My European History class has been discussing the rise and effects of mass society/politics in the 1880s through World War I. The enthusiasm of the working classes must have been intoxicating. Concurrently I just finished Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" and his description of the euphoria flowing through the working classes of Barcelona was visceral. His description of the bitter in-fighting that destroyed the republican coaltion and doomed the loyalist fight against fascism was equally depressing. So our discussion ran into a comparision of that time with our own. The class pretty much surmised that we live in a society that deludes itself into thinking it dictates the direction of society but in reality follows along like the lap dog the lower and middle classes have always been.Their raw and basic evidence is...
1.) Pitiful voting turnouts...50% at most for presidential elections and considerably less for the local elections which have a much greater impact on your every day life.
2.) Celebrity driven news cycles. How much of the news is driven by Paris Hilton, Jamie Lynn Spears, Lindsey Lohan the cult of the celebrity (i.e. the death of the Heath Ledger). At 6:30 pm on the local broadcast networks in Dallas, Texas your choices include...Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, Extra, TMZtv, The Insider and Inside Edition. The elites drive fashion and issues of morality in our culture.
3.) Corporate control over the major television media conglomorates.
4.) Out of control campaign finance and lobbying influence on the poltical process.
The tragedy is that in the United States the people could have a greater say in government if pulled away from their myspace accounts, video games, meaningless addictions etc. Americans are not shackled by fascism or an authoritarian poltical system. The mass of Americans shackle themselves by laziness, ignorance and apathy. Stand in line at your local Wal*Mart to see that in first person.The tragedy, as recognized by my students, lies with the inevitable truth that freedom taken for granted is freedom lost and worse yet lost voluntarily...yet there are many throughout history and the globe that risk life and limb to attain a mere fraction of our political freedoms.
Mass politics is dead in America and has been for some time. Its death (or more optimistically, hibernation) is due to the same laziness that allows for sub-prime mortgages to spiral out of control and for the United States Government to run massive deficits which destroys the worth of the dollar around the world. Hopefully we won't turn into Orwell's proles of 1984 and remain asleep. Hopefully we'll wake up before we've lost our souls to atrophy.
