Are we increasingly in a world of illusion?

SOCIAL STUDIES Published Monday May 12th, 2008

Most Popular Article . . . did you know that when you log on to Canadaeast.com you can get real time statistics like that? Now, kudos to Brian Cormier for writing fabulous and witty commentary on a television show -- because "American Idiot" was the most popular article on Wednesday.

But is it not a little strange that American Idol is the most popular topic for a newspaper? Last week the Neilson Ratings, that eternal bastion of everything popular on television ranked American Idol as the most watched show on television for the week, twice. The Tuesday show is number one with over 25 million people watching it. The Wednesday show of Idol is number two with over 22 million. Just for the record, Dancing with the Stars is third at a little over 18 million viewers. To top it all off Dancing with The Stars is on twice and the second show is number five on the rating. The only non-"reality" television show that enters the top five is CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

As Brian sort of pointed out in his column, reality TV is not really all that real. It may not be predetermined, and a lot of it may even be on the fly, but it is not like the people on a Survivor set are really lost in the jungle or that the contestants on American Idol are not rehearsing and rescripting the show.

There is something hypnotic about watching other people play games. There has to be. There is no other possible explanation for the salaries of sports stars and the way that so many people will sit in a darkened living room watching other people compete. And before I get completely shot down for being un-Canadian and all the rest of it . . . I am not suggesting that it is not occasionally fun to root for the home team, or try and decide which singer or dancer should become rich and famous; I am questioning why this is the most popular form of entertainment that there is.

I would think Battlestar Galactica should be at the top of the list. Here is a show that is exploring the truly dark nature of humanity and survival. Topics covered by the writers include marital affairs and fixed marriages, racism and sexism, psychosis and ambition, torture and retreat. If you watch a season of Battlestar Galactica you walk away wondering if we are really like that; and this is what art really should do for us -- make us explore humanity at a deeper level.

MacLean's recently talked about the artist Emily Carr and concluded that what made her famous was the passionate darkness of her painting. If you ever found yourself lost in a British Columbia rainforest after dark you would totally think yourself inside an Emily Carr original -- because when you look at one of her paintings you feel something deep inside.

It is not a trivial feeling such as you get when you watch sports or reality TV.

Jean Ralston Saul, the award winning essayist and novelist wrote a book a while ago titled "Voltaire's Bastards" and this has become, I now realize, one of the defining books for my evolving mind. It is a book about how society is run -- really run -- and how the way we imagine things being decided is not the way they really are. Essentially he argues that society is way off track, being run by a mindless process set in motion by the ruling elites who have fooled themselves into thinking there is an actual point.

I may be doing a disservice to the author by simplifying it all so much; I merely wanted to draw attention to one of the small parts in the book where Saul makes the point that we have somehow been tricked into focusing on the wrong things and therefore overlook the important things.

The main way we have been distracted from what we should be focusing on is through the "Cult of Celebrity" and the way that we increasingly care about people that make absolutely no real difference to our lives.

We worry about who will win the Stanley Cup and we worry about who will win American Idol, but almost none of us care who will win the election today.

It may sound a bit like a conspiracy theory; but at least it is an ancient one.

Nero, arguably the most influential of the Roman Emperors, devised this neat little spectator sport; the Gladiatorial Games, thinking to himself that the average person will sit still with eyes glued while people fight to the death. He even gave them a free loaf of bread to eat while they watched. Thus the Senate, and the Emperor himself, were free to run the government any way they chose because the people were full and distracted.

The result of all this, Saul maintains, is a civilization of immense technological power whose peoples increasingly dwell in a world of illusion.

I would love it if people actually stopped and gave some thought to what is going to happen when everyone moves away from rural New Brunswick and into the City of Moncton.

I think we needed to seriously weigh the pros and cons of building a casino in downtown Moncton.

I personally want to take the time to figure out why it is that whether we elect the Conservatives or the Liberals it makes no real difference to the amount of money in our pockets or services we receive for our tax dollars.

Perhaps some time should be spent figuring out how to get more people to vote.

There is a long list of things to figure out, from homelessness right through to air pollution.

I'll get to them soon; but I have to stop writing . . . American Idol is starting.