Non-fiction / Interactive T.S.Eliot (Analysis)

Interactive Eliot.

This will surely be the least engaging and eye-catching start to an article, yet its nature perhaps stabs at the heart of the problem. Just bear in mind, this is in no way, a backward looking article.

T.S.Eliot, in his own special way, backtracked a great deal. But what was "always on his mind" (Maybe he, didn't say it…quite as often, as he should) was individual involvement. He urged us, in his own special way, to always engage. Engage with society, always be a critic, better your own knowledge and you will better yourself. Yet these sentiments are trapped away in dusty old books, and T.S.Eliot, now associated with an introverted Prufrock style, and a troubled mind (with the recent release of his letters) is about as relevant to most people today as dignity is to heat magazine.
Passivity towards media is a dangerous yet increasingly common trait.
If the 20th century was about dealing with passivity towards politics and leadership, then the 21st has to be about dealing with passivity towards media.
It is technology that now threatens to conquer all. The free-for-all nature of the internet has given birth to millions of hours of nothingness on Youtube and endless trivialities on twitter. Life, love and relationships are repetitively ritualised in the expansively transcendent mass circuits of Facebook - now surely the mass conscience of all human interaction - and indefinitely placed in space and time until the next update or feed arrives. As accessibility soars, music and culture are already beginning to be indefinitely dislocated and disposable. Wikipedia threatens to enclose all knowledge in a self perpetuating and subjective actualising cycle. Alongside this and most dangerously of all, media is becoming further and further infiltrated into the home.
How long until knowledge and art become a worthless blur of white noise? I am not crying conspiracy, no one is in charge, but that is just the point. I am not lamenting lost forms, for although lost on many, they are not lost yet. You may well ask, “is this not more power to the people, more freedom, more democracy?” I would argue that this is an illusion, and quite the reverse will occur. Too much choice blurs and hides. There is not quality control, let alone a filter. But just what is being done to save humanity from this supposed plight? What about the BBC, the "Big British Castle", the sturdy institution? Unfortunately its response is perhaps detrimental to the cause.
I am now urged constantly to have my say, or "your say", as they put it. There is a whole section on the BBC news website devoted to it; its link suitably placed on the side between the News sections and the Magazine. But just who are they talking to or indeed about? "Your views on the best smartphones on the market", "Your comments on the Tesco boss and education" and "Your Big Picture of the day". I can assure the BBC quite confidently, and without even venturing to read any of the above features, that the comments that are supposedly affiliated with me, bear no resemblance to my opinions or views. It could do with a disclaimer stating that the views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the person currently reading. Indeed, they are the views of Jonathan from Preswick, Sameen from Birmingham, Paul from Glascow and Oli from Bristol. The interactive, "text-your-opinion" culture that is emerging across all forms of media is actually exacerbating the problem. The collective unconscious is being chewed up and spat out in breviloquently inadequate texts and comments that give the impression that all corners of demographics and geography are being voiced. Its an old trick, Fox reporters have been hailing "good evening/night America" for as long as they have been fascist imbeciles. Yet the swell of accessibility and this renewed illusion of involvement threatens to actually fool us all.

It is under this new guise of a supposedly accessible collective unconscious that the Daily Mail and its kind are able to cry forth objection, protestation and disapproval on our behalf. People in turn become convinced as their unspoken views are supposedly gathered up in polls and comments pages and represented in easy to swallow outraged and simplistic viewpoints. The viewing public always seem to get their own way, "who wins, you decide", its the inevitable logic of a stale and stagnant democracy in which Media is the adjudicating body between society and politics. The recent flutter of hope came from the reaction caused by the Daily Mail's disgusting and wholly idiotic treatment of Stephen Gately's death. Internet commenters acted in the only way they appear to know how, together in harmony as one voice. Although revolting, perhaps the Daily Mail is somehow beneficial in that it reminds some of the public that their views are not necessarily in line with what they are told, and that they are individually capable of forming their own. This is the power of the internet, but it is this power that threatens to disseminate and confuse everything that society needs to be rooted. The BBC on the other hand, although an obviously much healthier and brilliant organisation, an organisation that provides a healthy root, is just one of every broadcasting organisation that is giving in to the demand for "your say". Its a simple process. People, who inevitably agree with what they themselves think, have their say. These opinions are gathered up and split into For and Against, for reasons A, B and C. This then becomes "your say", and the balanced or indeed indifferent opinion is lost. The media is moved to extremes and politicising, quite simply, it sells better. The truth is, if every opinion were published it would read like an illiterate “Waste Land”.
It is of course generally the more extreme and sure of us that are inclined to comment and have our say, there is no number you can call, or form to fill in, to oppose an Ofcom complaint. Every one of us fits into the lowest common denominator and everyone, it seems, wants their say. But is everyone getting it? Surely this wasn't what the supposedly elitist T.S.Eliot, had in mind. Everyone? We must think for ourselves and act, read, and if you must, comment accordingly.

I like to imagine Eliot's disillusion with our internet confined age.

"T.S.Eliot's Emoticons", or "He do the emotions with different faces"

Free Smileys, exclaims the banner,
Click Here!
Regard la publicité!
La Publicité n'aucune promesses blessé.
It hangs above the page with insidious honesty
Above the lines of the dead.
Once, Byron and Mrs Porter, after the wine and the laughter,
Take their out of marriage daughter
To be baptised with the soda water...and yet...
Every emoticon lurches like a fatalistic pop-up.
Take your pick!
"disappointed, winking or surprised"...
Preset emotions from the world advertised
"laughing or angry"
or perhaps deferential, glad to be of use,
or weary of writing it all down...
perhaps then, a frown?

Do I dare "Click Here!"
(no spyware, no adware, we take pride in our product. 100% FREE!)
Here I am, a young man, in a dry month,
In your area the sexy singles come and go,
sweetgal29, our love could grow,
If only you knew of Michaelangelo,
'This music crept by me upon the waters', the flood awoken,
The river's tent is broken,
Sweet Thames run softly, till I end my song
...
Oh forget the expression in art and life
What I need is a facial expression,
a face, to match my digression,
from death, love and life.
And in my deviated divot in time
I'll try and be quick and pick
One that J Alfred would have deemed fit.
Oh do not ask what is it...
I'd sooner delete it
and send you a colon: and a "p",
:p introducing the wit with a plea,
But would it have been worth it
to have bitten off the tongue with
a colon and a closed bracket
to type:
"I am Lazarus,
come from the dead,
come back to tell you all,
I shall tell you all...
ROFL :)."
If one typing at her desk should say:
"That is not funny,
That is not funny at all,
I didn't even LOL"

No! I am no internet messenger, nor was meant to be,
I just think it a shame that such banality
Is met with such credulity.
We have lingered in the chambers of Facebook,
In blogs, photos and comments, all of it sat down,
Till human faces wake us, and we frown.
Perhaps its best remembered that life is all around.
Shall I at least set my profile in order?
Facebook page is not responding, not responding, not responding.’
You have 1 new message. You have the password.
The stars spread across the page,
like a patient etherised at his desk
*********
The page is open, your mood is not set,
Type.
A semi colon, and an open bracket.
Life's regretful preset.