Recently I read an
article in Harpers Magazine by Thomas de Zengotita entitled, “The Numbing of
the American Mind: Culture as Anesthetic.” Mr. Zengotita astutely observes a
cultural phoneme that has occurred in the wake of the terrible attack on the World
Trade Center (I refuse to call it 9/11). Culture has become numb. And he is
right, in every example he gives especially that society recycles media – be it
Britney Spears, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, Christina Aguilera, who are
really all the same person (not to forget NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys, and 98
Degrees), or The Negotiator, Training Day, John Q, which are really all the
same movie, or Survivor, Temptation Island, and COPS, of course, all the same show.
For years, as long as I can remember, that has been mainstream that is what
culture has become. More importantly, something Zengotita does not mention, is
that this culture not only has become numb, but has seized to progress, in all
honesty, I do not see Pop, or Reality TV, or melodramatic Film Noir, as
something terrible, I am no elitist, but year after year the same type of
content is produced and this has caused society to freeze. This grim layer of
ice stagnates the progression of culture and allows numbness to prevail, as
Zengotita explains. However, I disagree with his reasoning for this
phenomenon, namely, fabrication of reality and over saturation. It is my
belief that the media market and its business model is at fault for the
numbness that chills me to the bone.

Zengotita suggests that
the world does not differentiate between reality -something that should
penetrate and honestly affect people - and fabrication - products of a digital
society that are not real and are meant to move people. Hence, people are
oversaturated by experiences that are fabricated, hindering from feeling
anything real. “Our minds are the product of total immersion in a daily
experience saturated with fabrications to a degree unprecedented in human
history.” Now the problem. In the Lake of the Woods, a novel by Tim
O’Brian, presents a fictional story in a non-fiction style. First, the
narrator presents facts about the characters that have mysteriously
disappeared. Then, a hypothesis into the nature of the disappearance, be it
whether murder was involved, a simple accident, a tax scam, a plot to run
away. All the hypotheses are presented evenly, so drawing a real conclusion is
impossible and O’Brian not once attempts to solve the mystery. The point of
this discourse is that reality, truth more precisely, does not exist. There is
no unified theory or stream of facts that undeniably explain the disappearance just
as there is no tangible evidence that God exists. Yet people believe in God
and every person to discuss the book has a theory of what really happened,
despite it being impossible to be sure, seeing as any conclusion lacks a
cohesive truth. And what to do with the absence of reality and truth in the
world? As O’Brian suggests, it does not matter what actually is real or is
true, because you can never be sure, what matters is the reaction to the
perception of reality. What is perceived may as well be treated as real
because to that person, it is real, no matter how delusional he may be, the
perception of it makes it real to him. Accordingly, the importance is not
whether or not it is real, why plague yourself in self-doubt? But to react
rationally to the perception, avoid the arguments of truth, righteousness, and
justifications; react to perceptions honestly.

But to continue with
Zengotita’s logic. The failure to perceive reality is attributed to an
oversaturated market place full of icons and signs created to cause feelings
that of course are not genuine and create the numbness of our culture. Over exposure
desensitizes society into simply not paying attention to the absurdly
fabricated. Truthfully there is nothing wrong with these statements they flow
according to the original assertation that having a fabricated reality actually
matters. As stated above, it is of my opinion, heavily influenced by the contemporary
American fiction of Dellio, O’Brian, McCarthy, and Vonnegut, as well as
classics such as Fitzgerald, that it is impossible to declare a truth or a
reality. Everyone is free to perceive the world as they will, nothing is
absolute, and nothing is perceived the same way, so it does not really
matter whether or not the world is flooded with fabricated stimulus, because
fabricated or not, it is perceived by people and affects them, one way or the
other.

Culture is frozen; we
are numb. Why? Because that works. What do I mean? I mean culture today
generates more revenue then any other thing in the world. Viacom, Starbucks, DreamWorks,
Microsoft, Time Warner, Nike, Gap, Advertising. And the money they make off
MTV shows, a Blockbuster hit like Training Day, a Britney Spears album, a
Baseball cap, and nylon pants with straps instead of buttons does not only
trickle down into their own individual pockets, it trickles everywhere. Think
about this: MTV wants to make Christina Aguilera a star again because surveys
show that people are annoyed with Britney after the Justin Timberlake scandal.
They hire someone, and pay them, to write her music for a new CD. She then is paid
to record a new album. Her contract is renewed. DreamWorks has a new teeny-bopper
heart throb romance about true love, but the plot alone won’t sell the movie,
they need a soundtrack. MTV needs advertising for the new Christina album, a
way to get it into the kids’ heads. They place the singles from that album to
the new DreamWorks picture. Gap makes the wardrobe and Christina does a gap
add. A music video for the single is made and aired every hour on MTV – free
advertising for the movie, the album, the gap clothes, and Christina. The
movie grosses a billion dollars, the album grosses a billion dollars, and the
clothing campaign grosses a billion dollars. See? Culture is marketable.
With this type of business model available, where companies can control what
becomes popular and inundate the market with the same product in five different
forms, generating revenue to hundreds of industries all at once, why on earth
would any company possibly embrace something that may not fit into this model?

This is my point. We
are numb because our culture and society is controlled by a model whose soul
purpose is to generate the maximum amount of money using a business model that
has created one of the greatest economic growth periods in our history. And as
Zengotita points out, the model is recyclable. Viacom can literally place the
music they want to sell in front of kids and because this will generate
everyone capable of mass distribution of music, money, in one way or another, so
no one wants to compete with that genre of music because that genre of music is
what Viacom is interested in, because that genre of music is what Viacom has
learned to sell so well, because that genre of music is simple, recyclable,
easily manufactured, and manipulates sexuality. Think of Napster for a
moment. Napster was shut down because it allowed users to pirate music, which
could have potentially harmed CD sales. Soundscan sales figures -- which are
measured by tracking purchasing by recording barcodes -- show that the music
industry has grown about 8 percent over last year's first quarter despite music
piracy. But, what did Napster allow that no one really considered could harm
the Music Industry? Mass distribution of otherwise unfinanced music that did
not fit into the trickle down business model of today’s culture. With Napster,
indie bands that made scruples from record sales were discovered because now
they didn’t even NEED CD sales. People could listen to them without them
having to finance or enter the business model. And this translates into a
serious threat for the music industry, in fact for any industry involved in the
business model, because kids were being exposed to music that the industry did
not distribute. Lest these kids begin buying CDs from indie labels, Viacom
looses money because they will not tune into TRL to see the same repetitive
music, the soundtrack for the upcoming Britney movie will not help advertise
the new Britney album, the movie will have less spark without a popular
soundtrack, the album won’t sell, and Britney will be forced to finally give in
and pose nude in Playboy to pay for the new island she bought.

Progression is what
creates the new genuine feelings and emotions the Zengotita nostalgically
romanticizes in his essay. Culture must progress, people must learn from the
current to elaborate and create their own style of media. The music of the 80s
produced grunge. That is progression. Grunge to pop? I don’t think so. Mike
Nichols’ “The Graduate” paved the way for Wes Anderson’s use of long tracking
shots, his attention to scenery. These works produce feelings that are worth
having, intellect, I mean they inspire creativity and thought, and anything
that does that deserves to be part of our culture. I just don’t see MTV’s Real
World capable of doing that. Our culture is a pool; the surface is currently
frozen, causing the numbness the Zengotita explains so well, and the lack of
progression in any medium. However, Zengotita is not in the pool with the rest
of us Gen X’rs and Y’rs. He can’t feel the cold water, he can just see the
ice, but we feel it, I feel it, and I am damn sick of it. I also feel these
ripples under the water; websites like Uber.nu create them. Music by Modest
Mouse, Neutral Milk Hotel, the White Stripes, help along the way. Films by
Kevin Smith, Wes Anderson, and Jon Favreau, add momentum to the ripples. But
for now it seems, this movement remains trapped under the ice that big business
has built. Maybe tools like the internet will help these ripples move freely
under the ice until eventually a wave forms so big that it breaks the stagnant
shell and propels us to a golden era of sentiment, meaning, happiness,
substance, and emotion.

“Without
culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is
but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.” –
Albert Camus “The Artist and His Time, the Myth of Sisyphus & Other Essays
(1955).