(Welcome To) Psychedelic America
There are a plethora of assumptions which gird up the
Regular World, both of the media and of institutions, and which are designed to
express hegemonic power over all other worlds, including the slow, Solid World
of human progress. These assumptions include— the idea, emanating from the
media and from corporate/bureaucratic institutions, that we are the center, and
that we represent everyone; that we are trustworthy, and work up to significant
moral/ethical standards; that anyone who wishes to be progressive or au currant
must pay close attention to us; and that the achievers chosen by us to be
celebrated are both cohesively real people and the highest achievers in their
disciplines. Yet the Regular World is maintained, also, by some obvious
fallacies— that human progress happens at even intervals, which it does not;
that there is always relevant action in the high disciplines and everywhere
else, which there is not; that corporate and bureaucratic sectors do not put
together dummy packages to sell to the public, which they do; and that slow,
Solid World progress does not (invariably) wind up grabbing the historical
brass ring every time, thus nullifying the Regular World ostensible
achievements of dummies, drones, and dupes. The Internet is now frustrating the
narratives and mythologies of the Regular World by making the Solid World, its,
slow, steady progress, accessible to be read or listened to at any time by a
public tired of clowns, dummies, and corporate drones. With this process, the
assumptions made by Regular World stalwarts, especially in the press, are being
frustrated and thwarted by a newly educated, newly enlightened public. The
question, in America ,
of who stands in the cultural center is a huge one; and the same goes for
philosophy and science. That we may be standing on the threshold of the
emergence of a culturally disparate America, with a refined sense of cultural
taste, honed by contact with the Solid, is a major issue in this country, who
can no longer be taunted by Western Europe (which is far sicklier then us right
now anyway) as lightweights, nitwits, or Philistines.
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