Talk Radio

The ad line for the new Oliver Stone-Eric Bogosian film, Talk Radio, gets my first nomination for The 1989 William Jennings Bryan "Cross of Gold" Award. The Bryan Cross is a heretofore obscure honor awarded by this column to the best populist pop-cultural catch-phrase of the year. Each year's winner receives a gold-plated crucifix engraved on the back with Bryan's most famous quote: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify [hu]mankind upon a cross of gold."

Jesse Jackson took the award for the last two years running. But we can assume that he'll be semi-retired to the lecture treadmill for most of this decidedly "off" political year. So the field is open for some new blood.

The Stone-Bogosian movie is, of course, about the obsessive-abrasive host of one of those "vent-your-gripes" radio call-in shows. The prize-winning piece of hype reads simply, "Talk Radio: The Last Neighborhood in America."

I consider that piece of copywriting prizeworthy because, in its last five memorable words, it nails to the analytical wall one of the most amazing American phenomena of this ever-later 20th century--said phenom being the rise of Ad Hoc Electronic Communalism (herein dubbed AHEC). AHEC can be found most prominently in the film's shadow world of call-in radio, which has essentially taken over the a.m. side of the dial. It can also be seen in the popularity of audience-participation TV shows such as the crime-busting America's Most Wanted.

And then there's the fastest growing of all AHEC symptoms--the telephone party lines. The porno phone lines have gotten the most mass media attention, and I agree that they should be banned as a public menace. But the real growth industry is in pay-by-the-minute schemes that are selling nothing more than basic human social contact--"chat" is what they call it.

AHEC IS FOUNDED ON two cliches and one piece of insight (conscious or not) into late-80s American life. The cliches are these: "Nature abhors a vacuum," and "Man [and/or woman] is a social being." The blinding insight into life in these United States is the simple realization that people are alone out there. For millions of Americans, all the ties that bind are breaking down.

That means the "neighborhoods" of the ad line, which were actually among the first communal institutions to go. It also means the other building blocks of a common life such as family, church, union, school, block club, political parties, and even the idea of elections.

All of the above are becoming nonexistent or meaningless in many American lives. Among the isolated millions out there on the phone are the divorced, the single parents, people working two jobs, two-job families with clashing schedules, children of two-job families without child care, grandparents of two-job families with neither the time nor money to spend on their elders .... The sad list could go on forever. The geographic and social space for human interaction and community is steadily shrunk by cultural fragmentation and the economic squeeze.

Stuck into such an abhorrent vacuum, deprived of all the traditional media of communal life, people will, God bless 'em, take their participation in some sort of community wherever they can find it. And if AHEC is a poor substitute for the real thing, it's not the fault of the people who call in. They're just doing the best they can to find a haven in this heartless world. Even the people who market the various "reach out and touch ..." gimmicks are just trying to fulfill the sacred credo of supply and demand.

The blame, if we can call it that, for the AHEC industry lies with generations of American businesspeople and their allied politicians, intellectuals, and social engineers. For more than a century, our rulers and meaning-makers have persistently marketed the big lie that human beings are primarily economic animals motivated only by comfort, convenience, and the desire to be left alone. The wounded, lurching burnout of a culture that we're stuck with today is nothing but the logical conclusion of that lie.

AS A TANGENTIALLY relevant addendum, let the record show that this column is not alone this month in honoring populist cultural expression. In the early months of 1989, the comrades at the U.S. Postal Service were selling, for a "people's price" of only 25 cents, a handsome commemorative line drawing of one of America's great socialist popular artists. It's the Jack London postage stamp, the latest in the Great American Series.

The folks at the P.O. may remember Brother Jack for his tales of adventure in the wild Yukon, which are worthy enough. But London was also a prominent propagandist for American socialism. That was back in the glory days of this century when "American socialism" was not an oxymoron but a going and growing concern.

So when you're done talking to your friends on the phone, sit down and write a letter of outraged protest to the Bush administration, your member of Congress, a local corporate CEO, or whomever. And mail it with a Jack London, Great American stamp.

To get you in the mood to take up the pen, we'll sign off with a quotation from Yukon Jack himself: "Open your mouths and let out your lungs, raise such a clamor that those in high places will wonder what all the row is about and perchance feel tottering under them the edifices of greed they have reared."

Danny Duncan Collum is a Sojourners contributing editor.