Why are we drawn to blood and suffering? Do we lack the courage to believe in dramatically-positive visions of the future? If we had this courage, would it give us the visceral, emotional drama that we crave?
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Complete entry
Posted by
Intomorrow on 07/30 at 05:55 PM
“...it suggests that we can only be truly happy when we are surrounded by misery and suffering.”
Don’t forget (not that you would) schadenfreude.
The reason, or one v. big reason disaster films are popular is when someone on the screen is being killed, it is
someone else being killed, not us.
When we watch a villain on the screen, we feel that though we can be reptilian in our behavior, at least we are not the joker in Batman, or Holmes posing as the joker in real life. We may be carnivorous both literally and figuratively, but at least we are not Hannibal Lecter on the screen, or Ed Gein or Jeffrey Dahmer in real life.
Therefore, since we are not as evil as cinematic and real-life villains, we are granted a pass, a You Are Less Evil Than Those Real Bad Guys pass.
Posted by
Intomorrow on 07/30 at 08:22 PM
This will be a rambler:
Pete, it doesn’t have to be a celebration of violence, IMO an escape through fantasy violence..though it likely will continue as one might imagine.
Communicating poses the greatest difficulty; I called up a radio talkshow host to say that eating meat is wrong, but I do it anyway.. the host yelled “hypocrite!” a few times, and when I tried to explain the hypocrisy-is-the-tribute-vice-pays-to-virtue aspect, that a guy who cheats on his wife—as random example—may not be proud of it and admit to it; he may think it is wrong but his animal nature compells him to do so and he might be under subtle pressure from his friends to cheat.
But the radio host hung up the phone.
People say “get involved” yet they wont even take the slightest trouble to communicate!
Your most recent article is appropriate: if communicating to the public is so hard then the question as to can the biosphere take x -number of decades of our uncivilised behavior arises. The answers I get are inconclusive: some say we live in a more open system; some say it is closed; some say the biosphere is a resilient organism, some say not.
One more anecdote concerning doublemindedness:
all over Wyoming it is said the residents want people to move there to stimulate economic activity, however they want people to move there and virtually stand still frozen in place so not to disturb the ambiance and, presumably, the ecology.
So if they can’t make up their minds how can they expect the rest us to? Oh, well.
Posted by
Pastor_Alex on 08/01 at 12:18 PM
Your comments remind me of Agent Smith’s comments in the Matrix that we weren’t happy in utopia. The problem as I see it is that we are no good at providing our own motivation for advancement. We need some conflict, preferably with an easily defined evil to push us into moving to the next level.
In writing we use conflict to move plot forward. Conflicts can be external, between the protagonist and the gods, nature or other people, or internal as a conflict of ideas and desires with the hero. In real life conflict is necessary at some level to generate energy for movement, but it can easily transform into unhealthly fights. Perhaps we need to find a new way of talking about utopia that doesn’t remove conflict from the story, but maintains it within healthy bounds.
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