Wednesday, July 16, 2008

"Honey, Wolf says we should be offended." "Then we're offended, goddamnit."

As committed as we are to the majesty of the written word (and equally so to tired platitudes), the notion of a picture being worth a thousand has long outlived its usefulness in American political discourse. Sound bytes, slogans, and declamatory castigations made succinctly by human caricatures rule this day and age. One need only look upon the ongoing hypocritical clusterfuck that the media's collective chastisement of New Yorker magazine represents to understand that there is no standard, there is no agenda; there is only a sliding scale of sensationalism built from piles of data that every last outlet uses to coax reader / viewer / listener-ship to their product. So when one form of media presents a product of questionable decorum, the only real outrage will come from counterpart medias needing to fill their 24-hour coverage.

Then again, it's naive to assume that already misinformed people will so remain (or, perhaps even read the Lizza article and revaluate their preconceptions) and that people who understand the satire will smirk and move along, thus leaving the net effect of the cover hovering right around zero in a vacuum-world study. No doubt, a percentage of the dumb-as-fuck will try to process such information, fail, and arrive at the non-conclusion that the only way to crack this riddle of how to think will be by turning on the TV.

That brings us to blame time. Can we really upbraid news corporations for being so unscrupulous? God knows how many polisci hookups between faux-outraged square-rim plaid dudes and retardedly out of their league freshmen hotties have occurred using the perniciousness of media globalization as an in for "further mind expansion back at my place." Similarly, stupid people are effectively unblameable and a necessary concession for the rest of us to go through life so self-satisfied.

So, you're asking yourself: Can anyone be blamed for anything ever?

The short answer is: No

The long answer is: The educational system

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