This morning is in the wake of Super Bowl 60—and its progeny, another chapter in our culture war, aided and abetted this year by the beginning of the Olympic Games.
Reporting on the President’s role is easy. The divider. He got, as is his insistent want, in the middle of things. If the narrative attracts attention, he wants the headline.
Of course, the main narrative was the Super Bowl. But Bad Bunny became the provocation. Trump burst his veins.
And an Olympian who was equivocal about America’s direction was said by the loudmouths to be, well, un-American. Make America Great Again (MAGA)—a proverb yelling that America needs us because it is no longer great.
The Seahawks were magnificent. Many were forced, during brief intervals of football, to learn that there is a team called the Seahawks. On the Chesapeake, we call them osprey.
Stepping back from the Seahawks’ dominance, we once again learned that a beer company can intrude on a cacophony of selling with a spiritual lift. This year it featured a bonding moment as an eagle and a Clydesdale romped together.
Yes, I was there when a commanding voice cut through the social chatter, announcing the need for quiet so we could watch the Budweiser commercial.
This morning I decided to start with T.S. Eliot and his seminal work The Four Quartets. Eliot, writing between 1936 and 1942, was prophetic as he warned—using few words—of “being distracted from distraction by distraction.”
And that is where much of the world is. Awash in words and images. Performative is my definition.
Distraction today must be loud. It pushes the irreverent. It shocks, if that is still possible. It wants our attention not so we think, but so we react. Last night: to buy.
Today, wordsmiths double down on our weaknesses, all to command the impulse—envy. Provocation is the tool.
I am not a fan of Budweiser, except for the blissful 60 seconds it used to shut down sports commentators posing as philosophers. Products as saviors. Twerking as art.
Yes, the Seattle Seahawks are really good. So is our potential. Can we find it? If so, where?
I am going to give a brief moment to Eliot’s reflective writing in the last century. This is a small carve-out from Burnt Norton, the first of The Four Quartets:
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no connection
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time.
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
