Why, my God, why?

reply to post by orangetom1999

I have been thinking these sort of things for some years now. Well, actually not actively thinking this but it does come into my mind every now and then, when I'm forced to be with people in their early twenties. Not that I'm very old myself, but still. I keep seeing an enormous difference in culture, style of happiness (or what leads to it) and behaviour motivated by emotion alone.

In culture, there are obviously some main elements, which for a long time were acruired into a person through discipline and effort, but today those elements appear to be born emotionally driven, and that type of drive is the only type that will do. Its sad. Also, there seems to be this trend among media by remixing and using old songs and then selling them as new. This sucks, obviously. But what really hit me was that I noticed that from top ten albums, in 9 out of 10 the hit song was some remix of a song from the 60's or 70's. I was stunned to find out that this type of development has been going on for years. It pretty much means that no new talents become known for our yonger part of a society. This must destroy something, Im sure of it.

Style of happiness.. I'm not very sure about this, but I certainly know that for the most part people want a short-time solution into everything, including happiness. It was not long ago when a child or teenager would have been happy with a product for years to come, but now that feeling appears to be some sort of consumeable element only. It lasts about a month or so, and this depends on price only. (I'm not implying that buying something makes one continuously happy for years, though. Hopefully you got my point.)

Its just that there is no short-time solution for good feelings, unless you are extremely rich and capable of buying anything you want. And that, really, is a mission to most even though their goal is upper middle-class. It boggles my mind when such people, who have finally achieved their goal, then ask now what to do? I can get anything, why aren't I happy? Then, they discover that most people who have money have actually spent lots and lots of their time into practising something that can be done with hands. And they wonder what a hell, this can't be. They don't buy, they do actual products (although as a hobby, obviously).

Emotion as well has suffered some great inflation in our times. Almost all emotions are being got from media, buying something or.. well, from where else? Long, meaningful and defined conversations with friends are an impossibility most of the time, as beginning of some conversations goes like "hey, did you see matrix and isn't that idea a cool thing?" and responses are, like you said, in context of that movie and both have incapability to create actual asbstractions that could be in real world, in some other situation.

Nevermind using knowledge, it no longer applies to society. Today's society will be about using feelings, and feelings alone. Some lonely pieces of sugar are spit out every now and then to give thinking people some mercy, but that's about it.

All this makes me feel, that I'm propably extremely lucky person to not have had friends who would go with fashion or media, people who read a lot and people who love to think. Today, that seems to be a privilidge that you get when you get born into some already defined environemnt.

I, too, have noticed a problem with spelling and grammer on this site and, I'm sure, I've been just as guilty as the illiterate in committing these errors.

English is known and taught world-wide. Most countries educate their children in their native language and teach English as a second language. I am much more tolerant of grammatical and spelling errors when committed by someone I know does not speak English as their first language than I am of my fellow native English speakers. It used to be a pet peeve of mine in which I made a royal nuisance of myself by correcting mistakes or pointing out errors. I found that people just quit talking to you. Besides, most people don't have anything of substance to tell you anyway, so it makes little sense to "polish the turd". (Present company excepted)

The lost art of conversation has died imperceptibly so that most of us are reduced to "sound bytes" of information without ever realizing it. It hardly matters to anyone if you spell correctly, enunciate clearly, or properly state your position on a matter if the topic of conversation is a trivial one. I believe lack of depth (shallowness) has contributed to sloppiness in communication.

Originally posted by whitewave
It used to be a pet peeve of mine in which I made a royal nuisance of myself by correcting mistakes or pointing out errors. I found that people just quit talking to you.

It is not my intent nor do I consciously notice all errors done. I'm not perfect myself.

Besides, most people don't have anything of substance to tell you anyway, so it makes little sense to "polish the turd". (Present company excepted)

That is what happens when all information coming in is from easy sources, such as magazines, newspapers and television that especially try to be easy to read. They simply don't use words that most people do not understand. What follows is that people don't learn to use new words either, I don't really know if there is anything that can be done about it, as long as media knows that by being understandable to most means more sales for most.

I know people have lots of things to say, but they just don't understand what they are missing when trying to form an opinion that they know is right. I have seen it several times, when people suddenly get interested about some subjects that are by their nature requiring more complex words, sentences and larger contexts to understand. I believe this is where hobbies kick in, but sadly not many want to spend too much time learning something.

The lost art of conversation has died imperceptibly so that most of us are reduced to "sound bytes" of information without ever realizing it. It hardly matters to anyone if you spell correctly, enunciate clearly, or properly state your position on a matter if the topic of conversation is a trivial one. I believe lack of depth (shallowness) has contributed to sloppiness in communication.

There are a billion ways to converse, and most of those ways remain hidden from people who get their daily doses from mainstream media. It is sad that even magazines specialized in something have diversified their readership into people who want it easy and to people who want to battle a bit for the understanding. Or more accurately, want better definitions and more into depth explanations.

When I went to nursing school we were taught that when we explain some point of care to a patient or family member, we should gear it down to a 6th grade level because most people just have no understanding of medical jargon. It's true that most people have a limited understanding of medical terminology but, I've found that if the majority of one's conversation is "geared down to a 6th grade level" then one's THINKING begins to degrade as well.

All forms of public medium are geared toward the lowest common denominator. This includes the internet. There are sites that provide in- depth information but they're not visited often or by the majority. Posting on discussion boards or chat rooms requires brevity. Instant messaging and emails do not allow for deep, thoughtful responses.

Magazines are pure fluff that are designed to sell advertising space. It's difficult to even find an article and, if you do, it's likely to be on some topic you couldn't care less about. If it is on a topic of interest, it's likely to not have any useful information. At least that has been my experience.

Radio is the same. When I drive to work or back, there's nothing but yammering idiots spewing nonsense. After changing the channel about 5 or 6 times and getting the same "talk you to death" spiel, I just give up and pop in a CD.

I gave up watching television over a year ago. There were some mindless fluff shows I enjoyed but, overall, I was wasting way too much time sifting through the propaganda. Nature shows, history shows, etc. were somewhat better but so heavily ladden with propagnda and indoctrination that I realized that if someONE were in my living room trying to pump that drivel into my belief system, I wouldn't give them 5 minutes of my time; no matter how many shiney pictures they produced.

We're a fast food nation. We want everything now. Producing substance and quality require time, effort and discipline. We're willing to sacrifice quality in all avenues to have quantity now. This includes conversation.

You ever notice how when people are trying to explain something to you they keep saying, "ya know?" Obviously you don't know or they wouldn't need to explain it to you. They want you to hurry up and understand. They don't really want to take the time to make themselves clearly understood or to educate you. It translates to sloppiness and laziness in thought and word. Just as the body can not live on a diet of fast food without suffering ill effects, the mind can not thrive with "sound byte" information as it's only source of input.

Rawsom,

Good to understand by your posts that you are thinking...adding up the stacks of numbers and coming to the realization that the numbers do not quite add up. Nor do you find satisfaction with the totals. Good work!!

You are musing..not amusing. Keep it up!!

I am afraid I must make haste to shove off to work and as a result commentary is not going to be on the menu with the time constraints.

However...to Whitewave...in the spirit of bathroom humour...her posts are noted and "commentary" will also have to be postponed.

Hold down the fort folks,
Orangetom

Bathroom humour and drivell passed to the public by the media.

THe guys in my crew often read the newspapers when coming into work.
They know my views on most of what passes as newsworthy or good informations.

What passes for news and information today in the media has often consisted of the lives of what I call todays "Fab Four." (after what the media took to calling the Beatles)

Todays Fab Four consists of Lindsay Lohan, Nichole Riche, Paris Hilton, and Brittany Spears. For some reason the media is fascinated by what these train wrecks do with thier lives and try to pass it on to us as news.
That lowest common denominator thing.

The guys in my crew also know that I cannot stand this drivel and whenever I enter the conference room they will delightfully blurt out..." Did you hear about Brittany??"....or whatever train wreck is in the news today.
This immediately brings out in me the resultant sign with my hands of the "T" time out sports signal accompanied by a verbal "Stop...stop..stop."
I often give them my opinion on these women in that they need enemas five times a day. Also that the problem with these women is that they would get to liking it and start a new fad in America and make Fleet millions of dollers in new sales. A gullible public would make this the new fad to be copied.
However..in retrospect I would like to add that the media also needs enemas five times a day if they think this drivel is news and information.

And that is my contribution to the OPs thoughts and bathroom humour for today.

When you have a social structure so sick that these four train wrecks pass for news and informations how do you expect proper english skills to take any kind of priority.

Orangetom

You know, that’s why ‘God’ is merciful. ‘He’ gave us a computer wherein there resides a software programming which allows us to utilize the almighty spell-checker; thus, we avoid the pitfalls of making errors in grammar and spelling. (This goes the same for the finance folks who are pretty much helpless at year end without their spreadsheets for reporting).

Furthermore without the internet, we would indeed be watching televised programmings hours on end like a couch potato spud instead researching the endless resources available online as in the olden days liken to sitting at the library full of dusty books with musty smells from old librarians. The collection of shiny compact disks, unfortunately, replaces a roomful of priceless antiquities befit for well deserved bibliophiles.

So don’t loose hope, ‘rawsom’, some of us Americanized whippersnappers are good to go with this English language. Each person will overcome this shortcoming of expression through written communications: This was something I too had to learn on my own and in a hard way, which is so far so good, IMO.

[See? I tried to type smart here, too!]

reply to post by orangetom1999


What I find amazing is that the people who complain the most about the news covering the 4 people you mentioned, are the ones who are usually the most informed about them. How do you know they need 5 enemas a day? How do you know they are trainwrecks? Why would you even comment about them if you don't want to see it in the news?

People like you only add fuel to the fire!

If you don't want to hear about it on television, change the channel. If you don't want to read about it in the paper, turn the page! Most of all, if you want to see them go away, ignore them!

Fads do fade away once people quit talking about them!

reply to post by Enthralled Fan


Enthralled Fan,

Thank you for your post. I am not the most informed about them except by the guys at work who are wont to speak of it.

I do infact ..change channels when I see this stuff promoted. Not just for the "Fab Four" but also other non newsworthy headlines so wont to pass for news and informations today.
For example I can recall Matt Drudge making an opinion that the girl who disappeared in Aruba....that Greta Van Suster would be talking about that case for another two years. That is pretty much what happened. I did not consider her disappearence to be nationwide news among all the other events happening. I see this fingerprint happening alot on the media.
It was the same with that pregnant woman who was murdered out in California that held the news media spellbound for more than a year. Neither did I think that nationwide news.

I am simply not intrested in most of what passes for headline news today.
I find most of it to be fluff..filler.
The point here is that my life is not so droll and idle that I must spend time concerned or being bombarded by what these people are doing in their lives. Nor being insulted by the media as to what they think constitutes news and informations.

Like some other posters here, I watch little television anymore and when I turn to news and information...what do I get...drivel about the "Fab Four."
Like others ..I have learned that you can sometimes get news and information a couple of days ahead on line before it hits the local news and informations media...national too at times.

THe Fab Four are not news and informations..they are filler/fluff and of the lowest common denominator. LCD.

Thanks,
Orangetom

I'm not into homeland or nationality ego, but sometimes I feel urge to tell people - especially to those from USA - that there are alternative ways of doing and organizing media without full goverment control. What's good about it is that it forces commercial companies to make their ads and such less intrusive. This system proapbly doesn't work in very large countries.

We have two national tv-channels and around five or six radio-stations owned by our goverment. They have pretty much no control on what is displayed on those channels, except normal age restrictions (11, 13, 15, 18). There are however things that are controlled by goverment on these two channels. Those things are: absolute ban of commercials or in-product placements, control of budget in a way that goverment doesn't pay their bills if they make mistakes, standards used to send broadcasts are pretty much defined by this company (without any commercial interests), requirement to have representatives from all parties among leadership (this is controlled by commercial media by critic. Very strong critic about independence and influence of whoever persons).

Also, unversities have a Lot to say about what is aired and what not. There have been good documents about terrorism from within religion, about good things in islam, islam in general and at some point they aired very critical documents about what happens if islamic people start to move into europe (Turkey wants to join EU, but nobody wants their citizens to be able to move within central, northern or western europe). If we put even one clearly commercially tie dup professor or expert in any documentation, all hell breaks loose in media, usenet newsgroups and forums on web.

What comes to parodies and humor in general, anything is allowed as long as purpose is not to insult but to enterntain. We can publish anything we want, as I understand is allowed in USA as well.

There's a lot of critic going on against goverment controlled media, but the idea is not in controlling what is aired but restricting things that DO make some source of information dependant of any commercial entity or individual. In Finland, it works, and as far as I know, BBC of great britain is well laid in exactly same manner as well.

I'm not 100% certain that every subject of information is neutral, nor am I naive enough to believe that, but this system comes a long, long way towards being trustworthy. In our reported history of goverment controlled mediachannels, there has been exactly ONE time any news item broadcasted was not real. This happened about 10 years ago, and there has been at least 70 years of broadcasts from that source. Neutrality as well is controlled quite tightly, and it is not even allowed to say that some political party is better than other. Not by that channel, they will have to stand up for themselves in specially arranged broadcasts.

We have our own gossp-magazines as well, and a lot of people do read them and like to continue reading them, but serious stuff is never, ever personalized into any single leader (expect in low quality magazines but everybody knows not to trust when reading them. wanting is another matter).

A few times a year, many magazines tell that they do not want american style broadcasts, news items or anything like that in our coutry. Even media is against it, as owners actully want to get some real, good and neutral news for themselves as well. In Finland, CNN, Fox News and some others are considered rubbish.

The problem in large numer of citizens is that even minority groups can get millions of supporters, which then allows them to advertise themselves as somebody who has "6 million people are against x, please join us". This creates a dominoeffect that sometimes will bring up new and propably idiotic views into public interest, and sometimes it goes through all barriers, becoming reality. This cannot happen in a small country, unless there really are about 100k supporters, which is still realtively a larger number.


Please take no offence, whoever you are, reading this post.

[edit on 26/1/08 by rawsom]

[edit on 26/1/08 by rawsom]

When Heath Ledger died, one of my co-workers came in quite visibly upset and announced with all due solemnity that "Heath Ledger died." I have no idea who Heath Ledger is but I gathered that he was some big name celebrity. I replied, "Did he ever call you, or write you or remember your birthday? Did he ever send you a post card to let you know he was thinking of you? Honestly, why do you care?" If he were particularly gifted in his craft one would, of course, miss the loss of talent but to act like your mother died is a bit much.

You can't make people care about truly important issues but if all you offer them is fluff then the only choices of things to care about is the more "important" (translate: drama type) fluff. Dubya can't string an intelligible sentence together when reading it from a teleprompter which should be newsworthy: Leader of The Free World Illiterate. That tidbit is treated like a joke while the "joke news" (Britaney shaves her head) is treated as newsworthy. It's a crazy, mixed-up world, brother. I just practice hanging onto my sanity and wait for the insane to fall of its' own ineptitude. The voice of reason will once again be sought out.