Bland on bland
• As I sit in my office on a quiet morning in general practice, I can hear strains of 'Mr Tambourine Man' gently wafting in from the radio speakers in the waiting room next door.
This is followed by Pat Kenny talking about something utterly predictable, elucidating an array of opinions on the usual subjects; all of which are presumably in keeping with those of the listening public.
Indeed, the typical nature of my day, with its rather typical opening and somewhat predictable conclusion, causes me to seriously question the pace, and even the existence of social, cultural or intellectual evolution, at least in an Irish context?
'Mr Tambourine Man' was written and recorded by Bob Dylan in 1965.
It is often described as an ode to the use of drugs such as LSD, which was certainly part of the social experiment that was the hippy 1960s.
My point here is that whilst Dylan's muse is of some historical relevance, and was clearly of significance in the 1960s, why does it remain part of the frozen musical repertoire of RTE today?
Fortunately, with the internet and YouTube, we have access to a world outside of the 'groundhog day' that is RTE, and to my delight -- and sadness -- my 14-year-old son almost every night introduces me to a world of music that evolves on a different planet to RTE.
Bands like Beirut; Joanna Newsom; Antony and the Johnsons; Life in Film; Devendra Banhart; M Ward, and many more, all of whom will hardly see the light of day if they are to struggle through the fixed concrete that RTE has poured upon the landscape of Irish media.
The interesting thing here is that the artists I have mentioned are almost entirely unknown to the Irish mainstream but are known throughout the world.
If the numbers of hits on their YouTube videos are anything to go by, they are part of an evolving world of music, passing Ireland by.
Yet there is also a sinister twist to the artistic stagnation that defines our national media. It is possible that this national ossification is more by design rather than by accident. One is not suggesting a conspiracy theory, but there is at present a massive global evolution occurring on the intellectual, as well as the entertainment and artistic front.
An evolution, which we in Ireland remain almost entirely ignorant of.
Old dogs are being buried around the world. Popular philosophers like Slavoj Zizek are reinventing democracy, capitalism and socialism, and would be very quick to point towards the brutal irony that Joe Duffy is as much a media celebrity as he is a 'man of the people'.
The actual social distance between presenters like Duffy, Kenny, Finucane, or the late Gerry Ryan and the 'real' people of Ireland could be measured in light years, yet theirs is the petrified view that spans the airways.
Not only is RTE incapable of evolution, but it is happy to resurrect the retired, in the form of Gay Byrne. RTE has at least evolved the notion of the job for life into a job beyond retirement.
Newness of ideals remains an anathema to RTE, perhaps because newness is an anathema to the Irish people.
We continue to 'play the Lotto' and suffer from the same GPI (General Paralysis of the Insane) which Joyce accused us of in 'Dubliners' and 'Ulysses'.
Perhaps it is this same paralysis that causes 1,000 young people to flee Ireland every week. Perhaps the usual palaver about our young having to leave Ireland because of the recession is as untrue as it is true.
Perhaps many of the emigrants themselves believe that the sole reason they depart Ireland is economic. And yet despite the media embrace of the recession, there may be more to this.
It may be that we Irish have no sense of ownership of our land, no sense of belonging to Ireland.
I consider myself a middle-class socialist; it is to my mind the path of least destruction amongst the by-ways of political philosophy. I suspect that most in Ireland are of a similar leaning.
The socialist TD Clare Daly has embarked upon a campaign to ignore the new residential tax. The Left, as is usual in Ireland, have missed the banana boat.
Their tactics remain unchanged since the water charges and the bin tax a decade ago. Don't pay, go to jail and hopefully raise the profile of the socialist agenda.
But the Government is ahead of Clare Daly and Joe Higgins. The Government has passed legislation to ensure that the socialists will be denied their day in jail, as non-payers are to have the residential tax taken at source from their wages. Checkmate.
The real charge that Daly and Higgins and the entire Leopold Blooming nation of ours should be rejecting with heartfelt enthusiasm is our TV licence, as it is this money that pays for the concrete that is being poured upon the intellectual landscape of Ireland every single day.
Dr Marcus de Brun
Rush, Co Dublin
Irish Independent
