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three thoughts (or are they one?)
Mar. 5th, 2007 05:11 pm(1) Why does every show I like at the moment (bar one) keep banging on about gods and destiny? I'm talking about Lost, Rome, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who and Heroes (thankfully Scrubs is immune), as well as past shows like Alias, Buffy and Angel. What does it say about the zeitgeist that the protagonists in our dramas are turning their backs on rational* thought and looking for salvation elsewhere (or just throwing up their hands because this is the way things are meant to be)?
(2) Recently I've been revisiting my two favourite Midnight Oil albums: 1982's "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1" and 1984's "Red Sails in the Sunset". At first I was appalled at how many of their most politically barbed lyrics still have currency (America's involvement in foreign wars, oppressive governments everywhere, pollution, consumerism, the nuclear threat, race issues in Australia, etc etc etc). Then I chided myself for thinking that the world--or even just one country--could possibly change in just one generation. I am, it seems, very much a product of my times.
(3) Or am I being too hard on myself? Is it unreasonable to demand that something wrong ceases within two and a half decades? Given that many, many other people have been saying the same things as Midnight Oil, and saying them much more recently, why haven't things changed? Could there possibly be a connection between (1) and (2)? Is the desire to believe in fate and an external agency responsible for all the ills of the world a salve applied to take away the sting of our own inaction or the means by which action is avoided?
I am puzzled.
* I'm using the Collins English Dictionary's definition here: "in accordance with the principles of logic or reason; reasonable...of sound mind."
(2) Recently I've been revisiting my two favourite Midnight Oil albums: 1982's "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1" and 1984's "Red Sails in the Sunset". At first I was appalled at how many of their most politically barbed lyrics still have currency (America's involvement in foreign wars, oppressive governments everywhere, pollution, consumerism, the nuclear threat, race issues in Australia, etc etc etc). Then I chided myself for thinking that the world--or even just one country--could possibly change in just one generation. I am, it seems, very much a product of my times.
(3) Or am I being too hard on myself? Is it unreasonable to demand that something wrong ceases within two and a half decades? Given that many, many other people have been saying the same things as Midnight Oil, and saying them much more recently, why haven't things changed? Could there possibly be a connection between (1) and (2)? Is the desire to believe in fate and an external agency responsible for all the ills of the world a salve applied to take away the sting of our own inaction or the means by which action is avoided?
I am puzzled.
* I'm using the Collins English Dictionary's definition here: "in accordance with the principles of logic or reason; reasonable...of sound mind."
