Have we arrived at the Buddhist culture?

American culture has become Nothingness

The Boomer generation was the first raised with a steady diet of TV. It provided common cultural reference points based on popular TV shows. Burns & Allen, Leave It To Beaver, Groucho, Death Valley Days, Dragnet, Bonanza, Dick Van Dyke, Gunsmoke, Twilight Zone, all the way through a major comedy explosion in the wake of the Vietnam War, till the 1990s with Seinfeld and Friends.

The burgeoning internet age changed our culture, initially as Craigslist proved a disruptive technology that adversely affected the economic bottom line of print media, but with the advent of blogs, then social media, then television and movie offerings, our broadcast media intake changed dramatically.

Instead of Nielsen ratings from the 4 major TV networks which displayed tens of millions of viewers for popular shows, Netflix and Hulu and many others offer a litany of shows, movies and specials. The winning ones have far smaller audiences and claim commercial success with them. But unlike the days when shows like MASH or NYPD Blue acted as major influences on society, the rich diversity of offerings means our friends mention something from a show and our responses are more likely to be “Huh? What’s that show about?'“

We’ve also seen our unspoken social compact splintered by a series of close major political elections, the loosening of campaign donation limits and the resulting tidal wave of political ads driven by corporate giants and ultra wealthy individuals since the Citizens United decision by the SCOTUS.

Our language has been changed, first with the loosening of the old rules of unacceptable language in the media and the advent of an era where rudeness and bullying behavior has become acceptable to more and more people.

Instead of reaping the benefits of a truly multicultural society in what we learn and are entertained by, a lot of that has been overshadowed by politics, driven by the greediest, turning US culture into… it’s hard to say.

On Twitter, funny punchline writers and people sniping at each other dominate. Discourteous behavior rules the roost. We each gain some from the multiculturism but our society’s interactions often move towards a monoculture where facts don’t matter as much as fiction, where anything a political leader or celebrity says is viewed with suspicion and dishonesty and self-delusion rules the day.

It brings our society to a degree of division over meaningless things that people fight over, debate is entirely useless, so the actual benefit to any side is pretty close to Nothingness.

Add the pandemic to that and the Nothingness got magnified because people were getting violent about masks (more Nothingness). The greatest voter participation in US history occurred in the most secure election in history and 30% of the country refuses to believe it happened. Because the loser simply repeatedly says that the election results were Nothing.

It’s not exactly how the Buddhists define Nothingness, but it’s edging us pretty close. Your news intake doesn’t match mine so yours is Nothing and Nothing you say will convince me because Nothing Matters.

Reality isn’t real any more. We talk past each other more than to each other. And who has time to just listen when your reality is so vividly different than mine?

The US Senate predictably split on the subject of the conduct of a free and fair voting process today because all the facts didn’t matter. Republicans can only win the White House by voter exclusion because they lack the desire to appeal to more voters. They can’t bother with that popular will stuff. And rather than utilizing the one tool left to expand our democracy - via the elimination of the filibuster - the Democrats are stuck with Senators like Manchin - beholden to his corporate owners - and Sinema, who wants to carry on the Arizona tradition of semi-independence from parties that Goldwater and McCain exemplified. She missed the memo that she’s mimicking maverick Republicans and she cites a lot of hogwash about the necessity of the filibuster, ultimately offering Democrats and Arizonans and the majority of citizens in the country a grand total of Nothing. Thereby fulfilling her promise to do Nothing.

Our national commonalities no longer exist because our visual and aural intake is completely different.

And instead of debating the bill on its merits, the GOP resorts to the oldest diversion in the US politial playbook: state’s rights. If the federales expand voting, it will infringe on the rights of states who want to limit voting to the select few. Forget about women’s rights and the voting rights of POC because the diminishing and elimination of rights is their only goal.

That argument has never led to any positive development in our country but again, Nothing Matters. Fake mavericks and fake Senators hold sway because they hold the mistaken belief that only they matter without realizing that they, too, are Nothing. Offering Nothingness.

Democracy won’t die, the country won’t die, but both will soon become Nothing of any significance to any but the greed addicts.

But maybe there is a new TV series to save us all. Can anyone tell me what it is?