United States of Numerica

It's fascinating -- and oh so depressing -- how American culture has been literally decimated, reduced to numbers or stories about numbers, its cultural essence condensed to so many dollars and so little sense.

There was a time when the dull, sexless rolls of stock prices were rightly relegated to the back pages of the dull, sexless business section of the newspaper; the soulless kinetics of a particular stock on its ping-ponging trajectory viewed on a swiftly moving illuminated conveyor belt around the circumference of a building in Times Square at a pace suggesting "Nothing to see, hear or feel here, folks"; a slim sliver of tape belched forth from a ticking, glass-domed machine, looking for all the world like something Jules Verne would have devised for Captain Nemo's drawing room.

Now, though, it is the stuff of the actual and virtual front page and is more likely to be the first thing an American sees when he/she opens the newspaper or clicks onto a news-site. A consumer-based numerology has become the focus for a majority of Americans, their attention less on "dog bites man" and more on the ensuing inevitable litigation.

And with that, people's idea of what would be required in order to be elected president of the United States has devolved from a varied set of skills, one of which being business acumen among many areas of proficiency, to business acumen itself being the main and in some cases only qualification for the job.

Forget statesmanship, forget knowledge of -- or curiosity about -- other cultures, forget respect for history and the lessons in governance such a respect would impart. It's having run a business -- even into the ground (Arbusto, anyone?) -- that is nowadays prized above all things. Anything else is either gravy or drool: being wary of foreigners is good; being able to speak a foreign language with reasonable proficiency is bad. Being tough on "crime" is good; being outspokenly compassionate is akin to fingering grandma while she naps (I threw that in to be wildly provocative. Sue me.).

But being able to say that you were a boss of a great big shiny store entitles you to strut cockily across the political landscape, proclaiming a firm grasp on all it takes, apparently, to be president of these here United States.

Although I can't be sure (I am very, very lightheaded from having played a marathon game of Operation®), I think this numerical narrative has its roots in the 1950's when some white-haired guy in the Eisenhower administration may have accidentally let on that the government was no longer referring to its voting population as "citizens" but rather as "consumers." And gradually, this attitudinal shift began to subtly shape said population's perspective to the point where it is now counseled to purchase stuff in response to a terrorist attack on the Homeland. And if this isn't what happened, it certainly sounds plausible. Again, sue me.

It's almost like The Matrix, with the wonderfully abstract elements which make up the world reduced to a shower of numbers and equations. Except in the real-life version that we have today, the one which sprung from the unimaginative, corporate, profit-obsessed intellect, the essence of what determines success consequently incurs the removal of all it perceives as dross, leaving just the numbers themselves. The cool sunglasses, slow-motion Kung Fu and H.R. Giger-esque designs are wastes of time.

So why this idiotic, society-destroying shift? Study after study tells us that life without art, without wisdom, without growth, without imagination isn't life as humans are evolutionarily supposed to live it. It's how ants and (if we're being generous) paramecia are supposed to live it. The minds belonging to those who have excelled in areas where numbers take primacy over imagination have managed to incite this shift and have -- probably -- knowingly dragged all human potential for peaceful, fulfilling existence with it.

It's why, along with a fixation on finance, the preponderance of fantasy-based entertainment has glutted the culture: vampires, wizards and cars that become robots are all that's left of a perspective stunted by a fixation on the soulless creature generally referred to as Finance. The dearth of reality based entertainment speaks even more to the dehumanization of a rational, truthful, organic reality than to the contrived version which now comprises our every waking moment.

The result of this cultural tilt has prompted an eminently adaptable populace to become equally tilted and unimaginative and less likely to demand more complex creative or sociopolitical output. I mean, I think.

Phew. I'm exhausted. And now for my next number --

 

Follow Steven Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheStevenWeber

Comments

[The Smartest Monkees]

05:07 AM on 10/15/2011

Well I see five or so of my replies to other posts, have finally shown up roughly 24 hours later.

Need to rename this site Huffpoke... ;-)

[Raventoo]

01:20 PM on 10/14/2011

“Corporatio­ns are now defended as "people", given rights that were once only granted to flesh-and-­bone, and lobby for the candidate who will best serve their agendas, who will guarantee a continued Wall Street finger in the Federal money pot. We no longer are afforded the option to vote into office the candidate who we think will do the best job; long before we get that chance on Election Day, candidates fall by the wayside for lack of campaign funding, or from innuendo and attacks by political opponents and nebulous "action groups" (we all remember those "Swift Boat" ads), all too often paid from Corporate coffers. We vote for the select few candidates that Corporate greed allows us on voting day. Candidates who, even with their best intentions­, can be manipulate­d into endorsing pro-Corpor­ate national policy. The answer to all this Big Business greed? Simple. Don't give them what they want. Don't buy into their machinatio­ns. Ignore the poles. Vote with your dollars by boycotting the worst offenders. Think for yourself. Because it is still up to the consumer, the voter, to stop being a media-pabl­umed numbers-le­d sheep. You can tune-in or tune-out, but either way you will still lose. Perhaps the best solution is to instead tune-up, as in the system, and fix this greed-base­d government while we still have a say in any of this...”

[The Smartest Monkees]

07:36 AM on 10/15/2011

Well said, Raventoo!

Let's hope these world-wide protests taking place today, represent the tuned-in taking control from the tuned to the wrong dial perpetrators of the corporate destruction of our nation and the world.

Power to the people!

[Raventoo]

03:46 PM on 10/13/2011

Corporatio­ns are now defended as "people", given rights that were once only granted to flesh-and-­bone, and lobby for the candidate who will best serve their agendas, who will guarantee a continued Wall Street finger in (no, not Grandma) the Federal money pot. We no longer are afforded the option to vote into office the candidate who we think will do the best job; long before we get that chance on Election Day, candidates fall by the wayside for lack of campaign funding, or from innuendo and attacks by political opponents and nebulous "action groups" (we all remember those "Swift Boat" ads), all too often paid from Corporate coffers. We vote for the select few candidates that Corporate greed allows us on voting day. Candidates who, even with their best intentions­, can be manipulate­d into endorsing pro-Corpor­ate national policy. The answer to all this Big Business greed? Simple. Don't give them what they want. Don't buy into their machinatio­ns. Ignore the poles. Vote with your dollars by boycotting the worst offenders. Think for yourself. Because it is still up to the consumer, the voter, to stop being a media-pabl­umed numbers-le­d sheep. You can tune-in or tune-out, but either way you will still lose. Perhaps the best solution is to instead tune-up, as in the system, and fix this greed-base­d government while we still have a say in any of this...

[Raventoo]

02:28 PM on 10/13/2011

Corporations are now defended as "people", given rights that were once only granted to flesh-and-bone, and lobby for the candidate who will best serve their agendas, who will guarantee a continued Wall Street finger in (no, not Grandma) the Federal money pot. We no longer are afforded the option to vote into office the candidate who we think will do the best job; long before we get that chance on Election Day, candidates fall by the wayside for lack of campaign funding, or from innuendo and attacks by political opponents and nebulous "action groups" (we all remember those "Swift Boat" ads), all too often paid from Corporate coffers. We vote for the select few candidates that Corporate greed allows us on voting day. Candidates who, even with their best intentions, can be manipulated into endorsing pro-Corporate national policy. The answer to all this Big Business greed? Simple. Don't give them what they want. Don't buy into their machinations. Ignore the poles. Vote with your dollars by boycotting the worst offenders. Think for yourself. Because it is still up to the consumer, the voter, to stop being a media-pablumed numbers-led sheep. You can tune-in or tune-out, but either way you will still lose. Perhaps the best solution is to instead tune-up, as in the system, and fix this greed-based government while we still have a say in any of this...

[Raventoo]

01:40 PM on 10/13/2011

I blame television. And before that, radio. And always, barely in the background, soap. Without advertising, ever pushing Consumerism to us as we go through our daily lives, with radio, TV, the Internet always on around us, we would not know what "they" wanted us to buy (or buy into), and we would all be just fine. But they can't let that happen, they mustn't let us think for ourselves. "Sponsors" dictate the content of programming, indeed they even control which shows get cancelled and which manage to survive, all as they promote their Corporate agendas to the American public. "Give them bread and circuses." Not just a hipster quote, but an historically proven strategy for controlling the masses...

[SueEll]

12:13 PM on 10/13/2011

A little off topic, but I think we've raised one (maybe) two generations of rule followers. Children have been dropped off at daycare as infants and had to fend for themselves. With no one there to "have their back" they've had to learn how to lay low and follow the rules. Now they're 20-30 years-old and they won't look to the left or right without permission. And believe me, I'm not faulting the parents who had to work, they had no other choice. But there had to be a consequence for this and I think we're seeing it now.

[triplettam]

04:01 AM on 10/13/2011

And at some point (it was gradual), money was being made not from things that were made or suppluing service, but just from money itself. Wall Street right now--for the most part--creates nothing and makes money from nothing. They pull shenanigans, set up programs and bet against them. Bottom line is the bonus.

I remember reading stories about Wall Street when the crash of 29 happened. Many jumped out of windows (literally and figuratively); some just got what they could and ran . . . but there were some who stuck it out; used all of their wealth to stave off the crash and others who worked hard to pay off their investors. Not many I suppose, but enough to make me think that there was some integrity and love for this country in those tall buildings. God. I guess that was a REALLY long time ago. I don't see any of that now. Now it's just about the paycheck. Screw America. What's that?

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Thomas Jefferson

[SueEll]

10:34 AM on 10/13/2011

wonderful post.

[Raventoo]

01:13 PM on 10/13/2011

That first sentence would be a brilliant opening line to a Sci-Fi story, made all the more compelling in its veracity and hopeless sense of doom...

[triplettam]

03:53 PM on 10/13/2011

Thanks. I am a writer (or trying) and love Sci-Fi. Let me think about that. Slainte.

[JohnnyArgent]

01:40 AM on 10/13/2011

A central plank in the rotting foundation of this "culture" is the tenet that "Money talks and bullshit walks." The next step in that progression is that everything that isn't money is bullshit. That has been propagated by the greedy, soulless pricks who think of themselves as bottom-line pragmatists and who've steered us into the fetid ditch in which we find ourselves. In a broad sense we've been victimized and in another we've been complicit in our own devolution.
I'm going to wrap this up, here, and go back to reading: "The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America," by William Kleinknecht. Good Luck, Citizens....

[SirReal1]

08:21 PM on 10/12/2011

Steven, I know you are well aware that you are only describing one side of the Political Spectrum when you make these assertions. The only "businessman" the Democrats have put in the Oval Office in the past 50 years, was Jimmy Carter, and he wasn't elected for his "business acumen".

It is interesting to note, however, that of the "Businessmen" that have been in the office, or aspire to it, most Republicans see him as the "worst President in modern times", even though he was certainly the "most successful businessman" in the entire bunch.

[TomR]

07:10 PM on 10/12/2011

It's now up to those of us with imagination to fight against the greedy. It's time to jerk their leash. They just don't know that millions of Americans are at the other end of it. But they're starting to find out. It's Ground Hog Day and the reality-based community has had enough.

- Tom

[Gabriel Cornn]

07:04 PM on 10/12/2011

In our sick culture of consumerism, a person's value is defined by what that person can contribute to the economic prosperity of corporations. We are all worker bees tasked with shopping for the greater benefit of the capitalist hive. I read that termites eat faster when they listen to heavy metal music. Do consumers shop more when they watch scripted reality television?

[Jim McGaw]

06:33 PM on 10/12/2011

Sadly, I think that you're completely right about these things. I'm too young to say if this is truly a new phenomenon or if it's now just manifesting itself in new ways, but most aspects of this country have become games of numbers. Cost accounting policies have whittled away at soul of our private sector. Sprawl became prolific post-World War II, when the engineers and designers of suburban landscapes sought to quantifiably monitor traffic patterns. Filmmakers used to make history and now they just rejigger comic books.

I do think that creativity is a choice, and it's left up the individual. I think it's everyone's prerogative to decide whether they are going to phone in their work at their job, or to instead do what they do with reverence. You are an actor, Twitterer, and columnist, and you clearly do more than what is merely expected of you, even if nobody instructs you to, and especially if nobody gives you permission to. I try to do the same in my own jobs and in every small choice I make: worry less about the numbers and be more imaginative.

Every aspect of this country is begging for more creativity...but unfortunately, it never comes out and directly asks us for it. I wish more people would recognize this and make the choice to be creative, in small and big ways, much in the way you do. (Thanks for writing!)

[realphilhendrie]

06:23 PM on 10/12/2011

Steven the stew you're cooking up here is rich. I may have to spit some back in my napkin. I said "may." I agree that our addiction to numbers has relegated skill to the trash bin. %100. Since the end of World War Two we've inexorably traveled the road to "bottom line." We need to make money again by creating. But I disagree with these other hand grenades you toss. Let's take the language issue. I see no evidence that people resent language skill. I do see evidence of people resenting an official bilinguali­sm. That is death to a unified society. Now the challenge as I see it is how to join people together on issues...n­ot ideologies­. And no...it's not all about the same thing. Otherwise, carry on

[greendervish]

06:10 PM on 10/12/2011

ok, so you're clever. you're quick-witted and so good with words. damn! have you written a book, yet? are you developing a fake news talk show wherein you'll interview other smart mofos? i loved Wings, but hated the Shining, i mean, really, who makes a psycho-killer flick for the whole family? love ya, bye.

[karaNUFC]

06:08 PM on 10/12/2011

It goes back to the fact that no one has the time nor the patience anymore to actually get to know anyone. It's all text speak, where's the decimal place, who introduced who, oh, and who are you wearing. No one cares anymore who or where you came from and forget about trying to explain what you stand for or what you believe in. Belief, faith, passion, and compassion are things only seen in an ocassional Golden Book written long ago and left in a box covered in dust.

Art, music, drama, beauty, humanity, and heart are what keep the soul of this country, our culture (whatever that may be) and this world going. If we continue to lose those we will lose who we are. Who we truly are deep down. Let's break through all of these "surface relationships", ones based on how much money you make, who you know and not what you know. Whatever happened to relationships based on trust because you knew the other person was honest and had a good heart? When it comes down, shouldn't we just change all of those "I *heart* NY" , LA, etc stickers and insert the $? Apparently when you cut Americans they bleed green.