Navel-Gazing Reality TV and "Killing Wolves"

After reading the chapter on navel-gazing, in Keep it Real, I realized why I hate reality TV. It is exactly as they describe it, an overdramatic, self obsessed, circus. It serves no purpose other than entertainment and empty pleasure for the mindless masses. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying everyone who watches reality TV is a mindless idiot, I’m just saying that they enjoy mindless idiocy; there’s a difference. I don’t even watch TV, so I’m sure I’m not up-to-date on the current reality fads being perpetuated right now, but I do know of one show that simply irritates me to no end… the jersey shore. This show is the epitome of mindless idiocy. Every night the cameras follow these scumbags around while they flaunt their egotistical views of themselves, get drunk, pick up one night stands, “smush,” sometimes with each other, and most of all, argue and bicker over melodramatic bullshit. Now you may say I’m being a little harsh, I mean, scumbags might be a little cruel, wait, no, on second thought, they pretty much fit the description. Cruel, I know, but honest; this is reality TV, isn’t it? If you couldn’t already tell, I utterly despise reality TV, mostly because it is the farthest thing from reality, but also because it lacks any real value, and serves to propagate an ideology no better than nihilism, which pretty much holds nothing as sacred. While I don’t believe that people are watching this show in order to imitate these “Guidos,” as they call themselves, but I do think that many people are subtly influenced by their less than noble ways. Most of the shows fans, at least I would like to hope, are fairly intelligent people, and as I said before, only watch for a laugh or two, but I’m sure there are many others who are, let us say, not so bright, whose character may be negatively affected by this garbage; not to mention the children who may come across this show and, not completely comprehending that these people are just modern day clowns, take it seriously and begin to believe that this is the way life is. Now you may say “but this is how life is,” to which I would say, no, it is not. This show over exaggerates and, worse yet, glorifies all that is wrong with our culture. Concerning the egotistical nature of this show, and all of reality TV, and its effect on our society as a whole, Terrence McKenna would have said, “Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual, who is a member of a neurotic culture, against the facts of matter. And culture is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable.” This is reality TV.

And this leads into my next rant, haha…

This may be somewhat of a failure on my part, because I couldn’t separate my personal views from the reading, but I couldn’t even force myself to finish “Killing Wolves,” and believe me, I tried. It’s all in the name, there’s just something disgusting about the title, and I’m sure it has its literary purpose; one I’m falling into right now. I just couldn’t take the author’s subtle attempt to justify the trapping and slaughtering of such a majestic creature as the wolf. I know the wolf isn’t some gentle and peaceful creature, I know it’s a killer, but it kills because that’s all it can do to survive. We kill for money. We do not have to hunt the wolf to survive. We do not even have to eat meat to survive. But I know, they’re in Alaska, and I’m sure you can’t grow much up there, but I’m also sure that they hunt plenty of other animals for meat, such as the animals that the wolf hunts, like moose, or reindeer; and I’m sure they get plenty of pelts from these animals too. I’m not saying that moose or reindeer are any less noble, and should be less respected then the wolf, but I am saying that it is unnecessary to hunt and demonize these animals as we do. I don’t know what it is, possibly my spiritual connection with the wolf (As derived from the Native American Spirit Cards, a book about spirit animals), but I was just disgusted with this essay. To quote Herman Melville, I would also say that "There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men." The ruthlessness of the wolf doesn’t even begin to compare to the ruthlessness of our culture, and just like the natives before them, we will continue to work diligently in our systematic destruction of not only their kind, but their environment, and subsequently, all their brothers and sisters as well.

And so I leave you now with a very old quote, from a fifth century Mayan Ruler, K’inich Janaab’ Pakal, which I feel perfectly sums up our current global predicament, and solidifies his far reaching insight as a prophet: “Humanity will become disconnected from the laws of the Natural World and will fall ignorant of our sacred interdependence with nature. Humanity will suffer damage because the technological society will cause a collective divergence from Natural Law in exchange for materialist values.”