A New Year Begins With An End to Op-Eds

I know it's still December, but I think I've found my New Year's Resolution.

I am giving up the NY Times’ and all other online Op-Ed sections.

Coming clean here: I’m addicted to online Op-Eds. Absent daily doses of their manufactured expertise and contrived punditry I have a very hard time maintaining even basic adult functionality.

I’ve become one of those people who sit on their porch and listen to talk radio from sun up to sun down. Only instead of Michael Savage, Catholic Radio or Al Franken, it’s Ross Douthat, Paul Krugman, Marueen Dowd and their Op-Eds that have my neck boiling with indignation and my head reeling from one non-starter to the next.

I must have a copy of the Times or a bright yellow pacifier with me at all times.

AT ALL TIMES!

*Fondles binky*

My precious…

Like a tiny planet, the standard orbit of my day now blips around with a relativistic gravity born from the stars’ superseding spin; but instead of granting sound guidance in the order of magnificent heavenly bodies shining full-spectrum light through deep space, my little stars vie for attention like a caged pack of horny Chihuahuas yipping and yapping from the obscure nether regions of the World Wide Web.

Of course, with so many capable blogging heads and competent data miners accessible through the myriad mediums poised at our button-lusting fingertips, who the hell needs Krugman and Dowd? Herbert? Freidman is ok I guess, but Brooks? Kristof?!

Please.

Why can't we just render such "expertise" into obsolescence?

Assuming most of us are capable of at least some form of critical thought, why can’t we just become “experts” ourselves?

Or I could just ask whether or not the media we’ve begun replacing TV and Radio with is truly destined to repeat the same classical formula, truly doomed to occupy the same increasingly archaic social space reserved for the pompous types we invoke to begin arguments, or cite to end arguments, or blame to wash our hands of sincere attempts at communicating with those with whom we’ve never honestly tried to agree.

Perhaps. Maybe I just need to establish myself contra commonly recognized “others” to realize self or signify discourse. Maybe I really have to create a buffer of social (and thus emotional) distance when engaging tricky subjects. Maybe I must establish social scope for exchanging offensive opinion without offending.

Maybe there is no “social” absent the great, authoritative other.

Then again, I’m wondering why we can’t just refer directly to one another and achieve similar or better results. Must we refer to well known people in order to contextualize the realities we create through our more run of the mill interaction, the interaction which, as it turns out, makes up the vast bulk of our lives?

As with anything it could be invented for or applied to, technology should (in theory) enhance existing modes of behavior and problem solving. The fact that I and so many would rather use it to spin in and out of our own ego or brow-beat shames me; because, despite the heavily capitalistic modality of its meteoric rise, the internet was not simply intended to increase our already prolific access to furiously marketed opinion (Dare I say propaganda?). And heck, even if commerce and crooked communication were the only reasons for unleashing the dot com era, so what? The internet can also be used to expand rather than contract the already limited space our way of life leaves for genuine social interaction. Such technology should also allow us to seek out less mainstream realities, more particular realities, or even create new ones we can unite behind when we get around to it.

Not to rush you all, but with the internet, we can skip the damned reference points – the Glen Becks, the Michael Moores, Al Frankens, Olbermans, Hannitys, and their counterparts in print. We can talk directly to each other and at the same time access a world of potent information – literally simultaneously. Could we thus enhance and recycle our existing demand for each other and our unique “expertise” in ways which may lead to, oh I don’t know, actual solutions? True innovation?

The contrasting view some could take from this general theory would be that technology already has enhanced what we value – egos, insecurities, and mass persuasion. Well, fine. Probably true for many people. Certainly has been for me at times. If this is true, then fine, I should be getting back to my porn now. See ya.

Not likely true though. Fact is, even such transgressive social functions presuppose a desire and capacity for genuine interaction. Even if disagreeable, illegal, or outright unethical, the seedy or sordid side of the internet is merely the shadow of our greater social edifice (or post-edifice, if you insist).

Either way, no more thinking by the numbers for me folks. With the internet, I don’t have to wait for someone else to generate excitement, to broach subjects or predictable lines of “common” inquiry. We can all use the internet to draw random dots, to connect them with more abstract creativity, and to create new pictures, draw new inferences. I am no longer required to interact by tracing around the silhouette of standard ideas.

And so, I will no longer.

At least not in 2010.

The Qu'ran says...

(In some sort of odd old-englishy translation)

"And walk not on the earth with conceit and arrogance. Verily, you can neither rend nor penetrate the earth, nor can you attain the stature like the mountains in height."

"This is (part) of the al-hikmah ( wisdom, good manners, and high character, etc.) which your Lord inspired to you. And set not up with Allah any other god lest you should be thrown into Hell, blameworthy and rejected ( from His Mercy.)"

[Translation from the Quran 17:33-39]

"Those who believed and led a righteous life are the best creatures."
[98:7]

"O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another. Truly, the most honored of you in Gods sight is the greatest of you in piety. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware."
[49:13]

"And the servants of Allah . . . are those who walked on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say 'Peace'"
[25:63]

"The recompense for an injury is an injury equal thereto: but if a person forgets and makes reconciliation, his reward is due from Allah."
[62:40]

"They are the ones who examine all words, then follow the best. These are the ones whom GOD has guided; these are the ones who possess intelligence."
[39:18]

"Not so the worshippers who are steadfast in prayer; who set aside a due portion of their goods for the needy and the dispossessed; who truely believe in the Day of Reckoning and dread the punishment of their Lord (for none is secure from the punishment of their Lord); who restrain their carnal desire (save with their wives and slave-girls, for these are lawful to them; he that lusts after other than these is a transgressor); who keep their trusts and promises and bear true witness; who attend to their prayers with promprirude. These shall be laden with honours and shall dwell in fair gardens."
[Penguin p.110-111; 56:1-56:56]

Foucault said...

The most defenseless tenderness and the bloodiest of powers have a similar need of confession. Western man has become a confessing animal.
----History of Sexuality Vol. I, p. 59

Power is everywhere: not that it engulfs everything, but that it comes from everywhere.
----History of Sexuality Vol. I, p. 121-122

A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.
---- Discipline and Punish

What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end.
----Truth, Power, Self : An Interview with Michel Foucault (25 October 1982)