The "Me" Century

The late, great and (by me at least) lamented Tom Wolfe wrote a book, or perhaps more properly an essay, called The "Me" Decade and the Third Great Awakening.  The decade he referred to was that of the 1970s.  The "Third Great Awakening" he proclaimed was a jest he was making based on the (first) Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening, sadly real episodes in American history of Christian revivals led by Protestant Evangelical leaders.  Besides the preaching of hellfire and brimstone, our sinful nature and the need for redemption, the fear of divine retribution and protestations of piety, the Awakenings resulted in the creation of new sects and denominations and social movements and, in the case of the second one, the YMCA, later to be lauded so vigorously by the Village People.

As the quote at the head of this post reveals, Wolfe claimed that in the Third Great Awakening "Me" took the place of Jesus, and we became fervent in the worship our ourselves.  He provided various examples of our religious self-love.  

The argument can be made that we continue to worship ourselves, and in fact that we've always done so.  Since the 1970s, though, our ability to engage in self-worship has increased spectacularly.  Even more importantly, we now each possess the means to serve as our own missionaries, proclaiming our godhood and spreading our good news throughout the world.  We may expect that our technology will allow us to do these things more and more effectively.  

Each of us may transmit our thoughts, and expose our bodies and even souls to the view of all, and many of us do so.  Such is our self-regard that there is no practical limit to what we're willing to do or say, though we know in the back of our minds that all can be seen regardless of the fact that we seem alone in our room.  And it appears we don't care.  We feel neither shame nor concern; we have no responsibility, we're not answerable to anyone or anything when it comes to our opinions or our actions which we incessantly broadcast--or at least that seems to be the case.  There's no one to question our conclusions or rebut our claims unless we allow them to do so, except in the relatively few cases where law enforcement or those interested in shaming have reason to take notice of us.  The number of those of us interested in shaming is no doubt increasing, however.  It will be interesting to see whether this will lessen our exhibitionism.

That this is the result of our self-love, and even self-imposed godly status, is established by the fact that our unfailing efforts to expose and expound our every thought, opinion or feeling on any subject to everyone and anyone can only be explained by our sense of our own importance.  What reasonable person would assume that these must be made available to the world at large?  A god might do so; also a lunatic, or egomaniac.  

Or can this be explained by another kind of religious or quasi-religious feeling?  Might we sons and daughters (or whatever we might think ourselves to be) of Adam and Eve, knowing that we're tainted by Original Sin, aware of our sinfulness, wretchedness and insignificance, be desperately seeking validation and redemption through use of the vast confessional of the Internet?  Are we Tommies, like the hero of The Who's rock opera, crying "See me, feel me, touch me, heal me" in the World-Wide Web?  Our PCs become pin-ball machines.  Do we think ourselves saviors of ourselves or others?

If we're not gods, we possess the tools to act as gods.  We're capable of making proclamations and expressing opinions on every subject, regardless of our abilities, education, experience and knowledge.  In a very real sense it doesn't matter whether our beliefs have been critiqued, verified, or made subject to peer review in order for them to be made available (so much more efficaciously than through publication) by use of a keyboard or camera.  We don't need such review of or limitations on our expression to be read, seen or heard, and therefore believe them unneeded.  

We can appear to be all-knowing, and act as if we're omniscient, always and with ease.  One doesn't have to be a god in order to act like one.

Why Be Serious?

I was glancing through the headlines of articles in the online versions of two ostensibly serious and thoughtful news/political/cultural related magazines, on different sides of the spectrum, The New Republic and The National Review, and found myself wondering whether they or similar journals are read anymore, and if so by whom?

It may be a mere suspicion, but I think fewer and fewer people read them.  One of the reasons for this, I believe, is that some effort is required to read them.  We're lazy intellectually, and when simple, agreeable or disagreeable, opinions are available without effort on our part, why seek out any other?  Particularly when we may respond to them instantaneously if we wish in a similarly simple fashion, why look for an opinion we might have to think about while reading it or responding to it?  Why, indeed, read at all? There are people who talk incessantly about everything available to be heard and seen 24 hours a day.

Another reason we may avoid reading them is that we're sick of pundits, a reason I can understand.  Yet another is that we think ourselves quite capable of coming to our own conclusions and forming our own opinions, and don't need anyone to express them for us; not anymore.  We can, and do, express them in the vast universe of the Internet whenever we have access to a keyboard, or can establish a podcast.

It's difficult to be serious--to give anything serious consideration.  It's particularly difficult to give opposing opinions serious consideration.  It's even more difficult to think.  Seriousness is a burden, and one we can do without; one we may always have wanted to do without.  Now we can because we need not listen to anyone else for any reason to have confirmation of what we think we already know or is desirable or right, or evil or wrong.  We need not seek answers or information.  We know that we're correct because there are so many like us and we may find them and revel in our sameness and ignorance shared by so many throughout the world.

Certainly there's no need to be taught anything.  The Internet is the great leveler.  It's not necessary to be intelligent, or rich, or powerful, or influential, or widely-read or educated to be "published" or become immortal, to be available if not looked-for, as anyone can achieve these things, to cause concern or disturb or enlighten others.  There's nothing special about them anymore.  More and more, there's nothing special about anyone or anything.

Simply put, there's no reason to take thought, or speech, or opinion, seriously, and many reasons not to do so.  Other things may be serious; for example, money or the lack of it, or death, or good food, good health, comfort and ease.  Material things, in other words, as they're commonly called.  They're not readily available, and not even our ability to project ourselves into the immateriality of the Internet will satisfy our need for them.

Our Feast of Fools

Welcome, all! Or better, perhaps--Come one, Come all, to America's Feast of Fools!

Based somewhat loosely on the Medieval Feast (or Festival) of Fools--pardon me, Festum Fatuorum--this festival, which is of relatively recent origin, is formally held on the date of every presidential election, but the festivities are known to extend for several days after voting has taken place.  While the Medieval Feast celebrated the election of a mock Pope or Archbishop, we here in the United States celebrate the election of a mock President.

Most of us are familiar enough with the original Feast, having seen it animated in Disney's strangely disturbing Hunchback of Notre Dame.  The most ridiculous or grotesque person available was made Pope/Archbishop, and all joined in laughing at that figure while purportedly offering it reverence.  Liturgical and religious ceremony was parodied.  It shared certain characteristics with the Roman Saturnalia.  We in the U.S. similarly elect some absurd personage as president and ape the ceremonies of a democracy or republic.  Here, though, we don't laugh at the Feast.  Instead, or so I suspect, we're laughed at by the rest of the world.

What a spectacle we must make on the world stage.  I have a vague recollection of claims of American exceptionalism; the belief that we were favored in our form of government, our republic, our institutions, which allowed for the expression of the "will of the people" but protected the voice of the minority, and the peaceful transfer of power, the rule of law, etc., and our pride in our good fortune in being so enlightened.  Now we seem to be no more fortunate and no greater in this respect than most other nations.  No doubt there are those who enjoy how America, the (High and) Mighty, has fallen.  

Ostensibly at least, our politics, though driven in most cases by the pursuit and use of money uber alles, has managed to honor the election process.  There have been very few cases where the process has been subject to challenge, and claims of fraud were seldom made.  Those who lose have acknowledged losing more or less gracefully.  Things have changed, though.  Now we have those who are against votes and voting itself if their interests are are not met, and if they fail to retain their positions due to the election process.  Most of all depressing is the fact that a large portion of the electorate isn't disturbed by this and even joins in the rejection of votes and of the right to vote.  

Why has a change of this magnitude taken place?  I've pondered the use or misuse of the Internet before and have worried about its negative impact, and hate to sound like the proverbial broken record, but I think that it provides a means by which the ignorant, the misinformed, the authoritarian, the hateful, the bigoted--in short, those who are unwilling to accept anything they don't understand or perceive to be contrary to themselves and their interests, whether or not it is achieved legally or is not illegal--may communicate and coordinate, may plan, may indoctrinate, may foster discontent and act on it.  In a world in which any person may communicate anything without real effort and find those who share their feelings and support them, and where verification and careful, critical thought is discouraged, many dangerous people will thrive and their ranks will swell.  Manipulation of thought and feelings will be easy.  It's certain that manipulation is taking place.

Curiously, though communication of information and opinion is easy and widespread, ignorance and misunderstanding increases as a consequence.  Contrary information and opinion is available, but one won't become aware of it unless it's sought out.  It can be ignored.  One need not learn anything unless there is a desire to learn.  There is no desire to learn, however, where there is no reason to and prejudice and ignorance is encouraged by a host of others of like minds (if that word can be used) who reinforce accepted views.

Be careful out there.  Zombies of a kind actually do exist and thrive.  They don't eat brains, perhaps, but they don't think they need them, nor do they want to use them.

Damnatio Memoriae

The ancient Romans had a practice called Damnatio Memoriae, roughly translatable as the condemnation of memory.  It was a decree issued by the Senate ordering that all likenesses of a person, all references to the person made on monuments, paintings, mosaics, inscriptions and, it was to be preferred, on other records be erased.  It was an effort to obliterate a person from recorded memory; official memory in any case.  Such a decree was issued as to Tiberius' all-purpose stand-in Sejanus, when he finally ran afoul of the morose old emperor.


You'll see an example of the effect of the decree above.  That's a portrait of the Emperor Septimius Severus and his family, including his wife, the Augusta, Julia Domna and their son Caracalla, himself later emperor, most famous probably for his Baths.  You might notice the large dark spot under Julia's face.  There used to be another face there, that of their son Geta.  For a brief time, Caracalla and Geta ruled together after their father's death.  That didn't turn out well for Geta.  His brother had him murdered, and then as sole Augustus convinced the Senate to issue a decree of Damnatio Memoriae to remove him from history as he had been removed from this Earth.

Of course, if the intent of the decree was to erase someone from memory, or history, it didn't work in the case of either Sejanus or Geta.  We know well enough who they were.  It's likely, therefore, that the intent was not to do so but to instead deprive them and their memory of all public honor and esteem.  Such things were important to the Romans, and to the Greeks as well and Hellenistic and Greco-Roman society.  The notion of the afterlife wasn't particularly alluring or vivid to the ancients.  One's immortality was assured by undying glory and monuments to fame.

The Romans were not the only people who engaged in this practice.  Most recently the Soviets tried something along these lines.  Stalin did his best to eliminate some of those who were his rivals, real or imagined, from the history of the Russian Revolution.   An effort was made to do the same with him, in a minor way, as to the history of the Soviet Union.  When one has control of the methods by which reputations are made or unmade, and where one is an autocrat, there must be a certain
satisfaction in doing this to enemies, or it may be that it is advantageous in various respects.

What seems to have been an impossible task even in ancient times is certainly impossible now, as we leave our marks everywhere in photographs, records electronic and otherwise, on the Web, etc. nearly ad infinitum--whether we do so voluntarily or at the behest of someone else.  Or so one would think.  Might it actually be easier now than before, at least if the idea is to hide someone from those who lack the knowledge to determine when a person's name has been deleted from the Internet or electronic records  and how to receive that information?  Now that we live online, the ability to control what is or is not online takes on a particular importance.  What is or is not online may be all or most of what we know or can learn, or what we want to know, perhaps very soon.

If, though, we can't "erase" someone from history, can we insert someone, or some unreal someone, into it, especially now?  There are instances where people have believed in the existence of a fictional, fabricated person in the past, but perhaps it may be easier now to create an identity or at least a more detailed, ubiquitous person that we could in the past.  Human, face-to-face contact is becoming increasingly less important, less necessary.  We can fake personality and likeness with remarkable success these days.

Ah, the disturbing wonder of these times.  What a time to be alive.