An Entertainment Culture

| Apr 6, 2016 |

David Halberstam and Michael Lewis are two of my favorite writers.  Although they come from different generations (Halberstam was tragically killed in an automobile accident several years ago), they share several similarities: both are nonfiction writers and both have written best-selling sports books in addition to their other major books. Halberstam quite often dealt with politics and war, while Lewis has written extensively on Wall Street.

In several of his works, most notably The Fifties and The Powers That Be, Halberstam warned that the U.S. was becoming an entertainment culture, that the new technology of the fifties, television, was also capable of bringing culture and education to the masses. And over the years it had—think of the fifty-one Young Person’s Concerts with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic or the wonderful PBS programs on a great variety of subjects. But television has also become a place where people can passively consume junk. And if the growing entertainment culture of the fifties seemed to be ominous, the entertainment culture of today seems to be on steroids… just look at afternoon TV or evening reality shows.

And the reason this has happened? Quite simply, money. As H. L. Menken once wrote, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” And with the new technology of today (Facebook, YouTube, and on and on), the entertainment culture seems to be growing ever stronger. In fact, at the time of this writing, a reality TV star will most likely be the Republican candidate for president in 2016.

Sticking with politics as an example, what seems to be missing from a lot of the current dialogue is the willingness to, as Halberstam put it, “follow the facts.” Most people only want to look for facts that will support their own position on whatever subject is in question. It is a black-and-white world, and nuance seems almost to be a dirty word. That is what strikes me as being interesting about the writing of Michael Lewis. In many of his books, he deals with facts and numbers, but he always suggests that the numbers themselves don’t tell the entire story, that you have to dig deeper than just the numbers, or search for a deeper understanding of the numbers. Combining this concept with Halberstam’s idea of following the facts whereever they lead, then contrasting that with today’s entertainment culture and the influence of money in the media, it is easy to see how we have gone astray.

But this dumbing down has to do not only with politics but can be extended to many other areas of life. Since I am a classical musician and and ex-brass player, let me speak about my own tribe. Audiences today almost always go to a brass chamber music concert to be entertained; they rarely go to hear serious and substantial music. Audiences at brass chamber-music concerts are in a sense essentially choosing reality TV over PBS. I believe the only way this will change is if groups play higher-quality music and gradually educate their audiences. Unfortunately I don’t see this happening—we seem to be too deep into entertainment, both in life and in music, to be able to change direction.

And if you think politics and music are superficial now, just wait for ten years to see what the future brings.