By James Smithwick
Some call it recycling. Some call it repurposing. I call it regrettable.
Society has ceased creating and now just re-uses almost everything. The age of the new idea is dead, replaced by the era of sampling.
It is impossible to hear a popular song and not think, “I know I’ve heard this somewhere before.” The beat, melody or sometimes the entire song has been sampled. For those unaware, sampling is the act of taking part of a previously recorded work and using it in an all new production, similar to when a popular hip-hop song uses a famous beat from a James Brown song or when a dance artist takes a jazz trumpeter’s sound for the melody in an all new recording.
Some think this is done so under-established artists can borrow an audience from yesteryear and have a ready-made fan base by doing what the public already likes. The former artist’s should be proud that their songs are still popular enough for newbies to want to rip-off. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?
But it doesn’t stop there.
Movies are prey for the sampling huntsmen as well. Try to remember a weekend where a remake or re-imagining of a tried-and-true movie premise wasn’t in the top box office charts. Someone is always looking to make a new blockbuster out of last year’s blockbuster. Television shows are rising from the dead like zombies, resurrecting the concepts of decades past like they never went away.
Here’s the problem. The innovation that feeds the American Dream relies heavily on the new idea. Venturing into uncharted territory is the lifeblood of any emerging society, while complacency and stagnation precede its death.
Governmentally, we face this same issue. In today’s political setting, candidates often run on the same platforms as previous candidates. They sample the ideas and actions of others, with the hopes that this time, the public will like what they see, because they have seen it all before, and just like that, a new presidential blockbuster breaks voting booth records.
It’s thinking like this that alienates the public though, because unlike the popular music or movies these days, they for the most part have mixed feelings about the politics of the past. The familiar sounds being sampled and reused by politicians weren’t the big hits they think they were, and by relying on those tired refrains, they doom us to the same failures seen on last year’s charts.
Instead of snapping their fingers and chanting “spending cuts, lower taxes” like boring song lyrics, these professional baby-kissers owe us a new song and dance. They should stop depending on the statesmen of the past and present us with a new idea. Not some sampled concept. We deserve candidates with fresh perspectives on health care, unemployment and defense, not someone that plans to do it as it’s always been done.
No one has all of the answers. If I did, I would be out there stumping and someone would be criticizing me for my lack of vision. But even if we don’t possess the answers, we should never stop asking new questions or at the very least a new way to approach the old ones, representatives and voters alike.
Asking yesterday’s questions only gives you yesterday’s answers, and that will not solve tomorrow’s issues. That’s the domain of fresh perspectives, critical thinking and original ideas.