Thursday, June 10, 2010

Starting From Scratch

Does anyone else stop to consider that the majority of our beliefs are derived from a culture of idiots? Like, The Nat King Cole television show had to compete with Hee Haw...and Hee Haw won...so what we call culture is Hee Haw. Our cultural perception is based on what a hungover writer scribbled out so Sally Fields and Tim Conway could say it through a hole in a barn. Is that ok with you? I'm not comfortable with that. I would like to clean the slate but I'm having a hard time doing it. Things like beauty and what is environmentally acceptable have no basis in science, but are more likely to be based on something I saw in a McDonalds ad or when I was reading a Batman comic. You could say our parents pass on many of our beliefs which means I'm relying on the incredibly manipulative '50s media with bomb fallout shelters or "I'm a doctor and I smoke Pall Mall."
See, above all, I think this is behind my desire to drop out completely. I am very uncomfortable with values that were designed with the benefit of oil stock holders in mind. I can recognize them but it turns out that to resist them only causes giant problems. So, I don't belong. I resist and am considered undesirable. Fine. But the real problem is actually succeeding in flushing out these poisonous values. It's damn near impossible. IMPOSSIBLE.
People like to say that we don't use most of our brain's potential. My answer to this is to try to reverse your political opinions. Just try to do that. Switch sides from liberal to conservative or conservative to liberal. That should be easy. Right? It's hardly any brain power at all. You saw Bambi as a kid and like animals. Your dad was a hunter so you like to kill animals. So, just switch. Well, if we can't do that then maybe we've got a high opinion of our brain power. Maybe we are pathetically slow and to even manage to grasp a single political opinion is about as good as it gets. To switch sides is hopelessly hopeless. We aren't capable of reinventing ourselves.
I've tried for twenty years to stop watching boston sports but I still care when the celtics suck and miss easy layups or blow their defense. You would think that after 20 years I would not care about these things. But it's almost biological. I don't care about the Celtics. In fact, their fate is only a distraction to me, like the rain outside. So why do I still care? Other people don't care. I want to be like them.
Is there electro shock therapy for this? I want answers!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most of the stars on Hee Haw were old hands from Grand Ol Opry and other Southern institutions of the same ilk. Early country bands would put on those overall costumes and straw hats to create an atmosphere, to create an illusion of simple times. It's show business. As a yankee you have a cultural bias that southern cotton farmers are ignorant and people who couldn't afford an Ivy league education are idiots.

But you are right in the other criticism. Intelligent people were forced to wear "Daisy Dukes" and push up bras to get into the game. And it's because we aren't much more than monkeys. Incapable of reinventing ourselves.

Oggy Bleacher said...

I'd have the same complaint against shows like "Family Ties" or "90210" if I grew up in Arkansas. They normalize/glamorize specific lifestyle behaviors which have no connection to how most of the world lives.
I won't give up. I'm going to become a right wing evangelical Christian if it kills me.

Lyle said...

You can do it, Oggy! You probably don't need to die, but you will be born again!

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