Been here a few days,
still haven’t seen anywhere but the hotel and the festival. It’s al good. On the first day everyone went to a game
reserve but having just got off the plane I opted for the hotel. I’ve been to a game reserve before. I’ve watched alot of CNN though, which is
disturbing game, the Deep voice “today on CNN”, the arresting stab of music, the flashing
graphics….
But poets have been the news gatherers since humans could
communicate. And poets communicated the
emotional as well as the action, acknowledged the physical and spiritual. Look at those great newspapers of religion, the bible and the Koran. The Koran is one long
poem and the bible is full to bursting with poetry. The messengers, the communicators, the storytellers have been poets all along, contemporary,
informed and unconstrained.
But “Today on CNN”
is supposed to be unbiased news. There
is some unspoken belief in the journalists integrity “today on CNN”. A journalist
would scoff that anyone believes that news is not biased. But the truth is most people see news as the axis
point to which all angles should be debated. The question “why is there no good news” is a serious one. The human psyche is
driven to action by fear, it is the same reason why we watch horror films and
action films and this impulse relates back to early man.
I met an anthropologist novelist at the vancouver literature festival in Canada who told me that our need to feel close to fear is a
basic instinct. The more man is
comfortable, the more he needs fear. A physical representation of fear is the
hypothalamus gland. This gland which
gives us goosepumps and relates directly to
when man had hair upon his body. All of
this could be relevant as we are near
the 200th anniversary of Darwin and the publication of his theory.
Think of the news as one long advert for fear and you become
closer to the truth of what news actually is. A relentless campaign “today
on CNN” A relentless, unforgiving,
finance driven power stream beating us into submission “Today on CNN”. And there you have it, fear in turn means that
we can be sold ideas – the idea that we must go to war for example. What is my world view?
I've nothing more significant to say than just 'great post, really enjoyed it'. Sometimes a simple comment is enough!
Whe I see a beautiful chair, I ask my question “Who made” and not “Who did the seat maker, and in no way 'this chair came into existence by chance”. how about the universe Anthropic … Current theory holds that the universe allows intelligent life because all its constants have got the chance to be exactly those which had to necessarily lead to a universe that leads to life.