Pragmatic Yankee

One thing that hit me as I was watching it, and this may be a sign of my as yet undestroyed socialist/cyber Marxist tendencies: the bit about 42% of americans saying they’d pay for ad free tv scares the crap out of me.

And not because I’m in advertising, but because without a strong goverrnment support of the commons, and an equally strong cultural commitment, we’re a bunch of pigs suckling at the mugwumps waiting for the next purple ass baboon for motorcyclists to be coordinated. (you might want to google some of that last bit. I think I just went off the rails)

I mean, not that ”Mad Men” or “dance your a** off” constitute great cultural treasures but we’re losing the commons. But if everything must be increasingly directly commoditized - which means you get an even larger degree of class distinction and cultural tension as what was once pretty much free (broadcast tv, access to sesame street and news; the newspaper picked up on the train, radio) is pretty much scarce.

What happens then? When you have to pay for EVERYTHING directly.

Nothing that I’m saying is new, and I haven’t really thought it out, but I think somehow it just really clicked home how truly, clearly MEANINGFULLY different tomorrow looks. I’ll be reading P K Dick and Gibson to prepare myself. Probably some Doctrow (Cory) too. Syllabus to follow under separate cover.