Does anyone feel anything about Kate Moss and her recent drug scandal? Maybe it's old news already. Does anyone else feel anything about Keira Knightley taking over her job, according to TIME magazine.
What upsets me is that people like Paris Hilton are controlling the media and the cultural apparatus in our society. The more we focus on celebrities, the less we focus on what we should be focusing on, the accountability of our elected officials. All this attention devoted to celebrities takes away from our attention that we could be spending on holding our representatives accountable and transparent. Futhermore, it's the first time in our history that people like Paris Hilton are part of the cultural dissemination center. Usually, in the past, Europe was where we turned to get culture and ideas about how to live our lives. Now, we turn to people like Paris Hilton, which may not be the wisest idea; she's not that bright. If our society turns to people like Paris Hilton for ideas and culture, then what kind of statement does that make about our society? Are we getting dumb and dumber?
I read the book, dumbing down America: Essays on stripmining American culture, and I do find it incredibly sad that the public is getting dumb and dumber in many ways. For example, we rely on corporations and technology so much it limits our creativity and the power of our brains. We rely on corporations to tell us how to live so often that we forget how to live our lives independently. Corporations try to tell us how to think and try to limit our brains with their fill in the blank forms and bureacracy and division of labor. M. Scott Peck said in his book "Further Down the Road Less Traveled" that an organization that repeatedly says it's not our job or it's out of our hands is inherently evil.
Our generation is so absorbed by the media that we forget what real life is. We think the media presents a clear picture of how real life should be when the picture they present is so ridiclous and surreal. However, we don't want to forsake the fantasy that we don't have to put forth real effort in life, that life isn't easy and not everyone is great-looking and sexy.
We need to:
1. Stop being brainwashed by the media.
2. Urge the media to stop presenting us with such ridiclous fantasies
3. Stop corporations from taking over the world.
4. Be proactive and act on our own to change the world.
Easier said then done, don't you think? It's hard to get EVERYONE to change their ways, even if it would be for the better.