They Can't Stand It

"Media, information, knowledge, content, audience, author: all were going to be democratised by Web 2.0. But democratisation, despite its lofty idealisation, is undermining truth, souring civic discourse and belittling expertise, experience and talent. It is threatening the future of our cultural institutions. The information business is being transformed by the internet into the sheer noise of one hundred million bloggers all simultaenously talking about themselves. One person's truth becomes as true as anyone else's. Today's media is shattering the world into a billion personalised truths, each seemingly equally valid and worthwhile. This undermining of truth is threatening the quality of civil public discourse..."

The Cult of the Amateur, Andrew Keen.


They can't stand it, the thought that the great unwashed might have views of their own, equally valid or even more valid than the slosh that is dealt up by the major organisations and masqueraded as journalism. You've only got to look at Australian television. There's absolutely no reason why it has to be as bad as it is; but in reality it is absolutely shocking. There's nothing but American reruns and peurile gardening shows. Cooking fills the airwaves; how is it possible for so many many people to be interested in cooking. Most people I know couldn't even boil an egg.

We've all been massively conned into accepting a bleached out version of reality which is colourless; and therefore, no doubt, easier to manage. Those great souls railing against the night have all been exterminated; marginalised, starved of attention. The giants of our popular culture are smug idiots like Bert Newton doing Family Feud, the flashing white teeth of game show hosts spouting such peurile rubbish it simply defies belief; as I'm fond of saying lately.

The country and the culture have been bled dry; anyone who ever stood up has been exterminated. The massive idiocy of this place; sitting in traffic going to jobs which barely pay the rent while pouring out ever more money in taxes; the death of culture and fun and enterprise and individual genius; it's all happened in my lifetime. We might have been parochial; but the bland place Australia has become in response to the modern world saddens me; those few survivors of my clique getting old now; ringing each other only when one of us dies. I used to know everybody; could go anywhere in town and be with people I knew. Now I go to work and go home; and not even the television's worth turning on.


THE BIGGER STORY:

Death toll estimates have now climbed over the 1,000 mark.

NPR.org, August 3, 2007 · As many as 19 million people have been driven from their homes in northern India and Bangladesh by torrential rains and floods that have left at least 186 dead.

On Friday, soldiers evacuated 500 villages in Uttar Pradesh, said the state's relief commissioner.

In Mumbai, the country's bustling financial capital, people waded through knee-deep water that covered many streets after severe overnight rains.

The monsoon season in South Asia runs from June to September and is vital to the region's agriculture. But the monsoons are always dangerous; last year, more than 1,000 people died, most by drowning, landslides or collapsing houses.