Amerika

Back in the 1980s (last gasp of WASP America), we had only a few channels on our televisions: three big corporate entities on VHF, maybe a public television channel, and whatever we could scrounge on UHF, the low-power stations that were the equivalent of AM radio.

UHF was the narrow-margin version of the big television channels, like the novels published on pulp paper. This allowed it to be more adventurous but also frequently to be low-quality. These were the cheap shows, mostly because they were done on a lower budget for a less discerning audience.

Now it seems that despite having infinite channels, almost everything is mediocre. This happens because the audience has nothing in common, so they required everything dumbed-down to the point where it is tedious, and they complain about so many things being objectionable that the content is reduced to milktoast self-help style neurotic navel-gazing.

This is true of novels, movies, music, and journalism. Without a culture to hold us together and push us toward higher levels of complexity in what we appreciate, the pop culture world races to the lowest common denominator, which apparently has an average IQ somewhere in the low nineties.

Since we have no culture, we cannot tolerate anything offensive, since it will invalidate someone’s fiction-absolute, and there are no goals like honesty and knowing our world that make us willing as a group to confront hard issues.

Demotism includes products and creates a tragedy of the commons there, too. When culture is gone, the only question is what the individual wants, and a chorus of voices will object to anything with intelligence or character because these things are not accessible to everyone.

Everything is UHF now. Made cheaply thanks to the technology, it is designed to be background material for the fascinating lives of individualists. It communicates nothing, reveals nothing, and does not compel us to be better people. Instead it flatters us and makes emptiness seem warm and seductive, like death.

Tags: complaints, movie, music, novel, political correctness, UHF