Fear is the real issue, and has become both the cultural touchstone and literal and metaphorical oil that the machinery of our society has become addicted to.
Fear is what most people don't "get" as being the real meaning of, and central point of Michael Moore's brilliant, (yet unfocused and slightly irresponsible) movie "Bowling for Columbine," not "guns" nor the NRA< which unfrotunatley Morre veers off on and misses the forrest (fear) for the trees (Heston and the NRA). He touched on the meat of it, but fell into the trap of trying to expose the NRA and Heston as being the problem. They aren't, they are the symptom.
Fear is the real issue, and has become both the cultural touchstone and literal and metaphorical oil that the machinery of our society has become addicted to.
Has been since the depression and WWII.
It has been the driving force behind McCarthyism, the cold war, the political seismic shift during the civil rights movement, when the fear mongers and their inbred fuck-head followers fearing the black man switched from Democrat to GOP, to the push to tune out, and mindlessly consume.
I was shocked that of all the most insightful things said about our culture in that movie, the one which hit the nail squarely on the head, was by none other than Brian Warner (aka Marylyn Mansion):
(Warner) When i was a kid growing up, music was the escape. I think it has no judgments. You put on a record and it's not gonna yell at you for dressing the way you do, it's gonna make you feel better about it. I definitely can see why they would pick me because i think it's easy to throw my face on the TV, because I'm, in the end, a poster boy for fear, because I represent what everyone's afraid of, because I do and say what I want. The two prior projects of that whole tragedy were "violence and entertainment" and "gun control". And I knew perfectly that I was the two things that we would talk about because of the upcoming election. And also, then we forgot of Monica Lewinsky and we forgot about the President was shooting bombs overseas. Yet, I'm a bad guy because I sing some rock 'n' roll songs. And who is the worst influence, the president or Marilyn Manson? I'd like to think that it is me, but I'm gonna go with the president.
(Moore) Do you know that when the Columbine happened the United States dropped more bombs on coast than any other time in that war?
(Warner) I do know that, and I think it was really ironical that nobody said "Well, maybe the president had an influence on this violent behavior". No, because that's not the way the media wants to take it and spin in turn, and then they turn it into fear because you're watching television, you're watching the news, and you're pumped full of fear. There's floods, there's AIDS, there's murder, cut the commercial by the Acura, by the Collgate, if you have bad breath they're not gonna talk to ya, if you got pimples the girls are not gonna fuck you, and it's just this... there's a campaign of fear and consumption. And that's what I think it's all based on, it's this idea, that "keep everyone afraid and they'll consume". And that's simple as it can be pulled out.
(Moore) If you could talk directly to the kids at Columbine and the people in that community, what would you say to them now?
(Warner)I wouldn't say a single word, I would listen to what they have to say. And that's what no one did.
As a society, we have allowed ourselves to become isolated, disconnected from each other. We have replaced reality with "reality T.V.". We have become Howard Beale's nightmare.
"All human beings are becoming humanoids. All over the world, not just in America. We're just getting there faster because we're the most advanced country. We'll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. Whatever the tube tells you: You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! WE are the illusion! Television is not the truth! Television is a God damned amusement park!
Paddy Chayefsky, and Jerzy Kosinski both saw the writing on the wall... Network... Being There... I hear ya guys... I hear ya... R.I.P