You had to be a big shot ...
This little stream of consciousness won’t have a lot to do with sports, but it’s something I thought about while hearing the Billy Joel song “Big Shot” in a coffee shop the other day. It might not make much sense, but, hey, what on this blog does? If you're here for the baseball thoughts, you might just skip this one, I'll get something baseball up later.
The thought is this: It seems we have reached a time and place in America – because of technology and freedom of choice – where you can more or less wander inside your own personal bubble and never, ever deal with anything outside your own sphere of interest. You can live without ever running into an opposing opinion, a challenging idea or new type of music. You can sort of stand still.
Let’s say you’re an anti-war liberal Democrat who likes The Smiths, adult alternative music, sweet breakfast cereals and the Red Sox. You \ wake up in the morning and go to any number of Web sites and read about some new outrage committed by George W. Bush. You click on video of Jon Stewart doing his Dick Cheney impression. You eat Sugar Smacks (while listening to “Sweet and Tender Hooligan” on your iPod) while reading the printed out Red Sox stories that Jeff Horrigan and Gordon Edes wrote the night before
You go to your car and go to work – first you click on XM Hear Music, and listen to Ingrid Michaelson’s “Far Away,” and the Bees “Who Cares What The Question Is,” and then a song comes on that you don’t like, so you flip back to your iPod and listen to The Smiths’ “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” and “The Night has Opened My Eyes.”
You get to work, and there’s an email from a buddy of yours wondering what the hell is going on with J.D. Drew. You write back a thoughtful and considered response (“He sucks”) and then do whatever it is you do at work, pausing occasionally to watch the rather hilarious You Tube video of the Michael Moore-Wolf Blitzer slap-fight. You click onto impeachbush.org just for the Hell of it, print out a few Cindy Sheehan blog listings and read them over lunch, (while listening to “Death of a Disco Dancer” and “Girlfriend in a Coma” on the ol’ iPod), get through the day somehow (maybe you send your friend an email that says, “I love Dustin Pedroia!”), drive home (listening to the new Tori Amos and Rufus Wainright songs on XM), help your kids with their homework (“Yes, Stacy, this is the American Constitution and it’s being ignored in America today”), have dinner, go for your evening jog (While listening to ‘Frankly Mr. Shankly” and “Some Girls are Bigger Than Others”), get back home, read the kids a book, grab a bowl of Captain Crunch, go watch the Red Sox (assuming you live in Boston or have the MLB package on your TV), and then fade into sleep while reading whatever Paul Krugman or Eric Alterman book you have by your bed.
(Note: The previous person has absolutely no resemblance to me at all. I don’t like the Red Sox, for instance).
The point is you have now gone through an entire day without encountering a single new thing. Not one. And it seems to me that you could live this way more or less indefinitely … you can pretty much shut out anything that doesn’t fit into your small sphere of interests and beliefs. I remember a few years ago, I decided that I needed to stop listening to talk radio – I felt like it was adversely affecting the way I did my job. So I just stopped. And what stunned me is how invisible (for me) talk radio instantly became. I understand that it’s still going on, every day, all around the country, nonstop talk, but I don’t hear any of it, and I’m oblivious to it.
So what's the big deal? Well, here’s the rub: It may be the longer you live like this, the easier it is to believe that there ARE no new things, that everybody is pretty much just like you, that there are no other viable opinions, no other types of music or entertainment worth embracing, no other foods worth trying and so on. This sort of living isn’t new to our time – people have forever felt most comfortable in their own cocoon, surrounded by what they know and like, flanked by people who agree (or, at least, are so inept at arguing the other side that you feel more convicted after the arguments), surrounded by comfort.
But it also seems that it has never been easier than right now to live in your own world, reading your own thoughts, listening to your own music, watching your own television, eating your own foods, confirming your own beliefs. I remember the shock I felt when I read that those Tim LaHaye apocalyptic “Left Behind” books have sold more than 65 million copies. Sixty five million! First off, that’s quite a few more than The Soul of Baseball (nudge nudge).
More to today’s point – and, please, please, please, I am not criticizing the Tim LaHaye books because I know nothing about them and don't need to piss off the readers of the apocalypse – I do not have a single friend or friend of a friend that (as far as I’m aware) has read a single one of these books. So to me there is an entire circle of people in America that I know absolutely nothing about, that I have never gotten near, that I do not understand. I suspect they know nothing at all about the way I live either -- it’s very possible that people in this circle might not listen to the Smiths, eat Cocoa Krispies and read Thomas Frank.
OK, so what does this have to do with Billy Joel’s “Big Shot?” Well, naturally, I hate that song. I have never hidden my antipathy for Billy Joel, but I REALLY hate that song. “You had to be a BEEG shot, DINT-cha?” And while I was in the coffee shop, I realized that I had not heard that song in probably 10 or 15 years. I had no occasion to run across it (and would not have on this day either except I left my iPod at home). Not unlike the man in the blog scenario, I listen pretty exclusively to my iPod, I watch only my TV shows, I hang out with people who are quite like me, I check my Internet sites, I read the magazines that are likely to either reinforce my opinion or widen it. I do run into daily contradictions and a few thought-proving ideas just because of the nature of my job (often in the form of emails from people saying, “You are an idiot” and so on), but all in all, I don’t like the song “Big Shot” so I have managed to purge it from my life.
Is there anything wrong in this? No. It just makes me think of the interview between writer Nora Ephron and Graduate director Mike Nichols – he mentioned that he hated living in Los Angeles.
“Well, some people would say it’s easier living out there,” Ephron said.
“Yes it is,” Nichols said. “But who says that’s a good thing?”
20 comments:
Marshall Mcluhan wrote about this a very long time ago. We have so much information at our disposal -- words, images, music, and the ideas they convey -- yet many of us chose the route you describe. The comfort, the ease that Mike Nichols disliked. I worked for a time in a psychiatric hospital and some of the heavily medicated patients were like that -- do not do anything to intrude or upset the trance!
And how do you feel about Randy Newman's "Short People?"
The Tim LaHaye point is an interesting one. I go to school in Atlanta, and live in Brooklyn, and I don't know a single person who follows/watches NASCAR, and every time I bring this up, none of my friends do either. But, apparently, its pretty popular.
Here's a book you should read: "Bowling Alone" by Harvard professor Robert Putnam. He writes about this phenomenon (bowling leagues are dying and more people are bowling alone...) and the greater effect it has in society--people are less understanding of others views, and less trusting of the government. This drives down participation, etc... Check it out.
Good post. Anyways, I think your assumption is correct but I enjoy arguing too much. My best friend is, in a lot of ways, the polar opposite of me (He is a big time christian, I am an athiest). We still get along well, so perhaps it isn't that our friends share the same interests as much as it is that we only discuss our shared interests with people (rather than the conflicting ones).
I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. In the world you describe, we'd have soldiers fighting a horrible, unwinnable war in a distant land, but we'd be carrying on in our day-to-day lives like everything was normal.
Starbucks run!
(I like Billy Joel.)
I like having all the choices of today. Wouldn't want it any other way.
p.s. Big Shot is a great song.
Joe, I think you are suffering from a little bit of "nostalgia for the imaginary past" syndrome here.
Do you really think those that lived in an Italian neighborhood (say, The Hill in StL) in 1940 were exposed to many more new ideas than we are nowadays? Do you think your mythical construct person is exposed now to fewer new ideas than someone living in an Amish settlement today?
I think human beings in technologically advanced societies now are bombarded with more information than any other iteration of the human species. We may manage this information onslaught by applying preconceived "templates" as to which information we will actually consider, but we receive more information regarding "new" concepts than any humans ever before us. The fact that you can, through much effort, ignore all new information is more a testament to the human capacity to control our information assimilation than it is to the quantity of information hitting our senses.
Bowling Alone is pretty lame, at least as a metaphor. I can't remember the last time I went to the alley and there was some dude just bowling by himself.
As for this being a unique time - I think that's a serious overstatement. As some other commenters have mentioned, early 20th century ethnic enclaves were pretty homogeneous. Beyond that, the whole world prior to the 19th century except for the super-elite classes basically never went anywhere or met anyone who wasn't almost exactly like them.
Maybe people are more isolated in their experiences compared to what is available, but I would have to imagine New Things Experienced as strictly a counting stat is pretty close to an all-time high.
Joe's point, at least as I take it, is that while we've never had access to more choices (of TV, music, information, opinions, etc) people generally choose the familiar and comfortable.
It kind of misses that point to say, Well, the 1834 Pennsylvania Amish were isolated too. Sure. But I could be in Mali tomorrow if I went to the airport now, I could be listening to French pop in 10 seconds if I clicked over to music, I could be eating Thai food in 10 minutes if I picked up the phone, and I could be reading "The Soul of Baseball" tomorrow night if I clicked on Amazon now. But it's more likely I will go home and feed my baby and listen to my favorite records and read a bit of last week's New Yorker and go to sleep.
('Cause I have already read the Soul of Baseball.)
it's really strange because i was thinking the same thing the other night.
we were watching Countdown and just enjoying it and i was thinking how ALL of my friends watch the news, but nobody would ever watch Fox anything except for sports, simpsons, and the family guy.
we're all the same, kinda. white, mid 20s - mid 30's, love the Sox, love indie rock / punk rock / country and consider ourselves very liberal and very educated.
i'm luckier than many since i've had the opportunity to see the USA via econoline van on tour in the 90s, but many people never leave their nests.
until you've seen the punk rock clubs in Mobile, Atlanta, Aitken, Hoboken, etc. you haven't lived. and good luck if you're a vegetarian in the south!
great post. i love this godamn site!
The point, Charles, is that even if people aren't bowling alone--ie, bringing friends--they're still not joining leagues. Joining leagues and playing against other people exposes them to new people, not their friends, and this exposure to new people broadens their horizons and moderates their views of what is good/right as they are able to humanize opposing points of view. Putnam is pretty smart.
There's absolutely merit to what you're saying, Joe. People do tend to seek out the comfortable in their lives. Always have, always will.
But here's the huge difference you haven't mentioned - the posible definitions of "comfort" or "familiar" are infinitely greater than they've ever been. Sure, I could be a liberal anti-war Democrat, Red Sox fan who likes adult alternative music and sweet breakfast cereals. But I could also be an unaffiliated, centrist, anti-Iraq war/pro-Afghan war Libertarian who likes historical biographies, Stephen King novels, blues music and bagels. (Of course, I'd still like the Red Sox.)
If this was 1952, I wouldn't have most of those choices. I would be a conservative Republican or a semi-conservative Democrat Yankee fan who read the morning paper, listened to Perry Como and ate bacon and eggs. My choices to alter any of that would not only be few and far between, but would also be frowned upon much more so than today.
In short, we might all be living cookie-cutter lives nowadays, but instead of just four patterns to choose from (circular, star-shaped, half-moon and Christmas tree), we can essentially be any shaped cookie cutter we want.
How many other baseball blogs out there generate discussion about Marshall McLuhan and Robert Putnam?
There's an interesting paradox here. On one hand, we're surrounding ourselves with people just like us, listening to music and watching tv shows that affirm our own beliefs and are able to avoid entire sectors of the population. Yet at the same time, we're also spending more time away from the metaphorical bowling leagues of previous generations and engaging less in our community. Unless it it seems like the safest part of home, we aren't will to face it.
Great post & nice discussion. Another gap in this argument is that while we can create a bubble comprised of our own niches to focus on what we know & love, taste is a messy animal that creates strange bedfellows (and clearly also causes mixed metaphors). If I go to blogs (correctly) promoting the supremacy of the Red Sox, I will encounter more than just Smiths fans. And eventually people will start talking about Billy Joel - perhaps tying Doug Mirabelli to "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant"? I read Curt Schilling's blog for his accounts of baseball and video games, where we tend to share common ground, but also get exposed to perspectives on faith and politics far from my own.
So I'd say the danger you write about is most relevant with people whose interests are both narrow and singular - if you only concern yourself with politics and create a opinion-driven bubble, then it's hard to see the world outside your perspective. But if you're also a baseball fan, Smiths lover, etc., you're likely to meet some people who share one interest but expose you to diversity in other issues.
And I'd rather see that type of peer-to-peer exposure to breadth of opinions and tastes than living in a world without media choices where radio stations all play Billy Joel.
Thank you for this blog I just cut a card for debate with it.
Can't wait to cite you in round someday.
Speaking of Red Sox- and Smiths-lovers, I recommend you all look into Joe Pernice - a specimen of both who wrote a tender, funny novella, "Meat is Murder," about the awkward melancholy of adolescence and Morrissey obsession, and (in his guise as a pop songwriter) recorded the aspirant anthem "Moonshot Manny."
I'm pretty sure 'Big Shot' is the Mendoza line of pop/rock songs. It's the standard to which all other atrocious songs are measured... keep up the good blogging!
Actually, Big Shot is south of the Mendoza line (kind of in the area of Neifi Perez's career OPS).
The breadth of choices available to people only allows us to create stronger cocoons to live in. We all naturally gravitate towards that which we like and once we have found it takes a lot to move us beyond that point. The trajectory of our lives is set by what we like and what we believe to be true about life. It gets messy when I spend time considering opinions contrary to mine and I run the risk of having to make a course correction if I'm wrong - and who has time for that anymore.
Finding opinions I already agree with is much more efficient and gives me more time for my music and baseball.
Keep up the great writing Joe - I'm sorry I missed you at Comerica last week. I'll promise to finally purchase the book if you keep the blog rolling.
Turns out this post is really about baseball after all. We all start out at home, our at-bat brimming with potential and possibility. Then we venture out into the world. We stay for a while at first base, check out second, and spend a few seconds at third. It's exciting, but we also quickly realize that it's dangerous: if we're not careful, we could get tagged out, doubled off, or caught in a rundown. In the end all we really want is to return home, back where we started, and to be safe there.
So it's easier than ever to learn more about this world and its inhabitants, and yet it's almost as easy to get in a cocoon and shut out anything that you don't want to know.
I try to visit a random blog every week via the directory at 2kbloggers.com, just to see life from another person's point of view. Learned some useful things that way, too. Point is, a person will have to make an effort to bust out of the cocoon.
BTW, Joe, I like these non-sports posts. I also liked when Howard Cosell had the non-sports radio interview show "Speaking of Everything." And "Big Shot" doesn't bother me, but "Honesty" makes me set speed records turning the dial...
Post a Comment