Vox Lux (Brady Corbet, 2018)
"I don't want people to have to think too hard. I just want them to feel good."
Nothing applies.
I've reached a point in my life where I've stopped believing in stories, in narratives. Either in a global or political sense, or a personal interior sense. That's not to say that I've given up on cause and effect, the idea that someone pushes a glass across a table to the very edge and over, and *that* is the reason that the glass subsequently shatters on the ground. I still believe in that. But I no longer believe in heroes or villains or beginnings or endings, no faith in long form narratives at all. Is the person who pushes the glass over the edge of the table a villain? That's a question that I don't even ponder anymore.
Instead, what I believe in is this moment, right now. The sights in front of you, the sensations around you, the sounds and scents that envelop you. This moment. Here. Now. Blink. Take a breath. Exhale. That's what I believe in.
But I don't believe that this philosophy of the now prohibits exploring who we are and why we are the people that we are. Cause and effect and nature answer that one for me, some things are simply inherent, while others are the effects of some past event. But to get into the small details of these seems to be pointless. There's nothing to be gained from examining the question of why I like to be so clean, or why I smoke, or why I behave self-destructively, or why I like the scent of frankincense. It's sufficient for me to believe that some of these are (probably) inherent parts of me, and that no matter what happened to me along the way I still would have retained those aspects, while others are effects, created by some kind of cause, long forgotten, the root of which throws little light on the now. Which is which, and what exactly the causes might be doesn't seem to be of much value anymore. Of course, terrible things have terrible results, don't get me wrong. I watched a friend try pull the torn skin and flesh off his arm once. Believe you me, stuff like that will stay with you. But it's important to me that I don't weave this into a narrative that neatly explains who I am.
Is that nihilistic? Does that fly in the face of Socrates' idea that the unexamined life isn't worth living? I don't think so. People are complicated, and answers aren't easy, and yet we continue to pretend that they are.
One thing I hear a lot these days (and I mean A LOT) is the idea that things were better in the past than they are now. I meet people who ignore anything that came after roughly 500 AD. Or 500 CE. Whatever you prefer to call it. They think that people in those times had it down and there's no need to look at anything more recent. They have renounced all faith in empirical science and have instead decided that they are going to use ancient philosophies to furrow their way through life. And while part of me thinks that people should be free to do as they like, another part of me thinks this is just dumb. Because although I don't believe in narratives, I do believe in the chain.
One example of the chain that I've mentioned before would be bread making.
If you want to make a good loaf of sourdough bread you can read up on it, see other people do it, and then create your own bread. But this knowledge comes from a chain of people that stretches far, far back into the past: trial and error and finally success. And the same can be said of pretty much all human knowledge. We're linked to the one who came before, who is in turn linked to the one who came before, and so on and so forth. Having no faith in empirical science, having a cut-off point beyond which you are uninterested in anything is to deny all the subsequent chains and knowledge that came after that point.
While I think there are no heroes, the closest thing I can think of to one, who is also relevant to this topic, would be Carl Sagan. Sagan had a reverence for science, but also for art and philosophy, and he understood well that human achievement comes from standing on the shoulders of our descendants. He lamented the murder of Hypatia, the thought control of Pythagoras, the general turning away from enlightenment only to be replaced with the embracing of stories. We've been dumb before, and we're being dumb again.
Do you like your smart phone? Your car? Your air conditioning? That's part of a chain of knowledge that stretches back, we're living a life of inconceivable comfort because of the great minds of the past, and we're reaping the benefits like never before. But increasingly we're talking about a glorious past that never existed, we're petty and divisive, and we have a common enemy - but for one reason or another we're all embracing that enemy with open arms and commodifying our existences as though it were an act of our own free will.
If you have a smart phone and *also* refuse to read anything that was published after 500 AD, or 500 CE, then... let's face it, you're an idiot.
But don't take it too personally. There are a lot of idiots these days. Just keep buying things.
Nothing applies.
I've reached a point in my life where I've stopped believing in stories, in narratives. Either in a global or political sense, or a personal interior sense. That's not to say that I've given up on cause and effect, the idea that someone pushes a glass across a table to the very edge and over, and *that* is the reason that the glass subsequently shatters on the ground. I still believe in that. But I no longer believe in heroes or villains or beginnings or endings, no faith in long form narratives at all. Is the person who pushes the glass over the edge of the table a villain? That's a question that I don't even ponder anymore.
Instead, what I believe in is this moment, right now. The sights in front of you, the sensations around you, the sounds and scents that envelop you. This moment. Here. Now. Blink. Take a breath. Exhale. That's what I believe in.
But I don't believe that this philosophy of the now prohibits exploring who we are and why we are the people that we are. Cause and effect and nature answer that one for me, some things are simply inherent, while others are the effects of some past event. But to get into the small details of these seems to be pointless. There's nothing to be gained from examining the question of why I like to be so clean, or why I smoke, or why I behave self-destructively, or why I like the scent of frankincense. It's sufficient for me to believe that some of these are (probably) inherent parts of me, and that no matter what happened to me along the way I still would have retained those aspects, while others are effects, created by some kind of cause, long forgotten, the root of which throws little light on the now. Which is which, and what exactly the causes might be doesn't seem to be of much value anymore. Of course, terrible things have terrible results, don't get me wrong. I watched a friend try pull the torn skin and flesh off his arm once. Believe you me, stuff like that will stay with you. But it's important to me that I don't weave this into a narrative that neatly explains who I am.
Is that nihilistic? Does that fly in the face of Socrates' idea that the unexamined life isn't worth living? I don't think so. People are complicated, and answers aren't easy, and yet we continue to pretend that they are.
One thing I hear a lot these days (and I mean A LOT) is the idea that things were better in the past than they are now. I meet people who ignore anything that came after roughly 500 AD. Or 500 CE. Whatever you prefer to call it. They think that people in those times had it down and there's no need to look at anything more recent. They have renounced all faith in empirical science and have instead decided that they are going to use ancient philosophies to furrow their way through life. And while part of me thinks that people should be free to do as they like, another part of me thinks this is just dumb. Because although I don't believe in narratives, I do believe in the chain.
One example of the chain that I've mentioned before would be bread making.
If you want to make a good loaf of sourdough bread you can read up on it, see other people do it, and then create your own bread. But this knowledge comes from a chain of people that stretches far, far back into the past: trial and error and finally success. And the same can be said of pretty much all human knowledge. We're linked to the one who came before, who is in turn linked to the one who came before, and so on and so forth. Having no faith in empirical science, having a cut-off point beyond which you are uninterested in anything is to deny all the subsequent chains and knowledge that came after that point.
While I think there are no heroes, the closest thing I can think of to one, who is also relevant to this topic, would be Carl Sagan. Sagan had a reverence for science, but also for art and philosophy, and he understood well that human achievement comes from standing on the shoulders of our descendants. He lamented the murder of Hypatia, the thought control of Pythagoras, the general turning away from enlightenment only to be replaced with the embracing of stories. We've been dumb before, and we're being dumb again.
Do you like your smart phone? Your car? Your air conditioning? That's part of a chain of knowledge that stretches back, we're living a life of inconceivable comfort because of the great minds of the past, and we're reaping the benefits like never before. But increasingly we're talking about a glorious past that never existed, we're petty and divisive, and we have a common enemy - but for one reason or another we're all embracing that enemy with open arms and commodifying our existences as though it were an act of our own free will.
If you have a smart phone and *also* refuse to read anything that was published after 500 AD, or 500 CE, then... let's face it, you're an idiot.
But don't take it too personally. There are a lot of idiots these days. Just keep buying things.