Letters to the Editor
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America needs a culture
The blood lust that catapulted Bush from wimp to war President, hasn't much abated. If we were a religious nation, our leaders might quote Shakespeare, but the fault really is in the stars, and Billy Graham is the original 'sky pilot'. There are any number of factors which conspire to create the acceptance of violence, at a comfortable distance from the sofa, but that is the nature of the media experience of war. The first Gulf War set new standards for war as reality television.
The iconic nature of television was supposed to cool down the audience, according to McLuhan, but he never anticipated the proliferation of HD television. Not only is HD TV a hot medium, it tends to be the primary media experience in red states, while most Democrats log on to the internet, Republicans watch cable. The fact is there are more Liberal bloggers period, although I don't have the facts to back that up. Conservatives own television and radio, pretty much.
Sneaky Muslims, aren't much different than sneaky Japs. While watching the movie 1941, I always wonder, what took you so long, and why not again? What is Spielberg waiting for, 2001 the remake shouldn't have to wait fifty years to explore the comedy and insanity of war hysteria.
Perhaps the most disappointing moment in the entire Iraq War was watching Susan Sontag dissemble for three hours on CSPAN's book channel. The intellectuals were "out to Disneyland", as McLuhan said about an earlier example of the failure of artists to counter the animal spirits.
If America imagines itself to be a empire, it needs a culture. If everyone in a red state was made to log onto to the internet and chat for a hour a day, things might change, and if HD TV was banned, or the content altered, we might start to see things clearly at least. Meanwhile the world of the imagination will work overtime to fill in the empty spaces. That's a very sad commentary about the state of the arts.