Chris Hedges On the Current State Of Journalism and Post-Literate Society - The Age of Spectacle

I appreciate Jesse's wisdom and insight.  They are a joy and a consolation for us.  His writing reflects why I've been blogging as well.

From Jesse's Cafe:

Hedges is a socialist, self-admittedly. And I am not. I am a believer in markets, but in sound regulation of them by an objective, publicly controlled organization, much like a referee or umpire, who transparently enforces the rules which are clear and fair to all. Why? Because people always and everywhere will cheat, some much more readily than others. The meme of naturally efficient markets is a classic 'big lie.'

I believe that widely dispersed, practical rules of organization and decision making within a greater context of general principles are far superior in their effectiveness in the distribution of resources that any sort of central planning, of the right or of the left. As Acton once said, 'no class is fit to govern.' So I like decision making that is broadly based, and subject to compromise. I think the rewards and punishments of the market are an effective stimulus to productive behaviour, provided that the rules do not become slanted by the power of an inequality propagated by cheating.

But I also see that rules alone cannot embody wisdom. There is a need for the conscious hand of humanity to guide the legendary 'invisible hand of the market.'

So I like Hedges, because what he says brings me back to center, even though he is further left. That is how bad things have become in this age of austerity, the willfully immature, and the false bravado of the destructively greedy and ideologically irrational. The western nations have moved and are still moving to the Right, as they did in the 1930's. As corruption enervates the old order, as empires once again crumble, we are re-entering the Age of Spectacle, the time of fire.

Hedges irritates some of the sacred orthodoxies of the Right without a doubt and to say the least since they are the epitome of intolerance. But he also disturbs the Left, who can be as inflexible and censorious as the Right which they hold in utter disdain for those very qualities. And he tweaks their nose on it, which is doubly irritating for those who are currently not in power.

Hedges has an absolutely wonderful description of this phenomenon of the unseeable center in describing the debates he had with both the new religious right, and the irreligious neo-atheists. The relativity of their extreme views distorts all of their perceptions, so that to both groups, Hedges the religious moderate becomes anathema, for similar reasons of intolerance and vanity.

I think that western society has gone off the tracks, in a loosely cyclical manner, by adopting an unsustainable set of priorities. Rather than forming policies to support the general good of the people, they have instead adopted the objective of the 'greatest good' where that implies the maximization of profit, but for a select few. That was a fateful decision, and I mark it somewhat loosely from 1987 for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the bailout of Wall Street by Alan Greenspan. It had its cultural resonance in the theaters.

This situation, and history, has a lot to teach us indeed, and I think those lessons have only just begun in earnest.

This historically recurrent principle of the greatest greed rather than the greatest good is killing us. There should be no doubt that it will revert to the mean, a balanced society, once again, but that reversion may be painful, and bloody, if history is any guide. But this too shall pass.

I like to include historical quotes in these pieces, like the extended Orwell quote above, not only to illustrate the situation using powerfully resonant words from greater writers than myself, but also, in a Socratic way, to infuse the quiet understanding that every generation fights perhaps not the same, but similar, battles against ignorance, greed, intolerance, mean-spiritedness, carelessness, lawlessness, fear, hysteria, betrayal, hatred, and apathy.

And so there is hope, always.

We are not facing anything new, anything insurmountable,  but rather the same old enemy, the principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and the ancient spiritual wickedness in high places.  And that is the basic plot line of all human history.

And so we will write our own particular chapter in human history and the book of life, and thereby be remembered by our children and our grandchildren, and perhaps by those who interest themselves in all things human, for all time.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.kr/2012/08/chris-hedges-on-current-state-of.html