At 03:03 PM 9/5/97 -0700, Max S. wrote, inter alia: >All this shows the public needs the royals more >than ever. They are offended by the >sub-zero demeanor of Queen E., much >preferring the cuddly Queen Mum. But what >they are really longing for is the next real-life >fairy tale to begin. Fairy tale? Or a soap opera /trashy romance re-created in "real" life and reported as news rather than literary fiction? >shagging debutantes. The bottom line is they >can't stand to think about their own lives and >the real problems of the mundane world, so >they are drawn to fantasy. Kind of like >ultra-leftists (present company excepted). TV as the opium of the people? Perhaps. But methinks soap operas - those played by the British royalty and Hollywood celebrities alike (except that the former have somewhat better acting skills)-- are more than just a vicarious reality, an illusion of happiness in the absence of real one. The positivists (and Marxists alike) tend to forget that religion, magic, myths and soap operas are"sense making devices" for many people -- they impose a meaning and a sense of order on an otherwise unintelligible world. The popularity of soap operas featuring high-society protagonists can't be attributed to a mere desire of the downtrodden masses to be a part of the high society. "High society" is a symbolic representation of being in control of one's destiny, and the main soap opera - religion - TV news message is that there is a destiny, a sense of purpose, a meaning in what appears as a haphazard and chaotic world of human relations. In the few soap opera episodes I've seen in my life, the most striking and ubiquituous feature was a sense of static predictability and the iron law of cause and effect: no situation ends unexpectedly or appears as a deus ex machina -- everything shown has causes and consequences. Since I am a materialistic interactionist who believes that thought is a product of behaviour and material living conditions rather than the other way around -- I have very little tolerance for rituals designed to imbue the gullible minds with a sense of destiny and meaning -- usually one that benefits mainly the administrators of those rituals. But at the same time I'd be rather reluctant to downgrade the importance of myths-religion-soap operas-TV news to many people by labeling them as mere substitues for real good life. Their opiating qualities notwithstanding, myths are a form of rationality -- and in that respect they play the same role as, say, mathematics for the neoclassical economists -- they impose an order on otherwise disorderly reality. regards, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS. AND AS LONG AS THIS IS SO, THE ATTENUATI0N OF THE SHADOW WILL NOT CHANGE THE SUBSTANCE. - John Dewey
