One of the interesting things about Craig Ferguson is that, not only does he semi ad-lib his way through extremely funny monologues most nights, he also periodically injects his humor with life or history lessons. He did this one night when he started the Late Late Show by explaining, in a very succinct manner, why everything sucks in our world today.
He breaks it down to one main thing, the deification of the young (and stupid). He points out that this has never occurred before in human history to our knowledge. I’m not entirely sure if he is exactly right, but I definitely think he is on to something. We need as a culture to value age and experience more than we do. Instead we worship youth and good looks too much. It’s left us very unhappy. It struck me as I watched this video that Bill Hicks is in heaven smiling somewhere knowing that someone is carrying on his legacy of glorious subversion. As a matter of fact I thought I was watching one of his old videos as I enjoyed Craig’s rant. “Quit putting a dollar sign on everything on this fucking planet!”
Also, I highly recommend this documentary of Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who invented the profession of Public Relations. It will illuminate things to a great extent.