Thank you for this. This is a phenomenal framing of the death of meaning.
This also has scratched an itch that has been bothering me…
Because I would say my biggest frustration with what you specifically described is how it bled through the common landscape of ideas. Through the whole social fabric.
It’s almost an infection in all forms of communication now.
It’s not just in ads, but journalism and even fiction or how art only seems to be presented as only viable as submissive to commerce and act merely as entertaiment or be condemned to oblivion where close to none can find it.
I’ll add a more precise example to what I’m trying to communicate…
There has been a strangely growing number of “eating the rich” pieces in all forms of media and art this decade.
Fiction especially seems to have escalated the rate in both literary and cinematic explorations. But it is clear that the current cultural landscape wants mere faint acknowledgement to act as consequence. Awareness is the only permitted punishment. Because then it has to forcefully act as the only form of absolution available.
So the invitation to mockery and the cartoonish portrails of the wealthy triggering the intended and controlled schadenfreude response is what is “sanctioned” for publishment or distribution. Because it addresses the existence of a problem but with enough distance from reality that it remains divorced of real world consequences. So bring on projects where the elite are just clowns or murdered in silly ways in silly thrillers and horror flicks but leave out of focus or frame, the consequences of their actions, or at least the more concrete and real forms of how real lives are affected by them. But especially and essentially leave out the possible and tangible ways in which the problems of the system that benefit them and negatively impact others can be spotted or dealt with.
There are projects who do not fit this description, but they don’t get much publicity, wide promotions or wide distributions in the end. Even when they get acclaimed runs in festivals or good critical reception. The “Machine” doesn’t get behind them.
Which is obvious in the end, after all, the publishers and heads of studios do belong much more to that faction in the class war. But if they play it well, they make it seem brave to finance these carefully selected projects to “the other side”, but just as long as these act as “casual roasts” of their peers, and not indictments that call for actual consequences. As it would be a call on themselves to actually change, or for them to also face consequences. In reality. And not just in just a performative plane.
So… “We may acknowledge the problem, just as long adressing that said problem is not permitted or at least inaccessible to most” becomes the approved and sanctioned approach.
Also to add another tangent to the death of meaning in the post-truth world… it is not a coincidence that in the current social paradigm of alternative facts and the subsequent alternative realities that people inhabit, the only form of universal concensus seems to be that the world as we know it is coming to an end.
And the death of meaning is an inevitable contributor to that conclusion, regardless of whom or from where one observes the world now. As it is an unsustainable reality from all angles.
The great tragedy is that onto itself the end of the world as we know it is not necessarily a terrible ordeal if people were allowed to perceive other ways of existing.
But as it stands, bleakness seems the only outcome as the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy running on a feedback loop of self-preservation.
Anyway… I hope I made enough sense in my rant in comparison to your sharply written and succinct comment. Again, I thank you for your words, even in your other comments in this thread.
I’m going to try and follow up on your writing.
We all need more people with your level of insight. And not in just “times like these”. But always.
So I wish you the best and hope to find more of your writing shared around along the way.
Thank you for this. This is a phenomenal framing of the death of meaning.
This also has scratched an itch that has been bothering me…
Because I would say my biggest frustration with what you specifically described is how it bled through the common landscape of ideas. Through the whole social fabric.
It’s almost an infection in all forms of communication now.
It’s not just in ads, but journalism and even fiction or how art only seems to be presented as only viable as submissive to commerce and act merely as entertaiment or be condemned to oblivion where close to none can find it.
I’ll add a more precise example to what I’m trying to communicate…
There has been a strangely growing number of “eating the rich” pieces in all forms of media and art this decade.
Fiction especially seems to have escalated the rate in both literary and cinematic explorations. But it is clear that the current cultural landscape wants mere faint acknowledgement to act as consequence. Awareness is the only permitted punishment. Because then it has to forcefully act as the only form of absolution available.
So the invitation to mockery and the cartoonish portrails of the wealthy triggering the intended and controlled schadenfreude response is what is “sanctioned” for publishment or distribution. Because it addresses the existence of a problem but with enough distance from reality that it remains divorced of real world consequences. So bring on projects where the elite are just clowns or murdered in silly ways in silly thrillers and horror flicks but leave out of focus or frame, the consequences of their actions, or at least the more concrete and real forms of how real lives are affected by them. But especially and essentially leave out the possible and tangible ways in which the problems of the system that benefit them and negatively impact others can be spotted or dealt with.
There are projects who do not fit this description, but they don’t get much publicity, wide promotions or wide distributions in the end. Even when they get acclaimed runs in festivals or good critical reception. The “Machine” doesn’t get behind them.
Which is obvious in the end, after all, the publishers and heads of studios do belong much more to that faction in the class war. But if they play it well, they make it seem brave to finance these carefully selected projects to “the other side”, but just as long as these act as “casual roasts” of their peers, and not indictments that call for actual consequences. As it would be a call on themselves to actually change, or for them to also face consequences. In reality. And not just in just a performative plane.
So… “We may acknowledge the problem, just as long adressing that said problem is not permitted or at least inaccessible to most” becomes the approved and sanctioned approach.
Also to add another tangent to the death of meaning in the post-truth world… it is not a coincidence that in the current social paradigm of alternative facts and the subsequent alternative realities that people inhabit, the only form of universal concensus seems to be that the world as we know it is coming to an end.
And the death of meaning is an inevitable contributor to that conclusion, regardless of whom or from where one observes the world now. As it is an unsustainable reality from all angles.
The great tragedy is that onto itself the end of the world as we know it is not necessarily a terrible ordeal if people were allowed to perceive other ways of existing.
But as it stands, bleakness seems the only outcome as the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy running on a feedback loop of self-preservation.
Anyway… I hope I made enough sense in my rant in comparison to your sharply written and succinct comment. Again, I thank you for your words, even in your other comments in this thread.
I’m going to try and follow up on your writing.
We all need more people with your level of insight. And not in just “times like these”. But always.
So I wish you the best and hope to find more of your writing shared around along the way.
Cheers.