My Defeat is Complete

When I first watched Nathan Barley, I enjoyed the humour, but considered it a bit surreal and a bit of an in-joke about media types in London.

Then I became a critic, and begun to identify with Dan Ashcroft - an older, bearded writer who felt frustrated by the society that surrounded him.

Now it feels like scripture: a warning to me that I ought to be more reflective or I am going to end up like Ashcroft (in a hospital bed, on an attempted murder charge and unable to intervene in a catastrophic social collapse into idiocy), and a commentary on the society I find myself inhabiting.

Ashcroft's fear was the rise of the idiots - culture dominated by dolts who have plenty of formal education (and the cash to enable them) but no intelligence, a preoccupation with the 'cool' and immediate, where irony hides a plethora of moronic assumptions. 

The article that reminded me of Nathan Barley... no, I was reminded of Nathan by posts on my Facebook feed, so I looked up this article... 

The article says that Nathan is prophetic. But it does not actually name who the idiots are (they are hipsters, or their social media representations), and it doesn't do much more than say 'wow, that was clever.' Fact is (facts, honestly...), Nathan Barley is a satire of a world in which the shallow has destroyed the rigorous, in which the protagonist (and it is Dan, not Nathan) gradually experiences and recognises his own shallowness. 

It's a tragedy. Dan is Oedipus, receiving wisdom of self and being destroyed by his discovery. 

It brings me back to Facebook. Most of my friends are sharp cookies, but my Facebook feed is a parade of idiocy. Political partisan posts (mostly saying that Tories are scum), links to other people's ideas, a complete lack of reflection... and that is just me. 

I am going to get out the coat and do The Preacher Man. I lost a long long time ago...