We Don't Need No Thought Control

I’ve heard “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd approximately 7,000 times in my life. But on this beautiful Sunday morning the line “We don’t need no thought control” stood out to me in a new way. It made me think of cable news and general punditry that surrounds it. The cable news talking heads offer unlimited opinions without facilitating critical thought. Sometimes, people with different views appear on a set and exchange perspectives. But even in those cases the segments are short, news of the day scrolls across the bottom of the screen, voices usually raise, people tend to get cut off, and then it’s over. The next conversation is always the least satisfying. Some of my best days are when I don’t watch the news. The news isn’t news anymore. It feels more like thought control.