Entertainment is the dereliction of existence. The culture of the USA relies on all participants being lulled as opposed to bettering themselves; a chain of codependency composed entirely of weak links capable of pulling not even its own weight. Artisans of whatever medium have as much right to sort their thoughts and feelings as anyone not so inclined towards self-interest, but if they cannot separate the doings from generating cost to others whether financial or emotional, then any form of truth is not the endgame they are searching for. It’s enrichment. People should be insulted by the prospects of serving as audiences or consumers, for not one of them exists to service the desires of others. Newcomers to the internet are inevitably warned against feeding of the trolls, when online or off nobody is more gluttonous than egocentrics. It’s a free license, this general lacking of warning where regards the feeding of egos, to maintain one’s own.
Anonymized art is another beast entirely.
At day’s end and quite contrary to the irrational belief in the existence of a good variety of capitalism, nobody holds an inalienable right to enrich themselves at an expense to anyone else. That is codependency. Such endeavor is certainly not in keeping with the virtues but rather is prompted by their deadly counterparts; a concept which YouTube socialists don’t really get, thinking it looks good on paper and proves easy enough to spot on the national stage while in practice, in their own lives, all they can do is misconstrue what’s necessary for comfort as being what’s necessary for survival. I have interviewed over 400 creatives in my route to the here and now, and not one of them was guiltless of this abrupt fallacy. By all means, share if you will your notes from firsthand experiences of this world, because knowledge should have neither gatekeepers or safeguards or locks, but if you’re doing it for pay then the pay becomes your real goal no matter what is told to the mirror. “Don’t judge others by appearances!” they preach from corporate-owned soapboxes in their band t-shirts and 23rd hair-color of the year thus far. Or more commonly, “Never dare to judge people by their differences but judge me positively for mine!” I say, that this particular lack of logic is precisely where most of society’s problems arise, the wholly unnecessary exertion of will across others.
Journalism, the conveying of information vastly more visceral than how you happen to feel or how you wish others would feel, is actually even worse in this regard. Maintaining the survival of others is always of more importance than maintaining one’s own comfort levels, no matter how much you feel you deserve wasting time and energy on being an audience member or consumer, none of which is vital to your literal well-being regardless of advertised promises to the contrary. Glenn Greenwald exiting stage left from the web portal he initiated is a golden example to that effect. Asking critical questions of a political leader does not make one a member of the opposition party, it makes one an adult. Because there is no opposition party. Liberal pundits cannot bring themselves to be objective about their own personality cult centerpieces for the same reasons that their Democrat figureheads have provided nothing but lip service in combating threats posed by the Trump administration, having nothing to do with legalese or moral codes either one, but everything to do with self-interest altogether; no differently from their counterparts across the imaginary aisle. Democrat politicians are eager to exploit the expanded boundaries for what the Executive branch can now get away with just as their marketing people feign disgust by conservatives insisting again and again that opposition isn’t ideological in basis, but evil incarnated. Laughable as no virtue prompts anybody anywhere to be the center of attention, or to pursue positions of power and authority over the existence of others. The self-interest comes entirely from grievances so far removed from virtue as to have been branded as deadly millennia ago, their harmful effects predating organized religion by millennia more, for a reason which evades the cool kids today otherwise distracted by their image.
When standards have no universal application, why bother with pretenses of principles or convictions?
Jumping into a paid subscription model is the wrong response from Glenn however, as unpaid journalism is the one and only pathway to objective journalism. With no masthead or money trails as motivator then motivations cannot be called into question. He’s spoken about the freedoms of his early years in blogging, and nothing is stopping a return to that. There’s an infinite number of ways to earn a living without rationalizing a cost to others, but not when comfort gets mistaken for survival. The Trojan horse was a myth, and nobody ever truly changes anything from the inside, not from working within the system proper or by exploring its weaponry for personal employ. Sacrifice and salvation are inseparable both in theory and in practice. If journalists were earnest about their trade, they would place themselves into positions where nobody else under any circumstances might ever possibly take either blame or credit for what they do, negating the need for either governmental or socialized regulation. Manifestly improbable whenever financials have a say, be it scandalously booming for the 6-figure annual salaries or whispering sweet nothings just to score another hit. If the work is dependent on funding, then it’s the matter of what messaging employers, their investors and advertisers want versus what paying customers want to read, when truth has absolutely nothing to do with what anybody wants. Of course, the public themselves dwell in complete and total ignorance to that, hung up as they are on the notion that a failure to meet with praise either for themselves or their favored subset to the whole is somehow a violation of any discernible right, but responsible journalists must stop obliging. And if the information to be shared is genuinely vital, do not dare charge for it, even should it mean yourselves dwelling only by the power of black coffee and white rice. Elsewise, it is your own ego getting overfed.
Be generous with your coffin nails, the mistakes return nonetheless.