David Rieff is just back from India, and finds America to be sleepwalking its way to a bad place. Excerpt:
It is in the manufacturing of an ersatz reality based on lies–or, in our present case, on the eliding of the distinction between lies and truth–that people come to connive in their own misrule. The genius of the present age is how deeply these lies have become internalized.
Any social worker will tell you that junkies lie, that it goes with the territory. But what about a society incapable of getting beyond the lies on which its psychic tranquility depends, that is to say, a society bound and determined to lie to itself? Will democracy survive for long in such a society? Has it survived? My own view is that, if it has, that survival now hangs by a thread. Fueling the vanity of the present is that we see the lies of the past with such piercing clarity. But scrutinizing our own time with the same rigor? Not a chance. For to face the implications of the victory of branding–not just of consumer goods, but of political ideas, nations, even of human feelings–and of the hollowing out of democracy, will be the true legacy of the wired world that is too terrible to face. Better to cuddle up with the fantasy world of the specialists in ‘framing,’ the focus-group meisters and the copywriters.
Reflecting on Charles Taylor’s detailed discussion of the medieval Christian mindset, versus our own secularized worldviews, one marvels at how individuals and entire cultures cannot see what they are not psychologically prepared to see, and how hard they work at not seeing what they would prefer not to see. This is not particularly a delusion of religious believers, or unbelievers; It is part of our shared human condition. As David indicates in his blog post, we are very good at scrutinizing — and very eager to scrutinized — the past with the clarity of hindsight and judgment. But where are those who can deal like men and women (versus juveniles) with the crises of our own time?
It is disturbing to imagine what kind of judgment our grandchildren will levy on us.
posted February 11, 2010 at 1:14 pm
It is disturbing to imagine what kind of judgment our grandchildren will levy on us.
That’s why I didn’t have children. Be darned if I’m going to raise kids just to have their kids come back and tell me what a lousy job we all made of things.
posted February 11, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Why not define the situation as being about *propaganda* – experiencing it, sharing it, often being comforted by it, trusting in it, and finally becoming cynical (everybody does it) and fatalistic (what can be done about it).
Whether the source is commercial, political/ideological, or Faith based, there seems to be little downside to propaganda.
The irony about Reiff’s article is that sports (and sports journalism and sports talk radio), of all things, is actually more analytically sound than what one hears in the political or business worlds.
Why is that? Because sports has been wise enough to understand the vital importance of *boundaries* and has more accepted standards of behaviour.
posted February 11, 2010 at 8:44 pm
This David Rieff guy seems a bit wound up and pretentious (I’m going to reference some northern European philosophers and some German words to sound smart….and did I mention I just got back from India, a brilliant place).
Someone should take him to a bar.
posted February 11, 2010 at 8:54 pm
This David Rieff sounds like he was shaped by happy experiences. From the biography:
“He is the author of eight books, including Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West and A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis. His memoir of his mother’s final illness, Swimming in a Sea of Death, was published in January 2008. Rieff is currently working on a book about the global food crisis.”
If I was David Rieff I’d be depressed too.
Seriously, how can anyone have a healthy perspective on life if they focus on such miserable situations.
posted February 11, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Hindsight will perceive us to be embarassing idiots, as the young do now. We blind ourselves to reality as we sell out in various ways until we can no longer afford the luxury of contact with it.
posted February 12, 2010 at 8:29 am
There are some troubling aspects to life, especially in the political realm, these days. So many serious problems, so little chance of resolving some of them. (Consider how daunting it seems in political terms to contemplate tackling the situation with the budget and deficit as described in a recent analysis in Time magazine, “How to Tame the Budget Deficit”:
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1959029,00.html ) And as people such as David Brooks remind us, it seems hard to even talk about some of them. Brooks alludes to this again today, when he calls in a 2/12 column for the President to lead “a campaign of brazen honesty with the American people. He could lay out the fiscal realities and explain that voters cannot continue to demand programs they are unwilling to pay for.”
But hasn’t something or other always loomed large as a huge challenge? And haven’t there always been frivolous aspects to most people’s lives? Isn’t it better to differentiate between the types of challenges people face and what is cause for concern and what isn’t? Better yet, allow some room for people to disagree or debate these things rather than going all doom and gloom on us after a trip abroad. I think Rieff misses the boat by starting out discussing the Super Bowl and the ads that get so much attention each year. It’s not as if they represent the begin-and-end-all for people who chatter about them. I wouldn’t take chattering about ads as the mark of an inherently frivolous person. Don’t most people balance family and work responsibilities with lighter stuff, picking and choosing what that lighter stuff is? Focusing occasionally on the frivolous can make the heavy stuff easier to handle. It can be a safety valve of sorts. Sure, there seem to be some people who are self absorbed and selfish. But there also are plenty of ones who aren’t.
posted February 12, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Seems like a fine reflection with which to approach Great Lent, doesn’t it?
We seem determined to deny that our current condition is a direct result of our choices. We refuse to differentiate between our wants and our needs. Our self-image is far out-of-touch with reality.
We have become a nation of spinning and dissembling, we can’t handle the truth because we are unwilling to face the truth. We expect to be lied to in every realm of our lives, and choose the lies we will embrace and those we will denounce based upon our personal preferences.
We lie to ourselves more than anyone else.
We take all this into Great Lent, a season of repentance and metanoia. The question posed by Great Lent is straightforward, simple and staggering: If we’re not going to become honest with ourselves now, then when?