The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The
Revolution Will Not Be Televised

by Harrell Graham

The
sheer magnitude of the isolation of suburbia and the nuclear
family—rows upon rows of cookie-cutter homes housing families
uprooted from the extended families and close knit communities of not
so long ago. Not so long ago you could walk outside your home and
see your family and friends and a bustling activity of people outside
talking and interacting in what was once real communities. Now all
the suburban landscape offered was row upon row of houses holding
people who didn’t even know the names of their neighbors. People
whose sole occupation after coming home from school or work was
staring, mesmerized, at a glowing screen.

How
very strange, to be living amidst people without knowing them. For
millions of years we lived among family and friends, in communities
where we shared existence, shared food, helped each other, laughed,
cried and died with each other. Go to Thailand, for example, and
see how happy a place can be when people are not stoned on computers,
TV’s, Prozac, caffeine and where so much of life and
interaction—community—takes place outside.

But
now we were sold the personal automobile which enabled us to
transport ourselves home from far-away, meaningless jobs, driving
home inside vehicles which accentuated our aloneness, and, with
garage door openers allowed us to drive those vehicular boxes right
inside our housing boxes, all without having to acknowledge or
interact with–or often even see–our neighbors.

This
was a prescription for madness, depression, loneliness, spiritual
emptiness and exhaustion. (See the excellent book, “The
Geography of Nowhere” about how the automobile killed mass transit
and created suburbia which killed true communities.) But it also was
a potential gold mine for the drug companies. All those depressed
and spiritually hungry people are going to need a message in a
bottle, a mothers little helper, a pick me up, a-bring-me-down, a
smoother of bumps, a tonic, an elixir, a mood ‘elevator’ (what
goes up must come down).

The
revolution will not be televised, because there will be no
revolution. Everyone is too happy and placid to question or to fight
or to take a stand on an important issue.

Take
your pill, sit back, relax, and enjoy your drug-induced passivity.
Chill out, man.

The
revolution will not be televised.

Posted by: Harrell Graham
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