Desiring Machine

I never understood why idiots allow themselves to be photographed and facebooked doing stupid things.

The guy on the left was a speech writer for Obama. Sure many of them may be smart gifted people. But the impression of this picture instantly tells me that these are dudes I would not find myself associating with on a regular basis. The same jockular boors that populate fraternity row. But that may just be blind prejudice on my part. But knowing that chumps like this were behind various speeches of Obama’s brilliant campaign kind of diminishes the effect of the speeches in retrospect.

I don’t believe that people should necessarily be publicly punished for the photos they put online or so called “gotcha moments” in a truly private setting. However, that doesn’t mean people need to be beer swilling idiots either. I find myself neither angry, hostile, or even particularly dismissive, mostly just disappointed.

What is more surprising is the relative lack of consciousness around personal privacy that seems to be among the myspace, facebook generation. Everything is out there. Not sure what the long term consequence of this will be. It is like that Leonard Cohen song The Future.

Your private life will suddenly explode…
I’ve seen the future, baby:
it is murder.

I know in this age of recriminating politics this public/private collapse cannot sustain.