Austin Emerson
Half-Page 11/21/08
This week I made my way into the 70s in The Modern Mind, reading about the Moon landing, the counterculture, and the grotesque evolution of Capitalism, among other things. The chapters I read this week were an interesting bunch. One section was on historical reconstructions, examining past times and trying to reconstruct the thoughts and sensibilities of their people. I felt a pang of sympathy for these researchers.
One man, whose name I can't remember, looked at the history of Christianity, noting how there had been periods of Christianity marked by "magick" and superstition, while other periods were marked by a strict adherence to the scriptures. Elsewhere, archaeologists were busy digging up any and all evidence of the real Jesus, attempting to explain the past.
This was a difficult time for Christianity. The heavens were being tread upon by astronauts, biblical verses were being discredited as mere plagiarisms of other scriptures, and science was taking on God-like powers. Where I left off in the book, the author was explaining how two innovations would turn the world upside down. The first was information technology – computers. The second was biotechnology, the isolation and replication of certain gene strands. Scientists had finally figured out how to deconstruct and rebuild the basic building blocks of life.
One of the things I noticed when reading about this period was the diminished role of artists. Watson touches upon this briefly, noting that, increasingly, the bestseller list was full of scientific/sociological/pop-psychological books, rather than works of fiction. Pop art was the new thing in the art world, a phenomenon that the art purists of the early 20th century would have spurned. It is my belief that science had become so great a force that the role of the artist was irrevocably diminished. Art became self-conscious and ironic, a medium whose goal was "to produce new sensations in the viewer" rather than to effect any change in society or make any serious statements. Novels lost their popularity and spiraled into increasingly Postmodern forms.
The new society was too scientific, too urgent, to make room for art. It was during this period that scientists began seriously theorizing about the beginnings of the universe; what came before and what would come next. How could art compete with such claims?
It was also the period of the development of the counterculture, a loose conglomeration of Ivy-League sociologists, alienated university students, and fringe mystics. This is a testament to the turns society was taking, and how many disagreed. The word technocratic embodies this brave new world, and the technocracy can have only grown since then. At the same time, many accused the counterculture as being inconsolably narcissistic, subscribing to any ideas that allow them to shift the blame for their problems onto someone else.
In previous chapters, Watson identified a number of thinkers who thought that American society as a whole was marked by narcissism. The American people were "obsessed with their own psychological development," which results in a culture that is bereft of, well, culture.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Thoughts
Just doing some re-calibrating...
Modern psychologists agree that the human mind is made up of equal parts nature and nurture. Hence, 50% of who we are is determined by the world around us. If we hold this to be true, then the examination and analysis of culture is a crucial activity, one that has the potetial to yield enormous results. However, it is also a laborious activity, requiring hours of study and research. It's also easy to screw up. The question "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" can be modified in cultural study to say "Which came first: the cultural product or the environment that produced it?" In short, where does culture begin and where does it end? The output – that which determines "culture" (art, literature, advertisments, etc.) – is at once a product of the culture and a producer of culture, resulting in a constant push-pull relationship between a culture and its members. Just like the electron, we can never know with absolute certainty the position of culture and its velocity, not least because publishing a corpus on such a phenomenon would inevitably change that velocity.
Luckily, we can look back at past cultures and analyze those with a closer degree of accuracy. This of course brings its own host of problems, most of which stem from the well-publicized unreliability of memory. But, nevertheless, looking at the past has proved itself to be much more fruitful than trying to put your hands around the effervescent present.
For the past few months, I've studied the past. Namely, the 20th century. This has been mostly through the lens of intellectual achievement, and not as much physical history. I've been whirlwinded through Einstein, the Frankfurt School, WIlliam James, Niehls Bohr, the atom, the division of the atom, etc. etc.. My goal was to trace the cultural history of the world since 1900. (This goal may or may not be shortened to the cultural history of the United States, or the cultural history of Western civilization, but even that term is inaccurate in my opinion, given the differences between culture in France, England, and the U.S., for example)
So let's get down to the meat and potatoes. Our great nation, the United States of America, is usually characterized as the alpha-male of history. We were born of a later generation than England or Germany, and as such, we don't have a complex, entangling history like these other countries. We were born amidst an era of rationalism – the Enlightenment – which purportedly has some effect on our values and beliefs, and, sure enough, America is constantly characterized for its pragmatic approach to life. This is not idle speculation either, seeing as most philosophical output from the U.S. has been of the pragmatic nature. Most, not all. We are unique in that we are the only country that has stuck with its governmental system since day one. Thus, the spirit of Capitalism and Democracy is indelibly wound up in all things American. What words come to mind when you see the colors red, white and blue? Democracy and Capitalism. We are brought up to have a reverence for these twin dragons, and this undoubtedly affects the America conscience. Other countries' political systems come and go with the will of the people, but Americans will never abandon theirs.
America is also based on a certain conceit that isn't mentioned very much. That conceit is this: money=happiness. Hence, money is an ever-present source of tension for Americans. Yet, at the same time, it is the device – developed out of necessity – that lets American society function. A quick glance around the magazines in the library shows the extraordinary degree to which money affects society – nearly every magazine alludes to the saving of money, a crisis in money, or how to solve money problems.
Anthropological and archaeological studies show that money has been around almost as long as humans, and that it is necessary for any complex society to develop. But surely not to the degree which we see today. Money is seen as one of the chief measures of value in American society (one who has no money is basically a non-person, unable to eat, sleep or live anywhere.). The current American debt is 11 trillion dollars. That's $11,000,000,000,000, This number attests to the sheer vastness our society has grown to. As a result, the average person feels ineffectual and small, like the world at large is complex and frightening, ruled by machinery high in the skyscrapers of Washington and Wall Street.
Modern psychologists agree that the human mind is made up of equal parts nature and nurture. Hence, 50% of who we are is determined by the world around us. If we hold this to be true, then the examination and analysis of culture is a crucial activity, one that has the potetial to yield enormous results. However, it is also a laborious activity, requiring hours of study and research. It's also easy to screw up. The question "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" can be modified in cultural study to say "Which came first: the cultural product or the environment that produced it?" In short, where does culture begin and where does it end? The output – that which determines "culture" (art, literature, advertisments, etc.) – is at once a product of the culture and a producer of culture, resulting in a constant push-pull relationship between a culture and its members. Just like the electron, we can never know with absolute certainty the position of culture and its velocity, not least because publishing a corpus on such a phenomenon would inevitably change that velocity.
Luckily, we can look back at past cultures and analyze those with a closer degree of accuracy. This of course brings its own host of problems, most of which stem from the well-publicized unreliability of memory. But, nevertheless, looking at the past has proved itself to be much more fruitful than trying to put your hands around the effervescent present.
For the past few months, I've studied the past. Namely, the 20th century. This has been mostly through the lens of intellectual achievement, and not as much physical history. I've been whirlwinded through Einstein, the Frankfurt School, WIlliam James, Niehls Bohr, the atom, the division of the atom, etc. etc.. My goal was to trace the cultural history of the world since 1900. (This goal may or may not be shortened to the cultural history of the United States, or the cultural history of Western civilization, but even that term is inaccurate in my opinion, given the differences between culture in France, England, and the U.S., for example)
So let's get down to the meat and potatoes. Our great nation, the United States of America, is usually characterized as the alpha-male of history. We were born of a later generation than England or Germany, and as such, we don't have a complex, entangling history like these other countries. We were born amidst an era of rationalism – the Enlightenment – which purportedly has some effect on our values and beliefs, and, sure enough, America is constantly characterized for its pragmatic approach to life. This is not idle speculation either, seeing as most philosophical output from the U.S. has been of the pragmatic nature. Most, not all. We are unique in that we are the only country that has stuck with its governmental system since day one. Thus, the spirit of Capitalism and Democracy is indelibly wound up in all things American. What words come to mind when you see the colors red, white and blue? Democracy and Capitalism. We are brought up to have a reverence for these twin dragons, and this undoubtedly affects the America conscience. Other countries' political systems come and go with the will of the people, but Americans will never abandon theirs.
America is also based on a certain conceit that isn't mentioned very much. That conceit is this: money=happiness. Hence, money is an ever-present source of tension for Americans. Yet, at the same time, it is the device – developed out of necessity – that lets American society function. A quick glance around the magazines in the library shows the extraordinary degree to which money affects society – nearly every magazine alludes to the saving of money, a crisis in money, or how to solve money problems.
Anthropological and archaeological studies show that money has been around almost as long as humans, and that it is necessary for any complex society to develop. But surely not to the degree which we see today. Money is seen as one of the chief measures of value in American society (one who has no money is basically a non-person, unable to eat, sleep or live anywhere.). The current American debt is 11 trillion dollars. That's $11,000,000,000,000, This number attests to the sheer vastness our society has grown to. As a result, the average person feels ineffectual and small, like the world at large is complex and frightening, ruled by machinery high in the skyscrapers of Washington and Wall Street.
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