(no subject)
Faith. That was what it boiled down to. You couldn't possibly stare 600 students in the eye in one breath and tell each of them that you believed in them and what they could achieve with their lives. you couldn't convince them that each of them had the potential to change the world, especially when most of them had already convinced themselves that they could not, and the ones who could didn't care to. You had to have an awful lot of faith to convict and convince yourself that a mere handful of people could determine the course of the world in the decades to come.
These days, it's hard enough to believe in yourself, much less anyone else when it comes to these matters. In a world where people are content to ask questions instead of answering problems, what is the place of the individual? There's no time for anyone to be show-offy or antagonistic, yet these are the people who we most venerate and idealize. We don't look to God for answers, we look to drugs, to idols, to sex, to sports. We don't believe in philosophy because science and politics provide such easier answers, and because we are conditioned to look here for answers first. Were we not expected to look to the physical for our answers, how would we be able to understand the questions that philosophy poses us, since so much of the good philosophy has been written in tongues that are not our own, during times and situations that we cannot understand, by men who didn't have the advantages that we have?
The problem is similar to the one of aura which Benjamin poses in his The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Aura, Benjamin says, is the feeling created when one finds himself in the presence of some work of art and takes in the art's glory. It is a similar concept to that of rapture, which Nietzsche discusses in The Will to Power as Art. Rapture might be a term that is more easily related to as being the feeling one internalizes anytime an intense emotion, desire or memory is stirred. The issue of rapture is important because int his world where rapture is realized through internal stimulation (drugs, sex, etc.), two things occur. Firstly, external stimuli become worth less, both through their inability to provide one with a stimulation, and secondly through their mechanical reproduction as reference in Benjamin - and, in turn, their fetishization.
In classical times, the popular debate was one of ethics and philosophy, one that asked what was right and what should be done and then asked why the opposite was not considered. In modern times, the debate is one between science and religion; it, too, asks what is right and what should be done but then goes on to prove why the underlying assumptions that we had in beginning the debate are wrong and carry no weight, leaving any sort of discourse with an inability to inform or educate those who take part. As the debate dissipates, we end up faced with drugs, sex and rock n roll, cultural mantra of Generation X and one that certainly has not been lost on this generation, that of mechanical reproduction. This is a generation marked by a material consumerism and educated with capitalistic hunger that is lost on its members and scorned by its elders. It is a generation that is told that they can become anything if they only put their mind to it and then quickly shown that this is not at all possible, but maybe if they buy enough things, they'll be able to achieve their goals. Not only are they taught to buy as a means to an end, but buying becomes an end in itself. Take, for example, the social scene presented by Huxley in Brave New World: an entire society (and world, at that) is kept in line through the use of the powers-that-be of one drug, a simple narcotic hallucinogen that not only provides one with an escape from the troubles of the real world, but at the same time allows one to indulge in all the wonders that that world has to offer, albeit from an onlooker's point of view. When not under the hypnotizing effects of soma and not spending their time working, they are expected to spend their time consuming services: centrifugal bumble-puppy, for example; attending clubs; travelling if they can afford it; attending the feelies (which attack their every sense) or engaging in organized orgies, brutal fuckfests, anything to keep themselves from themselves . Individuality and time alone are highly discouraged, and rarely occur due to the selfless intervention of soma. So continues the cycle of sex, shopping, drugs, and consumerism that Huxley creates.
It isn't hard to see parallels between this world and our world today. We have our sex, we have our marketplaces, and we have our drugs, even if they aren't present in the way we expect them to be. The anti-drug campaign that focuses on music and family and sports as being alternatives to drugs is a great way to market not using drugs but does nothing to inform the target of what their decision is doing to their mind. In music we find release, in sports we find excape, in family we find a way to simply run away; politics give us a chance to argue for that which we cannot change; television and the movies, like music, give us relelase, a chance to forget our own worries for a few hours and focus on someone else's. It's always easier to focus on problems that you have no personal stake in, anyway.
But there isn't any room in this world for anything outside of the holy trinity of sex, consumerism and addiction. Which is why it is such a strange thing to see public displays of faith , even rarer to have someone openly admit that they believe in another, much less 600 (nameless) others. In believing in someone, we open ourselves to their greatest flaws and expose ours to them. We give them a chance to enter into our lives and have their proverbial way with us, and this is why we so often refuse to open ourselves so fully to anyone else. After all, to totally believe in another is to entirely believe in yourself, and who wants to do that when there's sex, drugs and rock and roll? We believe in people because it allows us a chance to believe in ourselves, we believe in them because we see what good they can do for us, but before we can do this, we have to realize the good that we ourselves can do. And to do this is only the first step to realizing that a God exists; you must give fully of yourself in order to get to know God truly.
Of course, admitting in the existence of a God takes quite a lot in these days as it is, with the temptations of sex and drugs and whatever other interruptions we might encounter in our daily routines. It's hard to believe in a God, much less make time for them, just as it's hard to believe in ourselves or make time for ourselves, just like it's hard to believe in somebody else and make time to continue believing in them. But that's always been the problem; in older times, when there was less to do and more time to do it, people had more time for God. In today's world, it's hard for anyone to find a few minutes a day for themselves, much less some sort of greater being that we don't know exists or not. The trick to believing, however, does not lie in viewing any sort of mysterious book or inhuman act, it lies in believing in yourself. Once that obstacle is overcome, it becomes easier to believe in others. And however hard it may be to believe in a god, it is much easier to see how, if you open your eyes to the world around you and give it a chance, there is a god. And he, she, whomever they might be, lie within all of us. It just takes an open mind, open eyes, open ears and, most importantly, an open heart to see that there isn't one god, but billions, each with their own story, their own little piece of heaven to share. And to think, all that we have to do is listen.
These days, it's hard enough to believe in yourself, much less anyone else when it comes to these matters. In a world where people are content to ask questions instead of answering problems, what is the place of the individual? There's no time for anyone to be show-offy or antagonistic, yet these are the people who we most venerate and idealize. We don't look to God for answers, we look to drugs, to idols, to sex, to sports. We don't believe in philosophy because science and politics provide such easier answers, and because we are conditioned to look here for answers first. Were we not expected to look to the physical for our answers, how would we be able to understand the questions that philosophy poses us, since so much of the good philosophy has been written in tongues that are not our own, during times and situations that we cannot understand, by men who didn't have the advantages that we have?
The problem is similar to the one of aura which Benjamin poses in his The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Aura, Benjamin says, is the feeling created when one finds himself in the presence of some work of art and takes in the art's glory. It is a similar concept to that of rapture, which Nietzsche discusses in The Will to Power as Art. Rapture might be a term that is more easily related to as being the feeling one internalizes anytime an intense emotion, desire or memory is stirred. The issue of rapture is important because int his world where rapture is realized through internal stimulation (drugs, sex, etc.), two things occur. Firstly, external stimuli become worth less, both through their inability to provide one with a stimulation, and secondly through their mechanical reproduction as reference in Benjamin - and, in turn, their fetishization.
In classical times, the popular debate was one of ethics and philosophy, one that asked what was right and what should be done and then asked why the opposite was not considered. In modern times, the debate is one between science and religion; it, too, asks what is right and what should be done but then goes on to prove why the underlying assumptions that we had in beginning the debate are wrong and carry no weight, leaving any sort of discourse with an inability to inform or educate those who take part. As the debate dissipates, we end up faced with drugs, sex and rock n roll, cultural mantra of Generation X and one that certainly has not been lost on this generation, that of mechanical reproduction. This is a generation marked by a material consumerism and educated with capitalistic hunger that is lost on its members and scorned by its elders. It is a generation that is told that they can become anything if they only put their mind to it and then quickly shown that this is not at all possible, but maybe if they buy enough things, they'll be able to achieve their goals. Not only are they taught to buy as a means to an end, but buying becomes an end in itself. Take, for example, the social scene presented by Huxley in Brave New World: an entire society (and world, at that) is kept in line through the use of the powers-that-be of one drug, a simple narcotic hallucinogen that not only provides one with an escape from the troubles of the real world, but at the same time allows one to indulge in all the wonders that that world has to offer, albeit from an onlooker's point of view. When not under the hypnotizing effects of soma and not spending their time working, they are expected to spend their time consuming services: centrifugal bumble-puppy, for example; attending clubs; travelling if they can afford it; attending the feelies (which attack their every sense) or engaging in organized orgies, brutal fuckfests, anything to keep themselves from themselves . Individuality and time alone are highly discouraged, and rarely occur due to the selfless intervention of soma. So continues the cycle of sex, shopping, drugs, and consumerism that Huxley creates.
It isn't hard to see parallels between this world and our world today. We have our sex, we have our marketplaces, and we have our drugs, even if they aren't present in the way we expect them to be. The anti-drug campaign that focuses on music and family and sports as being alternatives to drugs is a great way to market not using drugs but does nothing to inform the target of what their decision is doing to their mind. In music we find release, in sports we find excape, in family we find a way to simply run away; politics give us a chance to argue for that which we cannot change; television and the movies, like music, give us relelase, a chance to forget our own worries for a few hours and focus on someone else's. It's always easier to focus on problems that you have no personal stake in, anyway.
But there isn't any room in this world for anything outside of the holy trinity of sex, consumerism and addiction. Which is why it is such a strange thing to see public displays of faith , even rarer to have someone openly admit that they believe in another, much less 600 (nameless) others. In believing in someone, we open ourselves to their greatest flaws and expose ours to them. We give them a chance to enter into our lives and have their proverbial way with us, and this is why we so often refuse to open ourselves so fully to anyone else. After all, to totally believe in another is to entirely believe in yourself, and who wants to do that when there's sex, drugs and rock and roll? We believe in people because it allows us a chance to believe in ourselves, we believe in them because we see what good they can do for us, but before we can do this, we have to realize the good that we ourselves can do. And to do this is only the first step to realizing that a God exists; you must give fully of yourself in order to get to know God truly.
Of course, admitting in the existence of a God takes quite a lot in these days as it is, with the temptations of sex and drugs and whatever other interruptions we might encounter in our daily routines. It's hard to believe in a God, much less make time for them, just as it's hard to believe in ourselves or make time for ourselves, just like it's hard to believe in somebody else and make time to continue believing in them. But that's always been the problem; in older times, when there was less to do and more time to do it, people had more time for God. In today's world, it's hard for anyone to find a few minutes a day for themselves, much less some sort of greater being that we don't know exists or not. The trick to believing, however, does not lie in viewing any sort of mysterious book or inhuman act, it lies in believing in yourself. Once that obstacle is overcome, it becomes easier to believe in others. And however hard it may be to believe in a god, it is much easier to see how, if you open your eyes to the world around you and give it a chance, there is a god. And he, she, whomever they might be, lie within all of us. It just takes an open mind, open eyes, open ears and, most importantly, an open heart to see that there isn't one god, but billions, each with their own story, their own little piece of heaven to share. And to think, all that we have to do is listen.