“A society founded on signs is, in its essence, an artificial society in which man’s carnal truth is handled as something artificial.” — Albert Camus
Dare we talk about morals? I think in the times that we live in today, which seems so artificial, we have to. Globally now, we’re all very engaged in commercialism, both mentally and in practice. Physically, it has lead to immense specialization; the advancement of expertise and construction in areas of science, art, media and technology that has contributed to great progress materially, especially for rich developed countries. But the price we pay for this material progression may very well be an immeasurable increase in psychological suffering and moral degeneration not to mention the negative impact on our planet. Something is missing inside and we all know it. Some might even say that we as a species have become soulless. Never in history have we had such a monstrous disparity between the haves and have-nots. Never before have we been so overtly obsessed with the self, which is, as discussed before, already the default setting in human consciousness. Racism and sexism, from both the past and the present, makes the news headlines regularly while the amount of gun violence seems to mount weekly (there’s been 254 mass shootings in the USA alone as of this posting today, less than halfway through the year). Perhaps a culture that conditions us towards constant desire and excess while parading nationalism must inevitably lead to violence. But it all begins on the inside. It makes one ponder Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, the first part of his epic poem Divine Comedy and the Seven Deadly sins. Let’s take a look at them individually:
The Seven Deadly Sins:
· luxuria / Lust: The prevalent and obsessive pursuit of pleasure abound is not only condoned but promoted. The lust for power, money, sex, and superficial beauty permeate the airwaves and the internet through advertising and entertainment. We link success to being able to indulge regularly in mindless and superficial pleasure.
· gula / Gluttony: The promotion of fast food and encouragement of constant and endless consumption has fundamentally lead us to a statistical epidemic in public health. Physical and psychological illness is mounting not only in wealthy countries but stunningly also in developing nations. We’re stuffing ourselves with garbage and do so by the truckload. I have a relative who has 8 cars — talk about uncontrolled excess.
· avaritia / Greed: Always more and never enough is predicated by the constant policy pre-occupation with economic growth. We may have descended to becoming a society that not only endorses endless accumulation but glorifies the act of it. Think of planned obsolescence. We want the right to limitlessly produce as much as we can, own as much as we can, and do it as fast as we can and call it success and freedom. Greed has deep ties to insecurity.
· acedia / Sloth: Fighting entropy has always been a challenge but younger generations today hate work and this includes the work to discover ourselves through deep contemplation and humility. We treat work now as only a means towards something rather than as a joyful and meaningful activity in and of itself. It’s hard when everything is so mechanical and potentially exploitative but we’ve forgotten that the act of doing, building, and creating is not only practical but also noble and spiritually rewarding.
· invidia / Envy: How many of us are envious? How can we not be critical, judgemental and petty when we endorse a socio-economic ideology of competition where winning is the only thing that matters? When we gauge ourselves and society by comparison, it automatically divides us. What happened to love thy neighbour? You can’t when you have to be better than your neighbour. Envy externalizes our own bitterness and unhappiness.
· superbia / Pride: Instead of global unification as a species we are regressing back towards tribalism; families, communities and nations alike are proudly promoting the superiority of their own kind. “Me first” clearly means everyone and everything else comes after. Is not pride the Devil’s favourite sin because we are deceived into to thinking that having pride is actually a good thing? How often do we say that we must be proud to be this, that or the other? Pride stands in direct opposition to humility and detachment from the self.
· ira / Wrath: When we live to conform and adapt to an increasingly mechanized society, conditioned to be anything but our true selves, how can there not be conflict, both inwardly and outwardly? The constant mixed messaging is bound to confound; from the time we’re children we’re told to follow the rules or be shunned by society but at the same time we’re to idolize those celebrated individuals who succeeded by breaking those same rules; eat and drink all the time but look lean and fit; work obediently and tirelessly in the rat race then party wildly on Friday/Saturdays nights for relief/balance; then make up for our questionable selfish behaviour by being good/charitable on Sundays where we can repent our sins and buy spiritual insurance for the afterlife. There’s so much cognitive dissonance. No wonder psychological counselling is a booming field; there’s practically an epidemic of anxiety and depression among people young and old the world-over. Each year 800,000 people commit suicide, a rate of one suicide every 40 seconds. (Actually while writing this essay, my wife texted me that someone had just done so on her ferryboat ride home, a man choosing to perish under the currents in the cold dark sea.) And, of course, with so much internal conflict, it’s also bound to express itself outwardly so hate and physical violence explode. Blaming others always becomes the cheap and easy out when we don’t take personal responsibility. We’ve had over 5000 wars in human history yet have learned nothing from the experience.
“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”
― Mark Twain
The art we make.
Now what does this have to do with art and this blog? Well, we are artists and artists are human too. And all this conditioning of self and excess colours our thoughts and heavily affects our rather sensitive souls — and artists must remain sensitive to create. Furthermore, it is our skills and passions that create the symbols that aid in the communication of ideas — thru our art, music, performances and stories — we affect the world and not just reflect it. If the ideas we promote with our talents are either intentionally or unintentionally harmful then we have contributed to the problem. People forget that some of the most powerful and effective tools and symbols ever created were used by the most dastardly corporate, political, and military regimes. This continues today and technology has both strengthened the power and reach of our influence. Everything you do matters.
The other day I watched a new film that featured characters so morally repulsive it made my stomach churn. The protagonist was one perfectly adapted to a belief and acceptance of a society that was absolutely absent of ethics, respect, or empathy. Although well-acted and decently written, it left an awful taste in my mouth that made me ponder: what kind of world have we created for ourselves? And this was the second such movie I’ve seen of that ilk recently, the other being about a man who cunningly schemed and destroyed another man’s life taking all that he had including literally his home, job, family and, ultimately, his life; the bad guy protagonist was intelligent, opportunistic and victorious in the end. I couldn’t sleep when it was over! The themes of such films, where the unethical triumph, delivers a horrific message. I felt less disturbed by Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange — which revolted audiences when it came out over 50 years ago — than by these new films which seem to accept this kind of amorality and even make it look cool. Kubrick was at least delivering a clear warning about the existence of evil and our society’s ill attempts to deal with it; his films always tackle issues of humanity in unique ways.
When Oliver Stone made his 1987 satire Wall Street, Michael Douglas’ infamous character Gordon Gecko was publicly viewed as a reprehensible con man. His famous speech “Greed is Good” — if spoken today — would probably serve as a call-to-arms and ringing endorsement of our neoliberal, everything-to-be-commoditized selfishly-indulgent world. When Martin Scorcese’s own attempt at satire, the film Wolf of Wall Street, arrived in theatres in 2013 (nearly 26 years later), it ended up serving as an inspiration rather than a warning; business programs in colleges and universities nationwide — including my own former Faculty of Commerce where I graduated decades ago — witnessed a huge surge of enrolment after audiences saw Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort and his merry band of degenerates have so much sinful fun. Are we now a generation that endorses — through indifferent complicity — amorality as a new norm? This is frightening to ponder.
Now artists always have a choice: we can use art for psychological coercion or we can use it to inspire good or awaken and educate us on the perilous discourse we’ve taken. Regarding positive action, I often think of Richard Attenborough’s great documentary series Planet Earth which is both breathtakingly gorgeous and immensely educational as a great example. But here I’d like to recommend instead spending time to watch Writer-Director Adam Curtis’ mind-blowing 4 hour BBC mini-series The Century of the Self. Curtis goes deep into the early roots of Propaganda, the title of the book by Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud’s nephew) that changed human behaviour more than anything else in history. Bernays’ treatise, based off his uncle’s work on psychoanalysis, along with the experiments conducted by Anna Freud (Sigmund’s daughter) together served as the primal seed for modern education and marketing (Bernays cleverly re-labeled propaganda into public relations). It also instrumentally inspired Adolf Hitler to form his own Ministry of Propaganda run by his right-hand Joseph Goebbels in the Nazi Regime during World War II. In Curtis’ The Century of the Self we are richly and artfully shown the history of propaganda in our society and how we ended up as we are today — a global culture of conformist desire and excess, obsessed with consumerism, completely absorbed with the individualized self. Watching it, it seems we as a populace didn’t stand a chance. Not only does the film enlighten, it’s also extremely entertaining, proving once again that art can be both captivating and important at the same time. The film should be mandatory viewing for all.
Here is the direct link to the film.
“The soul is dyed with the colour of its thoughts.”
— Marcus Aurelius