From Cards on the Table (1986): (It will be noted that I have annexed, in a manner that may seem surreptitious, “seriousness” to “radicalism.” I have to admit that for me the two are becoming increasingly inseparable. I suppose there is such a thing as an intelligent and defensible conservative position, though I haven’t encountered one, and wonder what it will look like when, if we are unfortunate enough to survive the nuclear holocaust, we sit dying amid the ruins of everything we have striven to build.) The media have a further alibi, the really foolproof one: their function is to give people what they want, and radicalism isn’t popular. Or, to put it more bluntly, radicalism doesn’t sell. The media have created a vicious circle: they teach people what to want, then thrive on supplying it, carefully nurturing the desire for more (since what is given never really satisfies...). Thus capitalism has its own methods, apparently spontaneous and “natural,” of suppressing undesirable positions without needing to resort to state intervention—at least, so long as radical ideas remain unpopular and uncommercial, and can be kept that way by the media’s steady barrage of distractions, flatteries, commodities, entertainments. If your life is unsatisfying, there’s always a new shampoo to try, a new Spielberg movie to see, the chance of winning a lottery. Our educationalists, politicians, authorities, ecclesiastics, and parents are often heard helplessly bemoaning the fact that young people today are so cynical, disillusioned, apathetic or negatively anti-social. What else are they supposed to be, given that they believe they are going to die soon in a variety of horrible ways, and that the educational establishment, together with the entire social/ideological structure that sustains it, systematically deprives them of the only possible means by which they might develop hope for the future?—the notion that it is within the bounds of the human imagination radically to transform and restructure our culture. Conceal that notion, or hold it up to ridicule, or brush it aside as hopelessly utopian, and what can you expect, given the contemporary realities, but cynicism, disillusionment, apathy? Our young are being destroyed by the very people that set themselves up as their protectors, and the protection is the means of destruction.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:25:08 +0000
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