The Crisis
Premise – 1. No one gives a shit about anything anymore. Is this true? What do people actually seem to care about?

Answer – When I say ‘people’ who do I mean? Have the generations become so stratified that one really should say:

a ‘what do old people care about’,
b ‘what do the middle aged care about?’
c ‘what do young people care about?’
d ‘what do teenagers care about?’
e ‘what do children care about?’
f ‘what do todlers care about?’

Notice how this is exactly the language of marketing research. And if you pay attention to trends, watch advertisements between the dramas and the laughs, and catch the pronouncements of the Marketeers when they make it into the news, you can answer each one.

a. What do old people care about?
Supposedly, old people care about health care. Access to medicine. The government is supposed to subsidize pills and make them easy to get a hold of. Old people are also supposed to be concerned with their retirement, and having their pensions and being able to enjoy their last years. They also supposedly have trouble getting in and out of the bathtub.

b. What do the middle aged care about?
Supposedly they care about sexual disfunction, and other medical conditions requiring the latest and greatest pill. New cars, home care, this generation seems to be the target of Canadian Tire ads for lawnmowers and power washers.

c. what do young people care about?
Supposedly, people within my age range care about bein’ kul. Too happenin to pay attention for very long, everything is zip wham flash – snappy headlines, snappy stories, George Stroumboulopoulos giving it to us straight by cutting out the fat. Dose!

Dude, I got to like get my concert tickets and shit, and I don’t watch TV because it’s stupid, and I can’t afford cable, and I don’t buy the paper cuz who cares?
So how the fuck do you know what’s going on in the world?
I don’t cuz like, who cares?

-or-

I check out Reuters on the internet, drudgereport, watch The Daily Show ….
So basically, the internet and The Daily Show is where you get your news?
Yeah.

-or-
I read the free weeklies

c. What do teenagers care about?
Apparently, teenagers have always been susceptible to vanity, self-esteem issues, and a desire to get laid. Apparently, adults have always thought this was terrible. The biological irony is that when they were teenagers, the same adults went through the same thing, only they grew up, learned why this was terrible etc – or at least that’s the old model.

Under the old model, the awfulness repeats itself and the parents are too inept at communication and memory that they give the kids a hard time, packing a suitcase full of issues for them to take into their young adulthood, and sabotaging their chances of having anything close to a fulfilling and sane relationship until they’re well into their 30s or 40s, if ever. Under the old model, the good parents can guide their kids through the process, so that they emerge mentally healthy at the end of it.

But under the New Model there are mother and daughter teams who prance around like they’re both 16. This creates the danger that the children think silly vanity is ok. I, however, imagine this scenario for that future: the horror of their botoxed parents shocks them into the awareness that unaging freakiness isn’t natural and that maybe nature’s got a good thing going with the whole ‘old folk dying to make way for the new’ thing. Eventually, the children of such people will realize this on their own and be embarrassed by the behavior of their parents who refused to grow up. (I’ve always found it more than a little weird how some people glorify immaturity since, by definition, maturity is when you’re at your prime, so why want to remain less than that? It’s like, everyone’s choosing to be ‘medium’ rather than ‘well done’. Perhaps it’s no accident that mediocre is so popular, the law of the distribution of averages withstanding).

d. What do children care about?
Apparently they can be reliably counted on to be fascinated with dinosaurs, and they like to play. Cartoons, and toys, and fanciful stories; sugar and spice and everything naughty and nice, this is what little people are made of. Especially sugar – candy fiends. Today, they are also inclined to care about weight loss.

e. What do toddlers care about?
I don’t know, learning to walk? Child development psychology is filling in those gaps for us, since no grown up alive seems able to remember their first few years outside of the womb. Probably because before we learned to speak, we had no way to organize our memories. I remember learning to spell my name one afternoon with a magic marker and a sheaf of paper, but I was past my toddler years by then.

So back to the problem – no one give a shit about anything. True or False?

T.

Because ‘no one’ doesn’t exist. Society no longer seems unified by anything except by the new language of demographics. Cultural identity is important, and people define themselves by their jobs. When you meet someone, you ask them what they do, looking to fill in the picture, looking for insight into what type of person they are. We all learn the dangers of stereotyping and prejudice, but all seem to have a feeling that a stockbroker is a different chap than a lawyer, and that the office copy girl’s life might be a bit more boring than a girl who introduces herself with the words, ‘I’m an actress’.

Interest groups, interest groups, interest groups everywhere!

So, a new question: is this a problem?

The Old School would answer that of course this is a problem. Everything is built out of the metanarratives – remember those? History, mythology, Jesus, Vitamin C …. there are problems in the world, we are citizens of a Western society, and further, citizens of a demographic nation! We have freedom of speech!

And the freedom to not give a shit.

I’m left thinking that the feeling of crisis that hangs in the air is only one under the Old Models. Under the new models, since no one cares, it’s nothing. People aren’t even paying attention. What’s the worst that could happen people ask? And what are the answers? No one can even come up with those, since everything seems to keep functioning.

Transit strike!
What transit strike, they came up with a last minute offer.

Election!
What election?
Do I really have to vote again?
Whatever, what does the government do?

As the Conservatives and the NDP keep reminding us – the Liberals haven’t done shit for 12 years and people with jobs still got their jobs, and people on welfare are still seen as poor suckers, and everywhere, Federal inaction has begun to give the impression that Ottawa isn’t necessary. They’re behind-the-scenes fellows … as long as the show keeps going on, no one thinks the stagehands are important, because razzle dazzle and …. wait, did I just see a celebrity in Yorkville? But that’s an old argument. Helicopters keep falling out of the sky because of Liberal inaction. And the broken promises, from getting rid of the GST on, it’s been Red Book dreams at election time, and the nightmare of policy review come afternoon.

Christ. I can’t help but say that the feeling of doom that I see hovering above the grave of John Paul II and the rest of the 20th Century’s cast of characters, is one exacerbated by my own dismal finances, and the irresponsibility of not even opening the bills that came in the mail because I didn’t have the money to pay them when they arrived. But now it’s all caught up with me and I’m dealing with it. I’ll get through it again; I’ll get through it for this week. I can say that a certain lack of courage of facing the problem then, because it seemed unsolvable, was out of a feeling that it’ll be solvable in the future, and in a sense that’s how it’s turned out, only the future came a little quicker than I expected. Anyway, I want to say that my behavior in this way mirrors that of the politicians and the leaders of our society. Focused on keeping the spinning machine from whirling out of control on a week by week basis – or, a quarter by quarter basis – they put off and juggle deadlines and ongoing problems. But eventually the chickens come home to roost. The Liberals are fucked because of everything John Ralston Saul warned us about ten years ago in The Unconscious Civilization. It’s all caught up to them.

The Prime Minister wanted to talk to the nation directly, because he doesn’t trust the filter of the media, and he thinks that he couldn’t do it through Parliament. Have you watched Parliament lately? There’s a call to order every few minutes. I don’t blame P.M. P.M. at all. I think it’s one of the few things he’s done that shows decisiveness. The fact that the media are all like, ‘it’s not a national crisis, what’s he thinking’ – all I can say is shame on them. The motherfuckers. They were spinning it as if the shows he was going to interrupt were a million time more important than mere politics.

Now, it’s easy to see the broadcasters as simply in the pockets of advertisers etc … of course they are … but I think what’s I found most bothersome was the visceral reaction – as if the fucking O.C. was suddenly sacred. The Globe and Mail – a print source, who is supposed to be competing with broadcasting! – took this line, printing a picture from the O.C. between politicians. Benedict the 16th – you interrupt the soap operas to show him waving to the crowd for the first time, sure – but our Prime Minister going head to head with Friends re-runs? Who does he think he is? The Pope?

Ok. Fine. I guess I have to accept that fact that whatever comes out of a Hollywood studio is in someways connected with the stringed beads and red threads of religion. Just have to face reality there. But I’m really embarrassed by a media so lacking in insight and imagination to equate speaking with your countrymen has only something you do in emergency. When actions speak louder than words, his action rose above the heckles of the Parliament and drowned out the talking heads and the Avid editors who’d have soundbited anything he’d said in Parliament to determinant of the message.

It almost makes me want to vote for the Liberals, if only Jack Layton wasn’t so damn sane and sensible. Honestly, why isn’t this guy running rings around the others? Oh, wait, I forget, because he doesn’t appeal to ‘the people’ as there are no people. Only demographics. I suppose I remain the overeducated, compassionate, bitchy demographic, which isn’t kul, and therefore, who cares what I think.