Wake Of Liberty: 9 – Captive Audience
Cooley and Smyth explore the pitfalls of popular entertainment and the mass media
“Democracy. It was finally back on the map. The Monarchy was collapsing and the Republic was rising. Serfs were giving way to Citizens, the modern world being born out of the ashes of a corrupt and ageing medieval system.”
Fascinating. So what happened when the French tasted brioche?
“The world was changed forever. The psyche of the French people had been awakened for good, the plot getting thicker. And breathtaking. That is why I love the French revolution, or should I say, revolutions. It’s an awesome era. Such a spectacular display of human nature hasn’t been seen since the discovery of the New World.
“Speaking of spectacular, let me tell you something about your day and age.”
I’d rather you told me more about France and the revolution.
“I understand. But let me make a point or two before we go any further.”
What kind of points?
“A couple of general points about getting carried away.”
What does that have to do with anything?
“Wait and I’ll tell you.”
I don’t see the point behind this tangent. Come on, Cooley, get on with the French revolution.
“Patience, Mr. Smyth. Pace yourself. The give it to me all and give it to me now approach is a little dated and rather quaint.”
Ok, Cooley, this is not getting us anywhere. What are you trying to prove?
King Louis XVI of the Bourbon dynasty was the supreme ruler of France
“That we need to take some time off and weigh things up, see how they fit into the bigger picture. It will help us put some things in perspective.”
I don’t see why we need to do this now. We’re on a perfectly good roll, why spoil it?
“I am spoiling nothing, I assure you, we are still on a roll. I just want to tie up some loose ends, that’s all. But you can’t handle that, can you, Mr. Smyth, hooked as you are on the feed, demanding more of what started you off, unable to take a detour of any kind. Short-term gratification, you call it, and it has you by the mahoganys, demanding immediate reward, no questions asked, no time wasted. It’s great at first, yeah, feels fantastic, doesn’t it, but it thins out pretty quick, and you find yourself wanting more to keep yourself excited and involved, more, more, more, addicted to entertainment, you are, you want, you need, you demand fast, breaking, continuous entertainment, never pausing to examine it, understand and digest it – more news, easy news, juicy news – and movies, more movies and flicks and series, more arousing plots that mean nothing, more cleavage and explosions and wiseass one-liners and feelgood romances – and books as thin as credit cards and written in a way seven-year-olds can understand. Get it? You’re addicted to the mass spectacle, missing the point.”
That is not true. I am not interested in any of the things you just mentioned, they have nothing to do with anything. I just wanted to find out what happened next in a story that had me pinned down.
“Interesting choice of words. Pinned down. Be honest with me, can you seriously stand there and argue that you’re not addicted to entertainment?”
Well, yeah, I mean, we are all addicted to entertainment in some kind of way, yes. But so what? It’s a natural, acceptable part of life.
“It may be acceptable, but it is neither advisable nor as harmless as you make it out to be. It only appears to be harmless because everyone does it, passing it off as a normal and natural thing to do. Gradually the notion becomes ingrained in society, shifting into an ever more normal and acceptable appearance because it seems to have been happening forever, until no one can envision the world without it, and there you have it. An era of bread and games. Past tense to future tense and history unfolds.”
Cooley, we all know that fast-paced entertainment is a major problem in modern-day society, you’re telling me nothing new. Yes, we are currently consumed by a rampant stream of information, I admit it. But that’s the way it is, the way the system works. No one is putting a gun to our heads and making us watch things. Every person is free to make a choice. Every person is free to choose what to watch and read and follow, and what not to.
Art was commissioned to commemorate significant events, such as the birth of the Dauphin
Cooley seems unconvinced. I know that I am rationalizing the issue to a certain extent. He smirks.
“Mr. Smyth, when you are strapped for choices, choice may be an option, but not a meaningful one. It’s an illusion.”
It’s more than that, it’s a way out. If there is availability, there is scope, and that’s the important thing. Some of us choose to watch mindless bang-bang movies and reality-TV shows, it’s what turns us on, while others go for the nature programs, the classical movies, the tragedies and operas. But most of us go for a combination of things, from intellectual to pointless and from elaborate to simple, depending on the occasion and the mood, creating our own menu of amusement and education. We have a choice, understand?
Cooley is looking at me without moving, his eyes fixed on me. It makes me nervous, but I go on, eager to defend my silver lining.
Now, I’ll give you one thing, Cooley. It’s not all roses. Our choices have thinned out over the years, and we are getting a lot more of the same old same old, repeated down the line in one big orgasm of cloning, true. But that’s not a problem, not a permanent one. If what is available is not good enough, if it’s invariably rotten across the board, then another option will surface, sooner or later, another way of doing things, completely fresh and innovative, and the field will open up. I mean, if the French revolution proves anything, it’s how things can grow out of the most hostile and outrageous situations.
“True, Mr. Smyth. Yet some conditions are more difficult to break out of than others. Regimes evolve alongside society over the years, assuming stealthier and more resilient form. They become part of life, and to break out of them one has to reconstruct an entire way of life, many aspects of which are enjoyable and, dare I say, entertaining.”
The formation of the National Assembly was immortalized in a sketch by Jacques-Louis David
And societies evolve alongside regimes, alongside all sorts of disorders and vices. Dealing with them is always an option. If we are truly in the grip of self-fulfilling, toxic amusement, then we will sooner or later have our fill of it and break out, move on. In fact we are already doing so, on many levels. The internet has provided an alternative to the standardized streams of mass media, offering a platform for unedited, uncensored, fresh material to air from, and information has begun to flow freely again, making people progressively innovative and insightful.
“Only to a degree. While some of you retain control over what you are being exposed to, others fall victims to the clone media, getting sucked inside a mind-numbing stream.”
People are smarter than you think and more in control of their lives than you give them credit for, Cooley.
“Is that right? Then why do you always tend to find yourselves in collective dungeons and prisons, the chains of which you cannot escape? You would think humans would be neutralizing coercive anomalies in the blink of an eye, the way you describe it, rather than spend entire generations trying to revolt against their oppressors.”
I didn’t say it was easy, I said people come around sooner or later, given the chance to exercise their options and free will.
“Yes, they do. In the meantime they have to endure their plight, held captive by slavery, serfdom, religious dogma, or any given oppressive measure, amusing themselves in order to keep busy, keeping busy in order to entertain themselves. It’s a process that has been going on forever, the only difference being that in this day and age the name of the jail is entertainment. That’s what’s keeping everyone captive, an ingenious, post-modern gambit that has turned the escape into a trap.”
Depiction of the new citizen of France, the Republican
Entertainment has always been keeping people captive, Cooley, and always will, otherwise it would not be entertainment. Granted, things may have gotten a little out of hand over the years, with all sorts of amusement monopolizing human interest and absorbing our scope and resources to an irrational degree, but I think equating entertainment with despotic rule and religious dogma is going too far.
“This is exactly why this makes for the perfect setup. You can never draw a clear line between obsession and amusement, criticism and conspiracy theory. Turning the loophole into an endless maze of loops makes it impossible to distinguish truth from fiction. A custodian’s dream.”
I am feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Cooley’s scenario is disturbing me, and I want to hear none of it. But part of me can’t turn away, I want to hear more. I hate him for exposing me to this, and for proving his point so skillfully, rubbing my face in my unwillingness to turn away.
He continues.
“The growth of awareness and knowledge creates a craving for information, gearing people toward paying attention to things they may not be interested in, things they may be unaware of, even things they loathe to hear, because in a savvy society knowledge is power and what you know will probably get you places. Not knowing is not an option, and neither is not hearing, not listening and not tuning in. Everyone is plugged in.
“For a while it is good, creating a vast network of communication. But there’s a catch. Given enough time, and with enough information out there, tuning in and listening to what is being transmitted becomes an end in itself, regardless of the content, and, before long, people feel satisfied to just be part of the interaction. The rest doesn’t matter anymore. Substance is slowly shaved away in favor of looks and impressions, and the exchange of information turns into a self-fulfilling vortex that grows and perpetuates through increasingly pervasive transmissions, incorporating all communication, even the free outlets of the world wide web, creating a mainstream that makes its money by selling bits and bytes, from the classics and the established to the countercultural and the innovative, and the downright radical.
“In other words, Mr. Smyth, knowledge is for sale, and so is revolution. The raunchier the better, from red to green and everything in between. Haven’t you realized that yet?”
Not everything is for sale, Cooley. Most of the information on the web is free.
“What difference does that make? As long as it’s part of a show, a transmission, or anything that isn’t truly interactive, it’s still part of a show that people watch, but, ultimately, don’t participate in.”
Social media have brought people together in extraordinary ways, Cooley, fomenting not just interaction but entire revolutions. The Arab world is reeling from change brought about by such transmissions, as you call them.
Napoleon declared himself Emperor, putting an end to French democracy
“Still as part of the greater show, Mr. Smyth. There is always a greater audience out there watching, commenting, and sharing the developments from afar, providing feedback and ratings to the running script, giving it reason and momentum, driving the plot and shaping the developments, slowly incorporating the revolution at hand into the grand stream of entertainment; main branch or tributary, it doesn’t matter, it’s all part of the same flow, the same show. The good scripts make it through, the unappealing ones don’t and are left unattended, at the bottom of the pile, and eventually die out – some of which never come back while others reinvent themselves and resurface by seeking either more inspiring content or more radical means of getting attention – and the show goes on.”
Cooley is spinning around on the spot and I can’t help wondering how much of this he is stretching out of proportion to make me reassess my take on the world. Part of me wants to scream at him, another part of me is seeking answers relentlessly. I cannot let this go unchallenged, I must rebut.
Listen to me, Cooley. Counterculture may have become incorporated by culture to some degree, I admit, but it’s only natural. This is an era of mass information, in which a certain sense of convergence is inevitable, like it or not. Our programs and stories are naturally shaped around the values we share, warts and all, creating an admittedly sterile-looking, self-fulfilling, but, ultimately, civil reality. It’s not passionate, it’s not optimal, it’s not philosophically enhanced or spiritually profound, but it is natural. The price one pays for living in a modern, advanced, civilized world, where everyone is free.
“Free? Free how?”
Free to make our own choices and determine the outcome of our lives. It’s called democracy, Cooley. Liberty. Living in a free society.
“A great name for a great ideal, Mr. Smyth, and I don’t blame you for deeming it foolproof. But remember one thing. Freedom is not the panacea against error, nor does it guarantee the correct choice without fail. It does not guarantee civilization no matter its sophistication and good intentions. Freedom is just another way of choosing your course – a very inclusive, permissive and progressive way – but the course itself can be misguided, dangerous, or uncivilized all the same. Especially in the heat of the moment, or when there is safety in numbers, when it is all done under the mandate of majorities getting passionate or righteous in the name of noble creeds. The intention sometimes gets fouled up and the passion turns into error, gradually spreading and settling in, morphing into a normal, expected, even acceptable situation. It becomes a natural part of life, in all its violently civilized glory, and the ideal turns dogmatic, and liberty becomes the pretext in whose name great crimes are committed.”
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Images:
Captivated by Gavin Denman
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