Mention the term “zombie” to any pseudo-contemporary and you will undoubtedly get a laundry list of film references – from the legendary George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead to Marc Forster’s more up-to-date take on a plague of undead, World War Z. In the company of brain-eaters, it could be argued that we Americans are just as wary of those capable of thinking for themselves. In a country dominated by commercialism and an unrelenting mass media, the life of the mind has not only been forgotten, but turned against. As noted in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself.”

For an entire young population raised on a steady diet of beyond-the-bleeding-edge, ever-changing technology and so-called social media outlets requiring little if any physical interaction skills, has the notion of intelligence-driven communication abilities gone the way of the dodo bird…the rotary telephone…the 78 RPM record? It could be argued that today’s younger generation are slaves to the wills of those glowing rectangles that seemingly remain attached to their hands – sure, the mobile device revolution has in fact changed the way we obtain our information, but we’ve suddenly gone from viewing motion pictures in classic theater settings to playing them back on the go via a handheld screen just a few inches in size. Our entertainment absorption agenda has dropped to such an all-time low, many observers of this social phenomenon feel, that it’s not even about the art any longer…but merely how quickly we can download it, stream it or cloud it. Continue reading →