1
“We bailed out all the millionaires
They’ve got the fruit, we’ve got the rind.
And everybody’s talking at the same time.”
Tom Waits sang these words in 2011. He was talking about the bailout of the big banks. Who remembers that?
I do. I also remembering walking into the Dank Haus bar and seeing one of my friends wearing a shirt with the old commie hammer and sickle that read Bankers of the World, Unite!
People were pissed then. They’re pissed now, but I wonder if the anger is the same. I am of a generation that gets laughed at when we talk derisively about capitalism that’s different from the ways this generation talks about capitalism. I still find “selling out” gross. Gen Z is mad that the system is rigged against their ability to sell out.
2
The idea that we’re all talking at the same time, the tile of that Tom Waits song, has more to do with the nature of the internet. The culture where everyone has a voice. But in all of that talking, who remembers anything? What sticks? We forgot about the financial crisis pretty quickly. The scary days of 2008 seem quaint now. That was when old W. was exiting and before Obama and way before anyone paid this much attention to Trump. Some of the same people who might’ve worn those hammer and sickle shirts wax nostalgic about W. One said to me, “At least he wasn’t a complete buffoon.” No, just a war criminal.
We’re so quick to forget that the bankers and the deregulation brought the economy to its knees and that during the Bush administration much of the country seemed okie dokie with torture, and it hurts my middle-aged brain. We’re talking at the same time, not listening, not remembering.
People seem to have forgotten that Trump steered a mob of angry, misinformed assholes into the Capitol Building to cause mayhem. Among a lot of other shit. People my parents’ age seem to have forgotten that it was easier for them to buy houses when they were twenty-two than it will ever be for any twenty-two-year-old ever again. People seem to have forgotten that the reason for this has everything to do with the same greed and deregulation that corrupted the 1980s and bled into the 21st century.
3
I seem to have forgotten that it’s no fun getting preached at.
4
What is gained from talking at the same time? The internet was supposed to democratize information and kick aside the gatekeepers blocking entry based on market whims. Where does a writer like, oh, I don’t know, me find an agent or editor willing to look past my lack of commercial appeal? Where is the record label willing to take a chance on today’s David Bowie or Devo?
(Okay, I know—there are plenty of innovative artists out there finding platforms and distribution. But still, perhaps it has to do with my middle-age brain again, but the Billie Eilishes, however much I can see value in what they do, still seem less innovative or subversive than a lot of the music that clearly inspired them.)
Some of us who thought that culture was atrophying in the 1990s were excited by the internet. (I wasn’t, but I’m perpetually grouchy.) The oddballs would have space to make their oddball art and share their oddball ideas. And, for a brief period, that seemed to be the case, but capitalism always wins. And now we have social media and algorithms and Amazon and all the ways the corporations can continue commodification. But there are voices, like we’d hoped. So many. Too many?
We went from democratizing culture and art to overwhelming it. Now I remember why I never had children.
5
Quick review of the last paragraphs: not the whimsical tone to which I aspire.
6
All at once, everyone says the same thing at the same time. How many people have said what I just said already, and probably much better?
Harold Bloom wrote about the anxiety of influence, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Not exactly. Still, there’s something to the idea that we worry about repeating or emulating the ideas of the past, evidence of our lacking imaginations. That is, we creative fuckers have this worry. What to write post-Hamlet?
Actually… is the anxiety of influence still a thing? So many books by so many writers writing the same story, more or less. Or at least using the same narrative template. Anxiety or emulation?
7
What is lost when we all use the same talking points? My conservative pals are currently patting themselves on the back for pointing out that liberals have decided to uniformly call Trump and J.D. Vance “weird.” As if their accusations that Harris is a “DEI candidate” or has a strange laugh are not evidence of their lockstep. As if they don’t use the same buzzwords and quote the same FOX or OAN bullshit verbatim. I think often of this Joseph Brodsky quote: “By failing to read or listen to poets, society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation, those of the politician, the salesman or the charlatan.” Goddamn right.
Far be it from me to suggest that modern culture is somehow unique in its trends and uniform vernacular, but there is a worry that when so many voices talk at the same time and make undeviating points, a certain reluctance to adaptation sets in, not to mention a binary us v. them mentality. And we all know how boring binaries are. This has always been the case, sure, but the tools of today’s (being very generous with this next noun) discourse may accelerate our worst tendencies. God knows I’m a bigger asshole online than in person.
If we’re all talking at the same time, and, in the process, forgetting the not so distant past in favor of the emerging immediate, and if we’re also replicating the same words, phrases, and, thus, ideas, how can that be good?
Okay, forget “good.” That’s vague anyway. I’ll instead use a different yet similarly soft word: How can that be interesting?
8
This is a long way—with too many sociopolitical pit stops—toward lamenting the monoculture that I saw in the 90s, especially when swing music became a trend, that seems all the more prevalent now that we have quicker means of sharing the same stuff. Maybe this has something to do with Taylor Swift being named one of the greatest guitarists of all time, which I recognize is ridiculous and truly of the moment but nevertheless boils my metalhead Gen X blood. Maybe this is the old man in me reacting to a culture that is not his own, which old men have done since forever. Of course, this is one of the pleasures of aging, so don’t begrudge me.
But fuck that. That’s not entirely what this is. This is me being every bit the Postmanian I am and thinking back to not only Amusing Ourselves to Death but also Technopoly, texts whose relevance only increases with each passing iPhone iteration.
Permit one more political rant.
When Biden stepped down, I had mixed feelings. Mixed partially because I was happy he was moving aside if it helps a democrat win in November (vote blue no matter who, folks, because voting is harm reduction) but bummed because of the catalyst: that shitty debate performance. Forget that Biden has been a fine president in the sense that he has passed a lot of legislation and accomplished as much as I can expect from that incredibly flawed office. Forget that his foreign policy is, to put it mildly, not awesome, but domestically I have few complaints. I was never inspired by the guy, and I wouldn’t want to hang out with him (though we could chat about Seamus Heaney), but he did what should be a boring job in a boring manner. Because that’s the job.
But he sucks on TV. And he’s old. So… NOPE! Can’t have that.
As Neil Postman pointed out, television altered the image of the president into something closer to that of a Hollywood celebrity. And it cheapened political discourse. Postman had similar concerns about the internet, which he voiced before his death in 2003. If only Neil were alive today.
Say what you will about Trump (and I have plenty to say), but the guy understands TV. He knows how to work a room. Neither of those last points should be considered complimentary or valued greatly. At least in regard to political acumen or ethical substance. And sure, the gig has always required being something of a spokesperson possessing some polish. But would Taft get elected, as fat as he was? FDR hid his disability. No way he could have hid that today. Would Biden’s lifelong struggles with stuttering have affected him as adversely in the era where print was the dominant media?
There may be a valid reason why the people we elect to high offices of representation should possess movie star charism and polish. Hope is important, or so the Obama 2008 campaign told us. But in the aftermath of 2008 were a lot of people who felt Obama let them down because they expected more than even he promised. They expected that particular movie star president to deliver a Hollywood happy ending. And I can’t solely blame the interest or the media for that one, but a culture shaped by a specific idea of a specific narrative can only be disappointed by reality.
9
Narratives I was raised to believe were true or at least correct:
The American Dream is measured by wealth and fame.
Meritocracy is real.
The United States is the sole land of the free, the moral center of the world, and the only country that should be allowed nuclear weapons.
Christians are correct (Catholics more so).
People are poor because they lack strong work ethic.
Home ownership will always be a guarantee of financial stability.
Sexual assault is as much the victim’s fault, if not entirely, because what were they wearing and why were they there?
Boys will be boys, but girls are either virgins or whores.
Gay people exist for straight people’s ridicule.
The rich deserve their wealth. They earned it.
Socialism is bad. (Quote Barry Crimmins: “I learned that in public school.”)
Rock and roll is the apex of music and culture, and the best of it came from the 1960s and early 70s.
(That last one is a sticking point for us Gen Xers whose parents exported their culture onto us so successfully. I remember my stepdad asking me why I was listening to Led Zeppelin and telling me how he never would have listened to his parents’ music. That was when I started listening to punk and metal.)
10
One of the things I ask of my ENG 102 students is that they identify and interrogate narratives. Each of the narratives listed above is pretty fucking interrogatable. But I don’t know that I was smart enough to interrogate and abandon them when I was my students’ age. It’s a lot easier accepting popular narratives because they are so often repeated, and anything becomes law if it’s repeated enough.
Here’s another one: if you’re a Chicagoan, you don’t put ketchup on a hot dog. It’s just a thing here. Except it’s really not. It’s nonsense. And yeah, ketchup is kinda gross and hot dogs are not so sacred they can’t stand some leniency when it comes to condiments and individual taste, but the narrative that one just doesn’t do that here is pretty much iron clad.
A benign example, sure, but you get the point: in the grand scheme of things, who fucking cares what people put on hot dogs? But try going to the Weiner’s Circle and putting ketchup on your hot dog. See what happens.
In the same manner, often inconsequential matters get elevated. But worse, very consequential matters get misunderstood, misrepresented, and are all too often unaddressed because doing so would go against the popular narrative. Why examine rape culture when it’s easier to buy into the popular narrative that women should keep their legs crossed and stop teasing men?
Narratives become so intransigent because they are repeated. Because the culture says the same thing often at the same time. No smaller collection of voices has a fucking chance.