82 Degrees
"This isn't about thermostats"
Last week, I had an innocuous conversation about thermostats. Just a general chat about the temperature we keep our homes at during the day, at night, when we're away.
I can't provide a perfect quote, but one person said something like “We keep it at 82 overnight. They said you're supposed to set it at 82.”
Maybe you can sleep like that, dear reader, but I can't. I'd like to keep things at 55-60 overnight, but I'll settle for 64. Since we've had a baby in the house, we go with 68 so that she doesn't turn into a popsicle. Maybe I'm just oh-so delicate, but I ain't sleeping very good at 82.
But that's not what I want to talk about today. I don't care where people set their thermostats. What I want to focus on instead is this comment, and in particular, this word: “They said you're supposed to set it at 82.”
Of course, this person was talking about the people on the news. Now, who this person is is not important to this matter, other than that they are a boomer.
Why do I bring that up? Because the boomers grew up on tv. There are exceptions to this of course, but for the entire lives of the boomer generation, information flow and opinion formation on matters goes like this:
Thing happens in the world
News organizations gather information and process it into a digestible, televised form
They then give it to you, the public, the viewer.
So when it comes time to talk about issue X around the dinner table, all the raw material that everyone working with has come through the tv filter.
That's all fine, if this one thing is true: the news organization is focused first and foremost on delivering just the facts. I know this is tired and you've heard it before and people tediously yearn for such a state of affairs, but in my perfect world, that's how public opinion would be formed; raw data is collected by organizations which have the means and expertise to collect such information (because let's be honest, not everybody has those skills, capability, or time), is delivered to you and me without editorialization, omission, or spin, we apply our reason to the set of facts and *poof*, out comes our personal opinion.
But if you're like me and you take a look out from underneath your rock every once in a while, you know that that ain't how it works. There are various reasons why that is the case:
News organizations which are intended to make a profit (CNN, FOX, InfoWars, almost any you could name) need to draw people in to keep the enterprise going. I think there are good and bad things about that, but it is what it is. The best ways to get you watching is to either piss you off or scare the hell out of you. And sometimes they gotta bend the truth to do that.
Because those shiny people on the prestige networks are almost always wealthy/highly educated/well-connected to power, they have a set of politics and interests that are not necessarily aligned with yours and mine.
In the end, they are an organization, like every other organization there has ever been, and organizations are populated with fallible humans with interests and therefore its not always going to get things right.
Ok, so back to the boomers. Yes, they saw things like Vietnam and Watergate, instances where it looked like the news organizations were fighting the good fight, checking the worst excesses of state power and corruption. And because the television was the be-all end-all of their information universe, the waters in which they swim, I think they are susceptible to just reflexively trusting what the person on the screen with the nice hair has to say.
I had a different experience growing up. It was those legacy organizations that sold the public on the dire need to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, pay for Wall Street’s errors to the tune of billions in 2008, and the necessity of shuttering all businesses under the level of Walmart and mandating experimental injections on people who just want to hold a job.
There are endless examples I could add to that list of evil and destructive things which the legacy news media has done the heavy lifting on convincing the population of, but you get the idea.
So instead of the boomer conception of the people on the tv doing good work for us and being on our side, I am of the mind that they are mostly slimy class enemies, mouthpieces of the Establishment whose job it is to sell the things that the Establishment wants to a public that that may not go for these things unless pushed, persuaded, and deceived.
So when they tell me that I ought to be keeping my house at 82 degrees, I have a different reaction than my boomer friend here. When this person said “they”, they were describing a person who is, in their mind, trustworthy, knowledgeable, honest, and with everyone's best interest at heart.
When I consider the same “they”, the person I envision is the antithesis of those things; devious, dishonest, concerned with maintaining their class position and those of their friends and associates, and actively dismissive and sometimes outright hateful to people like me (working class people in flyover country).
When somebody like my boomer friend hears that person on tv tell them that they should be setting their thermostat at 82 degrees, they consider this person an authority who knows what they are talking about, and goes over and pumps up the temperature. They may be uncomfortable, they may wake up in a pool of sweat, but the tv said so, so that's what we're doing.
Somebody like me, on the other hand, hears that and thinks, “well, you can fuck all the way off”.
Yes, I understand that all this is in the context of a heat wave, and that energy conservation is worthwhile. That's not where my beef is. My problem is with an elite class which demands that the rest of us do with less, and the brainwashed among us who choose to live by their dictates. Speaking on behalf of working class people, as a general rule, if there is a sharply dressed person talking to you every night on the television, that person is there to sell you something and is not your friend and should be viewed with suspicion.
I don't know this for sure, but I'll bet you my shiniest nickel that Brian Stelter and Anderson Cooper are not setting their thermostats to 82 degrees before they get into bed. And they probably think it's hilarious and deserved when you do.
This isn't about thermostats. I don't care if you sleep at 82 degrees to save money, or just because you like it. Crank it up to 100 and save the planet, I don't give a shit.
It's not about politics, either. Yes I've chosen a lib thing to pick on here, but there's plenty of stuff like this on the other side too. They'll tell you that you can own the libs by turning yours down to 50, because they know their audience and that's the kind of thing that they want to hear. It’s all the same game.
And it's not about boomers. I used them to describe this generational characteristic as it relates to media consumption, but there are many younger folks who fit this bill as well (given the explosion and sophistication of technology and pharmaceuticals and the media machine, I’d probably say that the younger people are exponentially more fucked in the head than the boomers ever were). Really, this obedience to perceived authority is probably a personality thing at the root of it.
No, dear reader, this isn't about those things. It's about media literacy, and thinking a little bit more about the things we see and hear. It’s about the power of media and its grip on how we live and think. There is a lot of value in being able to mold and direct public opinion, and the people who do that professionally have incredible resources and methods at their disposal, get a lot of practice, and are very good at what they do.
So good, in fact, that they may convince you that laying in bed, sweating through your sheets, is what you should be doing because that's what they said you ought to do, while they sleep soundly in a meat locker between sheets that get changed daily by a person that they never see. I wonder what the average cabin temperature is on a charter or private jet? Cool enough to keep the condensation off of the mimosa flutes, I’m sure.
I don’t mean to pick on this person for going by what they saw on the news. They are a successful adult with good sense and lead a responsible, productive life. Hell, maybe things would be better if we were all set at 82. I don’t know. But when I see people advocating for and doing things that I consider opposite of their own interest and wellbeing because it has been issued and ordained by this filthy media apparatus … well, it really frightens me, friends.
If the people who run the big machine decide they need some really nasty things done, how far would they be able to take people? The answer is found in history, and it’s the stuff of nightmares.
Your gut works for you. The editorial and production staff at your favorite legacy network do not. Keep that in mind, and maybe things will shake out a little better for the people on the ground.