If you have the time watch (about 90 minutes), this video of a lecture at the New School Creative Writing Department as an introduction to some of Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges's ideas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EpeF1fcji0 (The questions at the end of the lecture are worth listening to as well.)
Or these articles:
Liberals are Useless
Addicted to Nonsense
The Victims of Pornography This article is extracted from his book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
A full list of Hedges's articles at Truthdig.org
I'm personally not an expert on the ideas of Chris Hedges so cannot really summarize him for those who are interested. I know enough, though, to think he is worth exploring for what he has to say about our society and the culture that we producing and/or which is being produced for us. Here are my personal thoughts (mostly questions, really) resulting from reading Hedges:
The shifting relationship between politics and economics and the nature of the culture that flows from the relationship between these two aspects of human society is of interest. The extent to which we shape our culture and our culture shapes us, is of interest. Are we, in fact, shaping our culture as a dynamic national/continental/global community or are we shaped by a culture that is carefully constructed and fed to us in order to serve the needs of a ruling clique? Is it, perhaps, a two-way conversation between the culture the rulers try to impose and the culture we create in rebellion to this supposed global aristocracy of corporate power?
Is this whole thing the consequences of the ruling class's futile attempts to overcome the internal contradictions characterizing capitalism in an age where we are quickly approaching the natural limits to capitalist economic growth? If capitalism requires constant growth in order to have a healthy economy and we have reached the physical limits to its expansion, are we seeing our leaders turn to irrational measure like the recent unregulated financialization of the economy that lead to the recent economic disaster that we have still not recovered from?
Is the way out of this to be found in applying logical science to find the solutions or is poetry and literary fiction the path to the understanding that we need to solve these problems? Or is it a combination of these two facets of human understanding that are required to jointly transport us to the promised land of solutions that work? When society appears to be falling apart, many turn to religion of a more fundamentalist and intolerant strain that will transform our democracy to a “safer” method of social organization (we could label neo-feudalism) in which corporations play the role of the Church in Medieval Europe.
Once again, is it poetry and literary fiction that could promote the spiritual renewal (as opposed to fundamentalist revivalism) which provides the weapon of compassionate understanding we have to develop in order to live in a co-operative society that can rationally deal with what needs to be done in order for our species to survive as a collective of free agents on the planet?
By and large, Hedges is not filled with hope that we can turn from this descent into cruel authoritarian societies unless we can find a way of fighting back against the enormous power that money provides the ruling elite—power to subvert critical thinking through control of the media and thus create a delusional world that enables their control of society.
We can ignore these warnings and continue our pursuit of happiness in a crumbling world order. It may never happen in your own life-time so you can just continue to maximize your pleasure until your dying day. Personally, I don't feel free to to consume the heritage of my grandchildren in order to have a few extra orgasms and a cherry on top of my creamed cake.
There are five chapters in Empire of Illusion:
Chapter 1: The Illusion of Literacy—talks about professional wrestling
Chapter 2: The Illusion of Love—talks about the porno film industry
Chapter 3: The Illusion of Education—talks about how elite universities subvert education
Chapter 4: The Illusion of Happiness—talks about how positive psychology plays a role in keeping us alienated from or real natures
Chapter 5: The Illusion of America—How all of the above are combining with casino capitalism to destroy the American mind, culture and the very nation itself.
