The Timely Rage of Howard Beale

I wonder how many recall the movie Network and its seemingly demented anchorman, Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch.  Beale was maddened by the mess the world was in, thought his job as an anchorman served merely to promulgate lies and hypocrisy, had no answers to any of the world's problems, but thought it necessary, before addressing them, for all to get angry.  Famously, while on national TV, he urged viewers to throw open their windows and shout "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

The film came out in 1976, but what he rants against, initially, are characteristics of the world in which we live now in most ways.  It's interesting to watch the clip, which is available like so much else on the Web.  Not much has changed.  

His rage and his phrase resonate.  People throw open their windows and shout.  The network for which he works milks it for all it's worth, of course, changing its news format to something which is also fairly familiar in these sad times (think Fox News), geared towards pandering to the lowest common denominator.  Mad as hell in more ways than one, Beale's persuaded by the network's corporate masters to become their shill.  Things go on much as they did before.  It's money that matters, as Randy Newman sang.  Not much has changed in that respect, either.

No figure quite like Beale has appeared in today's traditional media (yet), but the rage is there, and we're not limited to traditional media anymore.  There are plenty of seemingly demented souls on social media.  Also, there are plenty available to take advantage of them as the network took advantage of Beale in the movie.

Those who take advantage of our rage now are little different from those who took advantage of our rage all those years ago.  In a way, the continuance of our desire for money and power and our facility in devising ways to pursue them serve as comforting in a time when things seem to become less and less in our control and life more manic.  Politicians, the media, corporations continue to manipulate us.  Even our anger can provide them with opportunities by which they may be benefited.

Until it's directed against them.  One wonders whether that will ever take place, though.  It may on a temporary basis.  The French Revolution was a case of rage directed against those with political and economic power which destroyed those with power with considerable efficiency.  The Terror was an expression of that rage.  The change which took place as a result was extensive, though not total.  

It seems to me that outside of that remarkable event, our history indicates that we're fated to be manipulated by the same kinds of people who've always manipulated us, in saecula saeculorum.  After all, we have the same faults they have; we merely lack the means by which to indulge them.  Our plight is self-perpetuating.

Not much will change.