Been logging some miles. Was in a very well done, very thorough art museum today, and walking out I was thinking about modernity. You know, the Renaissance preoccupation with antiquity was already a sort of identity crisis. Look at our Capital: Greek and Roman ideas.
It seems to me that the orienting idea that has led to the eruption of economic wealth and accompanying political liberty in the modern era is the notion of progress. People have always made things. The Industrial Revolution did not change this. What changed was the idea that the process itself of making things could be improved. Pari pasu with this came–predictably–the notion of applying that same engineering mindset to SOCIAL progress.
When I look at modern art, the dominant emotion is confusion. What are they trying to do? Why? They don’t know either. They are searching furiously for the Big Idea. Normally they settle for the banality of cultural erosion and resulting compulsory moral and economic egalitarianism. This is a stupid idea, but they can’t do better.
My own Big Idea is that there is no need for a Big Idea. Humanity has survived to this point with many different Big Ideas, and can continue to do so if only those without ideas do not insist on imposing their nihilism on the rest of us, to our detriment, and to their only short term benefit.
I want to be clear: Evil works, over short periods of time. You eradicate anxiety, anger, sadness, and all the other emotions that seem to plague the very wealthy and the overly educated (not infrequently the same people) through cruelty. It is my considered opinion that places like that pictured in Hostel actually exist. I have more than once wondered if the hundreds of murders that plagued Juarez were not in fact arranged by, shall we say, evil “cultural entrepreneurs”.
But this effect fades, the pain becomes all the more the farther down this road people go. No amount of cocaine, booze, money, women/men, possessions, or anything else can ease this. Only choosing to do the right thing, locally, imperfectly, can do that.
Few thoughts. Back to my Old Fashioned.