American Culture

We are living on the rotting corpse of an enormous animal. The mangy edges are still alive, barely. There are things crawling through its hair. Here! Look! An author with zest and vitality! And here! A band playing songs that aren't aimed at a demographic segment! And what's this? A fringe candidate who brings new ideas and seems to have a real grip on what democracy's actually about!

Then down we go into the belly of the beast, fighting through the greasy hairballs that make up fringe culture. This includes the unwashed neo-hippies, the Bible-thumping gay-haters, the gloriously reactionary vanguard of the politically correct, the smug hipsters and their damn Dave Eggers fetish, the Michigan Militia, ravers, people who like Ani DiFranco, and so on and so on, until we've gone through a litany that includes many close friends and more than a few relatives.

Then we reach the center. The absurd, comfortable, ooey-gooey Cadbury center of America has liquefied into a thick slurry of dollars and stock options. College is now primarily a place where we learn how to make money. There are young Jews wearing Nike swooshes on their kipas. There are tens of thousands of dot-com wankers creating marketing plans without products, and hundreds of thousands of people hoping beyond hope that they could someday join the elite and "brand" something. There are millions of people reading "Dilbert" thinking that it makes some sort of revolutionary statement, which is true.

The statement: people are idiots who, in general, will take it gently up the ass for a lifetime rather than making any sort of move that could require energy, personal initiative or work.

Meanwhile, on the Utne Reader's website, they're having something they call "the Great American Think-Off." If we swap "Wa" for "Thi," this pretty much summarizes the recent acheivements and concerns of America's supremely self-satisfied intelligentsia.

The question posed by this week's Think-Off: "Is democracy fair?"

My answer, if I might be allowed to think aloud for a moment: Yes. Democracy is very fair. It's eminently fair. We - the lazy, feebleminded, cocky, materialistic, neo-imperialist Oprah-watching peasants that we are - deserve what the political system gives us.

This year, it has decided to gift us with two major party candidates who have the combined substance and backbone of a slightly-melted marshmallow Peep. Super. Looks like we're left with Nader again, who, to be honest, I don't actually like.

The Republicans, of course, nominally support Bush. But the right are a bunch of hateful swine who would drop the minimum wage to a buck-fifty before infringing on a billionaire's "right" to keep everything he or she (generally "he", though, folks) has sponged from the labor of his or her workers.

The Democrats, of course, nominally support Gore. But the left are a bunch of hateful swine who would drop the minimum wage to a buck seventy-five before infringing on a billionaire's "right" to keep everything he or she (generally "he", though, folks) has sponged from the labor of his or her workers.

And the radical left? A bunch of Michael Moore wannabes with a much tighter grip on their bongs than on political theory.

And the radical right? Well, sieg heil.

In the old days you could generally at least turn on the radio to tune it all out. But unless you strike it lucky on a college station, you're screwed - it's N-Sync, Blink 182 and Ricky Martin, pretty much 24-7.

Sure, but there's always Napster, right?

Well, setting aside the fact that it's really just a clever conduit for organized stealing, yes. There's always Napster. But how long will society let people take something with value (intellectual property) and distribute it in infinite quantities, with no restrictions? Probably not forever.

So music - with the exception of a few arguably viable subcultures - has snuck around the corner for a while.

Let's throw out classical music for the time being. It's dead - or dying. Fewer and fewer people listen to it, and its sales are spiraling toward the ground. Jazz has been overwhelmed by "smooth jazz," which, like soft-serve ice cream, vaguely resembles the real deal, and is shat out of vats in massive quantities to placate a herd of muddle-headed Gap-wearing middle-aged zombies who really don't know any better.

Indie music is for pansies.

Of course, television still exists, and there's nothing we can do about it.

And who the hell reads books anymore? Nerds.

So, in summary, this pretty much leaves the Starbucks-smashing anarchists who, while entertaining and ideologically pure, are pretty much a bunch of idiots.

Ladies and gentlemen: we're screwed.

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)