Mumbles and rumbles
Skip if you are in a good mood...
On the wall, there is a ad on breast cancer, 2 women have run a marathon and are celebrating it. For those of us who fail to see the obvious connection, people here (and in the UK) pay to run the marathons, and the money goes to eg. cancer research. The image of the women runners is of a collective catharsis due to the triumph of good will: if you really want, if you really feel it (and run for it), you'll beat cancer. All is really needed is feeling good, and feeling good together. Because everything, and especially feelings, must be public in America.
The "running for cancer" events are actually major contributors for cancer research, not to mention the diversion, hope and actual catharsis they bring the thousands of people who do it every year. But, though it's quite harmless here, the idea that public and collective feeling-goodness will solve things is dangerous elsewhere. And in the States, it is everywhere.
It is dangerous in two ways: by putting good-feeling in place of actual thought and fact, and by demanding it to be collective and public. We no longer are asked "what do you think?" but "how does this make you feel?" and "Shout it out!". We all know that complex ideas rarely make it in the public marketplace, so only the simplest idea survives: cultural relativism. The crazy ideas going around in the States, from creationism to conspiracy theories to the new fashion of social coaches, are really amazing.
And how does relativism gets along with the drive for being public? It turns out that anything you do outside the norm is suspicious. Try smiling at a baby, or drinking a beer at lunch, or telling a non-pc joke. Witness the incredible enforcement of the (rather incredible) laws on sexual harassment. Not to mention the hypocritical anti-tabagism... So everything done collectively is imposed and any show of personality is suspicious.
The man of the future is being made here. Fit, passive-agressive and perfectly bland.
On the wall, there is a ad on breast cancer, 2 women have run a marathon and are celebrating it. For those of us who fail to see the obvious connection, people here (and in the UK) pay to run the marathons, and the money goes to eg. cancer research. The image of the women runners is of a collective catharsis due to the triumph of good will: if you really want, if you really feel it (and run for it), you'll beat cancer. All is really needed is feeling good, and feeling good together. Because everything, and especially feelings, must be public in America.
The "running for cancer" events are actually major contributors for cancer research, not to mention the diversion, hope and actual catharsis they bring the thousands of people who do it every year. But, though it's quite harmless here, the idea that public and collective feeling-goodness will solve things is dangerous elsewhere. And in the States, it is everywhere.
It is dangerous in two ways: by putting good-feeling in place of actual thought and fact, and by demanding it to be collective and public. We no longer are asked "what do you think?" but "how does this make you feel?" and "Shout it out!". We all know that complex ideas rarely make it in the public marketplace, so only the simplest idea survives: cultural relativism. The crazy ideas going around in the States, from creationism to conspiracy theories to the new fashion of social coaches, are really amazing.
And how does relativism gets along with the drive for being public? It turns out that anything you do outside the norm is suspicious. Try smiling at a baby, or drinking a beer at lunch, or telling a non-pc joke. Witness the incredible enforcement of the (rather incredible) laws on sexual harassment. Not to mention the hypocritical anti-tabagism... So everything done collectively is imposed and any show of personality is suspicious.
The man of the future is being made here. Fit, passive-agressive and perfectly bland.
posted by Pedro at 10:40 AM
3 Comments:
Mes félicitations. C'ést génial!
Brilhante!
bad day?
You can too smile at babies! Even say how cute they are and make googly sounds at them. But, the rest of your rants are more or less true. Deep thinking is kept for college classrooms and labs.
However, is general feel-goodness such a bad thing? Better than the "pfff"s, rolling eyes, and general negativity of Parisians. Studies show that people who smile a lot tend to live longer...(of coarse, maybe they eat better, exercise more, stress less, etc as well, but that's not the point!)
Post a Comment
<< Home