DeVega writes in Salon, “In all, this [qoute not provided here] is a damning indictment of the current state of American democracy and political culture. Donald Trump’s regime and his coup cabal attempted to nullify the results of the 2020 presidential election, his followers launched a violent lethal assault on the Capitol and the Republican-fascists’ Jim Crow attacks on multiracial democracy are escalating. The United States faces the possibility of a low-level civil war or sustained right-wing insurgency. Yet the American people must be ‘entertained’ with a spectacle in order to care.”
He continues, in part, “As sociologist Neil Postman famously warned in the title of his best-known work, the American people have ‘amused themselves to death’ through a culture of anti-intellectualism, and the superficial, immediate gratification of mass media. Collective narcissism is a major public health problem. So many people, because of loneliness, alienation, social atomization and a culture of hyper-individualism and self-centeredness, feel no sense of linked fate with other human beings outside their families and immediate social circles. … Education is the best way, and perhaps only way, to create responsible, informed citizens who have the capacity and willingness to participate in a healthy democracy.”
And he ends, in part, “I asked a friend who teaches at a small regional college if [students’ aversion to thinking] resonated with her experiences in the classroom. She told me her students often complain that she makes them think ‘too much’ during class about current events, which ‘hurts their brains.’ Unfortunately, these are not isolated examples. Most people in America do not want to think about the crisis of democracy and what they can do to stop it. Even more troubling and dangerous, many Americans are attracted to fascism and other anti-human philosophies and behavior precisely because they are so desperate for a life of meaning in a world that can often feel devoid of it.”
Needless to say, these few paragraphs reinforce the entire thesis around which I created this blog. But I like to incorporate DeVega’s thoughts because he is a reasoned and well-researched writer; I’m the writer full of rage and contempt. America is just too stupid to survive, and no one cares. I say it almost daily! Welcome to stupid America! It never gets old.