ourselves from the rest of society so that we have no real idea what anyone else things. It’s not like we can trust the NNM or the polls to tell us the truth, but god forbid any of us actually TALK to each other about something more pressing than who’s going to win American Idol or what happend last night on Lost (for those Americans actually intelligent enough to follow the plot). When we do band together it’s to get a TV show like Jericho back on the air, not to organize a protest or mobilize to enact any kind of social change. Our hands are not idle - they’re just not busy with anything of any importance.
Interesting thing you bring that up. According to Newsweek, the average American works 47 hours a week, which is more than any other industrialized nation. yes, we even work more than the Japanese because they have a concept called “vacations” which seem to be lacking from our culture.
If you take a look at fun/social cultures - like take for example the French or the Japanese (contrary to popular opinion, the Japanese are a blast), alcohol is often involved and one thing we’re straying away from in this culture is social drinking. Remember the days when you used to go drinking with your co-workers? Remember how much more verbally and emotionally intimate you were with them vs who you currently work with? Coincidence?
If anything bothers me though, it’s the intimacy that we used to have with our neighbors that is now gone. Nowadays, everyone is scared of their neighbor. Michael Moore showed how crime is down, yet the media makes it look like there’s a boogieman in every corner and behind every bush and no one can be trusted, so I think that has to be taken into account too.
The problem with drinking in America is that we live an expansive suburban lifestyle, where any drinking must be done at a location far away and reached by automobile. If you look at places where people still do a lot of social drinking, I’ll bet you’ll find mass transit and local (say, within walking distance) establishments in large supply.
“boogieman in every corner and behind every bush and no one can be trusted”
Ha! The Bush is the boogieman, and he definitely cannot be trusted.
I think all this is the price of our mobility. We dreamed of getting away from it all, and so we did, but we’ve found we’ve got little left but debt.
GR8 piece of writing, especially final paragraph. Pathos: our world is full of it.
Hi girl! Long time no see/say. ;o)
Dittos all the way. Of course *I* think the dumbing down of America is something deliberate that the government encourages so that less thinking men and women will be able to dissent. That’s why the Patriot Act has been so easy to ennact.
Check out the movie Radiant City!!!!
http://www.radiantcitymovie.com/about.php
it is true. busy people are harder to make mad
thats for sure, bro