chabuduo is not good enough

dreamy orchids promote the pondering of ponderable thoughts.

on a lazy sunday afternoon, we watched some crap t.v. shows (as one does) where four "known" (kendt) danes with nothing visibly in common each take turns making dinner at their house and entertaining the other three. then, they rate one another and one of them "wins" 10,000 kroner for their favorite charity. and it struck me, as they gave one another ratings of 8 and 9 for what appeared to be quite ordinary food that likely at most deserved a 5 or 6 and referred to one another as "icons" in their fields, when none of them are even remotely approaching icon status, that reality television is wrecking the language(s) (all of them). it's evident in the talent shows as well, where the judges tell everyone they're brilliant and the best they've seen or heard, when they most decidedly were not and that was evident for all to see and hear.

what is this culture of politeness that's driving this? are we really so afraid to call a spade a spade? and what does it do to words like "icon" that they are applied to only marginally famous, deeply insecure people who can't cook or set a proper table? it strips them of meaning is what it does.

yesterday, i learned about a chinese word - chabuduo - which means "almost there" or "good enough." since i had a long drive, i began to speculate as to whether the world is becoming a place where everything is "good enough," or chabuduo, whether it really is or not. i may be thinking of chabuduo in the wrong sense here, as what's underneath the chinese conception of it is a constant search for optimization - making things easier, cheaper and getting more money for them. but maybe i haven't misunderstood, because isn't reality t.v. chabuduo as well? it's definitely easier than making a proper television show, it surely costs less as you can get loads of fame-hungry suckers to participate and you don't have to pay them and thus the production company makes more money on it.

but what are the implications if everyone chooses the easy route, or hides their mistakes, slaps on a coat of paint to cover things up, or gives mediocre efforts top marks? a superficialization (i just made that word up) of culture and a poverty of language is what it seems to be giving us. we don't have any way to express things that are truly brilliant or iconic anymore now that everything is those things, even the things that are chabuduo.

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dear blogger, please finish your tweaking of the photo uploader, it's not working at the moment and i hate having to post using html from flickr. sigh.