On Decadence -The Microwaveable Kebab
The great elephant in the room of our times -
Elitism! How mixed up the masses of our land have become over this word. It is
as if they went in discovery of an attitude toward it, discovered a reason, and
then turned their conclusion upon its head!
Our culture is infused (or should that be poisoned with) equalitarian
values in all areas of life, turning our collective experience into one
long grey mush. Democracy has intruded its nose where it is not welcome, and
has failed to overthrow the tyranny it was actually supposed to!
To be clear: ownership of machines and parliaments is left to the last
people we should leave them to - aristocrats. And the creation and appreciation
of artistic culture is left to the last people we should leave them to -
plebeians! And the result is dire. For
so long as the cultural world is poisoned by equalitarian values, the cultural
human has nothing to aspire towards. If every artist is equal, then
there is no self-improvement, no growth, no cause to strive after. The lowest,
basest mass-artist is as valid as the soulful musician. How appalling it would
be if we had no tools to differentiate between the two. We would be left with
no critique to attack the microwaveable doner kebabs of art and culture.
What are we so afraid of?
Nature's Meritocracy -
Let us now examine what it is that makes creation and culture 'genuine'
(a word much overused indeed). My argument is simple: genius comes from an
uncomfortable place, and often leads to an uncomfortable place. Genius is
miserable, thrust into greatness. She throws away her double-edged sword, as
Elric would disgard Stormbringer. Yet it follows, and will do so til the end.
It is a curse as much as it is a blessing. It is self-indulgent, yet universal,
selfish, yet possessed with a tortured love for humanity. It is not learnt
(though it can be improved with practice), but comes from somewhere far more
profound.
It is empty and void, forever disatisfied - yes! This is genius,
nothingness. This is the cosmos speaking to you through its silence, asking 'What
you have done?' This is the raw power of creativity, unable to be pinned
down or defined, yet still recognisable. We cannot define creativity because it
should be equivalent to defining the nothingness from whence it emerges. Nor
can we set a blueprint to repeat it, however much we should enjoy doing so.
Genius tramples barriers, it loathes chains. Genius tears apart its diploma,
and curses the academy. Her art is painful passion, a mirror held up against
nature, and it ignites the same in the viewer.
The true 'creative nothing' is a natural nothing, and it cannot fill
itself up from without. No warm embrace can comfort the genius. Nor can they
fill themself at all. For there is nothing but constant movement
toward-the-unreachable for this genius, and constant sorrow at their constant
failure to transcend themselves. Still, they must create, or wither and die.
This is the driving engine of progress! It shuns the false paradise offered by
the bulk, bloated mass. What a sad day it is when the plebeians aspire to
nothing more than plebeian decadence.
For religion has gone nowhere. The religion of old and the 'materialism'
of new empties-out each subject and then offers them redemption through their
particular means. Religion, 'materialism', they each hold their worshippers in
warm embrace, and they are easy with such love. One need only submit to them.
This is the emptiness-fullness dichotomy for the masses; a watered-down void!
the emptiness of the lowest common denominator! Democracy has been applied to
culture, art has become associated with easily available pleasures or
talentless provocation - talentless provocation for all! The bar has not so
much been lowered as it has been buried under ground - plunged under magma! The
'organic' nature of creative art has been captured, distilled, put through a
refinery, and rolled out the other end, infinitely reproduceable and imitable.
The culture is democratic in that the 'creatives' know what the people want and
give it to them, a paternalistic and patronising affair. Challenge is not
'accessible', and risks are not to be taken.
It is everywhere, and it is all pervasive. It can invade any space and
colonise any land. When it's banners appear on the horizon, the people welcome
it, even calling it over, seduced by plastic promise. Such a world impresses
itself upon me, it's loud, rude culture too foolish to know how grotesque it
truly is. The healing light of true genius, which also pervades, is nonetheless
drowned out by banality. Woe is I, the bedraggled St.Zagarus, the besieged one,
pulled down into such an abyss of purility! Only the dull, lowing roar of a
castrated bull can utter from my pained, heaving lungs, a desperate rallying
cry for the righting of the world.
Yet when we each of us aspire to become deities of our own boundless
selves, then I shall fall silent.
The state of affairs -
Civilization is not under threat of annihilation. There is no looming
Dark Age and there is no danger. Let no doomspeaker coil you into a fearful
serpent, and charm you with their lies. It is under threat of something perhaps
worse - it is on the brink of being defined by a microwaveable doner kebab.
It is plebeianism, low conformity, congealed mediocrity, what-went-before,
repetition, recurrence, routine, banality, habit, stupidity, lowered standards,
appeasement of the easily appeased, trivia, false hope, emotional manipulation,
a river of herd mammals, ignorance, denial of instinct, backwards-looking,
downwards-gazing, trough-feeding, collectivistic, microwaveable mass cultural
death, a grey stain to mark the already shoddy history of our shoddy species.
Dissent has always been the changing force of civilization, and dissent
has always followed great individuals. The philosophers almost universally had
one message to the Establishment, directly or indirectly. That message was
'Fuck you!' (complete with an exclamation mark). Kant declared himself a
'Copernican revolutionary!' after all! Yet the so-called rebels of our decadent
civilization are as wretched as the forces of Order they suppose to attack -
they are just a bit worse at hiding their tracks. Most of them are concerned
with 'entertainment' to fill the void of meaning created by meaningless labour;
they are an essential part of the soulless engin. Where are our heroes! Why are
our artists not dissenting?
Answer: They are, they are just drowned out by the white noise of
herd-culture.
St.Zagarus
The
Philosophy Takeaway Issue 52 'Open Topic'
