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Messages | Sep 30 2001

Michael Ventura once observed that our culture (which is to say our media; the two being more or less indistinguishable these days) offers us the same two messages over and over, in nearly ritualized fashion:

1. We’re dying.
2. It’s alright.

Recent events serve as an apt example of this, both in how they were reported and how “we” responded. Repeated images of planes flying into buildings and heartbreaking stories of relatives seeking the “missing” = “We’re dying.” Repeated images of old glory and rousing tales of everyday heroes and Americans joining together = “It’s alright.” We’re dying and it’s alright.

The national pastime isn’t baseball; it’s forgetting. Which is why the media rules the roost: it helps us forget. It’s alright that we’re dying because we keep forgetting the fact that we’re dying, if indeed that message ever really hits home, despite (or perhaps because of) its ubiquity.