Amusing Ourselves To Death

the two ways a culture dies

ain’t too hard to see

if you’ve ever sat in a bar

at three in the afternoon

watching the blue light

eat the faces of the living,

or observed the faces mute

and obtuse

gazing at their devices

numb to the world around them.

one way is the prison,

orwell had that one down.

guards with guns

and slogans that smell like blood.

you know the drill,

the door locks from the outside

and the only thing left to do,

if you’ve got the inclination,

is remember the names of the dead.

the other way is softer,

huxley saw it coming.

the smile that never stops.

the joke that never ends.

we don’t get locked up,

we lock ourselves in by choice.

we buy the tickets,

we sit in the dark

and laugh until the teeth fall out

and our minds dry up like raisins.

america went for the second one full throttle,

no hesitation.

we plugged the cord in

and never looked back

believing in the lies we told along the way.

television became the new god

and the god was a clown

with perfect teeth

and a laugh track that never sleeps.

big brother doesn’t watch us,

we watch him.

hell, we invite his sorry ass in

and we feed him chips and soda.

we let him tell us what to think

about the news,

about the war,

about god,

about the empty hole in the middle of the day

that steals our hearts and souls -

and we call it entertainment.

serious talk turns into baby talk,

politics becomes a game show,

religion a variety hour,

education a cartoon.

the public square is a stage

and every citizen is an audience member

waiting for the next punchline,

waiting for the commercial,

waiting for the next reason

not to think, or care, or fight back.

no manifesto announced this,

no boots in the street,

it just arrived.

like the automobile,

like the light bulb,

like the 5g towers,

like the hangover that shows up

whether you asked for it or not.

technology is not neutral,

never was.

the printing press changed the way we prayed,

the alphabet changed the way we remembered,

television changed the way we forget,

the internet and smart-ass-fucking-phone

changed our brain chemicals

and dumbed-us-down even further.

and we never voted on any of it,

we just kept buying whatever they sold us,

and enslaved ourselves in evermore debt.

kept turning the machines on,

glowing in our stoned vacant face day and night.

kept believing the next show,

the next meme,

the next tic-toc video

would finally make sense of the last one.

the philosophers never warned us about this.

they warned us about the men with guns,

and the men with books,

the men with power and money to burn,

but nobody warned us about the men

with remote controls, and flock cameras, and ai,

and the soft blue glow that turns the living room

into a waiting room for the end of thought,

and time,

and connection.

people still talk about turning it all off

and unplugging,

for a month,

for a week,

for an hour,

as if a temporary silence

could undo decades of noise,

and programming,

and emf’s.

the library in some small town

goes rogue and tries to tell people to read,

and the streaming influencers cover it

so people can watch the circus remotely

from the comfort of the oblivion,

on the very screens they promised to ignore.

the irony is thick enough to drink

and makes me want to pour a drink.

some want better programs,

cleaner programs,

smarter programs,

more inclusive programs.

as if the problem was the quality of the junk

and not the fact that we keep swallowing it.

the real housewives of beverly hills never hurt anybody.

but the evening news did,

the oligarchs and bankers did,

the billionaire tech bros,

and their phallic rocket ships to nowhere, did.

anything that pretends to be serious

while dancing for the ratings,

and the dollars,

and the delusion of power,

it the real tell.

the problem is not what we watch,

the problem is that we watch.

the solution is supposed to be understanding

what the medium does to the mind,

what information becomes

when it travels at the speed of light

and arrives already smiling

as a notification.

schools, in theory, are supposed to teach this

but the schools are long ago

bought and paid for.

using the same screens

to control the children

instead of teaching the children

how to control the screens.

or better yet,

break them into pieces.

history is a lie taught as a truth

and most don’t even know it.

having been brainwashed

to think columbus discovered america

and food comes from the grocery store.

the same way social media and the internet

are the gateway to success and influence.

ah, the innocence and curse of incarnating

in this world gone mad.

huxley said it best:

the people in the brave new world

were not laughing instead of thinking,

they had forgotten what they were laughing about

and why the thinking had stopped.

so here we are

another afternoon,

another bottle of pills,

another vape-pen,

another blue screen.

the culture is a burlesque

and we are the audience

clapping on cue

waiting for the next distraction

to save us from the quiet

that might force us

to remember.

we once knew how to be silent,

and how to observe,

and how to relate,

and how to critically think,

and even, sometimes, how to give a fuck.

alas, the gates were never locked,

we just never left the theater.

and the show just goes on,

and on,

and on,

and on.

This poem was inspired by a recent re-reading of Neil Postman's book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, and most specifically the final chapter, The Huxleyan Warning.