- The Ha Ha Culture
- by William Hazelgrove
-
We live in the ha ha culture now. Maybe
you've noticed all the magazines and newspapers saying ha ha
you don't have what these people have. It's literally everywhere.
Our culture is based on
presenting
people with what they don't have. A trip to the grocery store
is an oddesey in self evaluation. One only has to stand in the
check out line for five minutes to see that the rest of the world
is much better off, much better looking, much younger, and of
course much more famous. The whole slant of our culture supports
this. And who do we blame for the current state of culture degradation?
I'd say ourselves.
I think it began with the boomers. They created the original
ha ha culture about thirty-five years ago. That began with ha
ha we're young and you're not. Remember don't trust anyone over
thirty? Well, that started the ball rolling. If you weren't young
then you might as well leave the country. The youth culture became
the culture. Millions of smug young people sticking their tongues
at the older generation until finally they became well, the older
generation. Which brings us to the current state of affairs where
the young have become the old and the old have become insufferable.
Have you ever seen so many articles on aging? Have you ever seen
so much ink and television time
spent in trying to not say that getting old is really getting
old. Well, this is because the boomers who are now well in their
fifties have control of the media and we are treated to many
articles on prostrates and menopause and real age versus chronological
age. There's quite a bit of sneering going on. Why don't these
old rockers just hang it up? If they can't be young then can't
they just go off and hide somewhere? The ha ha has turned sour
maybe even acidic. So they turn to money. At least we have that.
The plain fact is the youth culture is strangling the people
that started it. They can't be young and even the young can't
be young enough anymore. The under thirty fives, the under forty
fives, the twenty something becoming the thirty something's.
One group continually asserting their supremacy only to be knocked
over by the next. Can anyone be young enough, rich enough, hip
enough, cool enough, famous enough for the megalomaniac we now
have sitting in the driving seat of this culture? Gang culture
seems to be the only thing evil enough to survive the test. Suburban
white teenagers listening closely to the rap music of the inner
city is only a small indicator of the level of cultural aberration
we have reached.
Sounds to me like we have an adolescent culture now. Adolescents
are self absorbed and very unsure of themselves. They raise hell
and rant and rave to
cover up their own insecurities. About the only thing they can
say with certainty is, ha, ha, we're young and you're not. Ha
ha. Just wait.
