Recently I saw a video of Kalle Lasn, the founder of the controversial ,Adbusters magazine, who stands against the mindless consumerism and mass produced culture that has given America the notoriety it currently has in the world. It was depressing to see how shocked the talking head lady was that someone could even imagine a world where Americans weren’t “magically entitled” to consume 75% of the worlds materials, simply because we have killed the most people in defense of it. The extent of her defense was simply “but we Americans like to buy things, it’s a staple of our culture”. The dictionary defines culture as “the arts or manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively”. But what we have in America is a intellectual hierarchy where perhaps 10% of our people contribute to the arts, and the rest either promote or mindlessly consume it.

I believe the reason people cannot find gratification in their lives is that they never express themselves, and in their frustration, they look to any way they can be consoled. Any “opiate of the masses” if you will, such as religion, or substance abuse but also in more subtle means. Such as consuming, trying to be unique by buying whatever the ad execs have decided to market as unique, or in escaping into the shiny, happy, fake existences of people on TV and the movies. Where they can, if even for 30 minutes a night, pretend to be someone who may actually live life to the fullest. All this leads to a public that is conditioned not to create but to destroy, defining themselves not by the content of their character, but by the context of their condos and how fast their car can but never will go.

In my obsessing over the history of humanity, I can find only one time in the Common Era that we have not lead such existences, during the great renaissance of italy and southern europe. At this time, anyone could be recognized if they possessed enough talent to move people. The middle class emerged and we had the first and only example of a world where people had a environment that encouraged art above all else.

And so my solution becomes obvious. We need a second renaissance, where our will government care less about what goes about what people do in their own homes, and more about what we can achieve as a nation, beyond imperialism and the incomes of our top 10%. My ideal nation would be one where you turn off your TV and instead try you hand at writing a script. Where you switch away from MTV and start your own garage band, and play music that you feel instead of what is easiest to market. Where housewives in Iowa get together for a free verse poetry jam, and your local church sponsors an improv class. Lets see some drum circles in the national mall, and a live telecast of burning man for those who couldn’t make it this year. In the silly idealist world I see, Macy’s sells clothes that will last you the rest of your life, and people are never afraid to say what they think or think what they want. But thats just me.
—Will Hawk