A Boring Horror
An Old Twit's Complaint
The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
Walter Benjamin1
“a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.2
Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5
With the understanding that this sounds, and is even somewhat true, that this is grumpy, older3 man, modern society is boring, oh so damn boring, shallow, trite with no memory of the past, even of yesterday. It has become so empty that it does not have the intellectual heft to understand this, which makes being evil easier. This is one of the reasons why some want us to be a shallow, vacuous, really brainless, people because it is profitable for them that we be so.
Weirdly4, one of the reasons rereading the Scottish Play, today, affects me emotionally is related to the statement that the United States is “agreement incapable,” which should be expanded to the entire American political class of the past thirty years and most of it from the beginning. Likely, it is my subconsciously drawing attention to something. Really, it seems to describe my entire country, especially the current literati, but more damningly, the entire American intelligentsia, which compared to the political class, in the past has more often shown more testicular fortitude. Damning with faint praise, still true, but not anymore.
The American ruling class has made murder, lying, and betrayal into an art and a science; the whole class, with precious few exceptions, has a mastery and extensive use of pernicious bullshit and it does not matter at all which “side” the politicians and their courtiers are on. This is now shown in most of the managerial and ruling classes from the top in DC to the very bottom in Hicksville, which unfortunately shows no understanding of this, perhaps from being too shallow and uninformed to be able to do so. Not only does their job depend on them not understanding5, they lack the intellectual, and just as importantly, the emotional tools to do so. And I mean this last sentence to be taken truly and literally. Since the deskilling, the stripping of knowledge, and the terrorization of Americans has been ongoing for several generations, it is not even their fault. Their responsibility, but just as a child made have responsibility to learn, if they are blocked from the opportunities to do, how can they be truly at fault for being ignorant.
The managers in the government, the political establishment, science, education, medicine, publishing, the media, the arts, the military, religion, and much else such as the Red Cross seem to be all money hungry incompetents, so shallow as to be moronic weasels. The King and Queen in the Scottish Play at least understand the evil of their acts, of their personal moral failings. Our current “elites” are too busy “earning” more money, status, power, acclaim, by any means, any means at all, necessary, and they are “living” an unexamined life devoid of anything that makes a life worth living. Really, are we as a nation doing any different?
Americans (and Europeans) have been exploring, talking, writing, making art over, debating, struggling, having major movements, fighting to where there are at least two, perhaps three, major wars over them. Political economy, religion, art, science, society, the roles of men and women, of races, and so much more, but it has all been memory-holed.
To echo others, modern fiction is flat. Music, art, comedy including stand-up, political “thought” are all flat, empty of any deepness of daring, thought, rigor, or even feeling, playing it so safe that it is functionally useless, an entertaining as paint drying, and perhaps less informative.
Really, for all our talk about our freedoms and of being safe, we are a terrified, uniformity worshipping, thought hating, hateful fools, irregardless of any ideology or religion we espouse. Yes, I am blaming everyone, even though not everyone is like this.
I do ask that you do me a favor. Pick up book, see a movie, view art, hear a comedian, from before the current Age of Uniformity, of something from the 1970s or before. Then compare that with what you see today.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/benjamin/
Yes, this is a quote by Walter Benjamin and yes, Mr. Benjamin died in 1924. His is an old, longstanding complaint.
MacBeth, Act Five, Scene Five, Line 30 by William Shakespeare
SEYTON The Queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH She should have died hereafter. 20
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools. 25
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 30
Signifying nothing.
Emphasis mine, of course.
Not old as I have a number of relatives, acquaintances, and neighbors who strongly disagree!
Yes, I do tend to make interesting, even weird, connections, inferences, and even references.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
—Upton Sinclair