Deliberation in a Culture of Entertainment

COVID-19 is without question the first (or at least, the biggest) major worldwide crisis to occur in this era where the entire world is saturated in such a web of communication; i.e. basically the past ten years, where cell phones are now ubiquitous and almost everyone is completely in-touch with the wider world at such a constant rate. It is a culture that, more than ever, demands instant entertainment, demands the flashy, the vibrant, the exciting, the new. Self-centered? Surely. Short-sighted? Absolutely.

I have often wondered (and still do) what these amazing means of communication available to us would mean in an era of true calamity, or true crisis, such as a full-out war or something. Would our entertainment-focused era buckle down, take it seriously, and recognize it as something more important than the things that divide us? Would we sacrifice things, put aside our differences, and band together for a higher good, like American and England had to, in World War II? (I speak generally, please don't @ me, WWII-history-people) Would Reddit continue to make memes making light of the world collapsing around them? Would Twitter still be a colossal dumpster fire of radicalized hate?

Because if COVID was our first test, we absolutely failed. An American culture, already splitting after three years of Donald Trump and his wake, quickly degenerated further; both sides instantly weaponized the pandemic as further proof of how they were gold-hearted, upright heroes doing everything possible for the good of the nation, and how their opponents from the other side of the aisle were brazen murderers, flaunting the good of the country for their own political gain. Take masks for an example: there were about two weeks, back in March, before they were such a controversial, divisive issue. And I hoped it wouldn't happen; that masks wouldn't become politicized, that the nation could take something like the pandemic seriously and do what was actually best; hoped the government would make the decisions it has been entrusted to make and not just use everything possible for mere political leverage.

I was naïve.

But beyond all that is the turbulent speed of the news cycle. This is, again, a truly unprecedented time. We are, right now, (and this is the first time for me) living through the times that will be in the history books of the future. The stakes now are higher than they have been in a very long time, both through COVID as well as the final months of Trump's presidency. Yet it is almost as though no one cares; every week, there is a new crisis; every week, something new is trending, something new to outrage one side or the other. For example, longtime SCOTUS justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in late September, and the GOP confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to her place, for better or for worse. I wrote about it at the time; of all the events that would have long-term effects on the American government in these past six months, that was likely the biggest, at least until the debacle that was the Georgia runoff elections. But did anyone care? Yes, for a week or two. Then, it was gone, and nobody really cared anymore. What about Trump's first impeachment? That was the third impeachment in all of American history. He was acquitted about a year ago (2/5/20). That's a pretty big event, if we think about it. Then COVID happened, Trump was running his reelection campaign and facing constant criticism for his handling of the COVID crisis (which would have been mostly fine if he hadn't said, like, anything at all). Then we got to the debates, and the election, and the election fraud stuff, and then Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Biden was inaugurated, etc.

And nowhere in all this cacophony of Events is there any pause, any attempt to take this seriously, even in the midst of real crises. Each side offers unity, but it is loaded with the assumption that there can only be unity if you agree with them. (Take Biden's inaugural address, which would have been great if he had meant it.) We live in a culture of entertainment, which does not spare politics, and in a time when both the media and the government are actively sowing strife and belittlement of the other side. That is why in a time where this nation had a great chance to come together, to recognize some higher goal more important than a news cycle or political leverage, it failed.