Your position in society does not only determine your wealth. It also determines whether your opinion matters. In the Middle Ages your position was determined by your descendance. Your descendance was determined by God. In the 20th century, descendance was rightfully abandoned as a determinator of people’ s position in society. This position was more and more determined by relationships. This was the case until we discovered in the eighties this was not right either. Competition became the new way to separate winners from losers. In the 21st century, we create contests for almost everything.
In the old days, the media were paternalistic. They
considered it their duty to raise the people’s cultural and moral level to the
assumed level of the elite. Nowadays the media are subject to competition as
well. They need to fight to get attention
from their audience. Opinions are no longer interesting. What people want to
see is blood, sweat and tears from winners and losers. Panem et circenses, bread and games.
We are neither interested in truth nor beauty. We want to
see the losers cry. We want to see them humiliated and angry. We want to see the
winners cry from happiness. We want to see them ejaculate Champaign from magnum
bottles. We want to see them the day after with a giant hangover. In political
debates we are no longer interested who tells the truth. We want to know who
got injured the most by the insults of the other party. Instantaneous emotions decide
on winners and losers.
In postmodern times, we despise the elite and make everybody
watch the people’s emotions, be it the disappointed football supporter, the
angry critic in the street or the man with the green hair who is a genius and
should have been leading the nation. What we listen to is not their sacred opinion;
we only observe their frustration. The only thing that hasn't changed in all
these years is that everybody has an opinion but nobody’s opinion really seems
to matter.
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