spectacle

How do you paint darkness? It’s very rarely pure black. Usually there are shades underneath, green or blue or red. 
I’ve been reading East of Eden and Steinbeck sprinkles in his praises of individualism here and there, as if speaking directly to the reader. It seems like something he refused to let go of through the entirety of his life. 
The belief that the individual is what matters above all, that he must be free to explore every part of himself is juvenile and self indulgent. Of course we should be free to explore what is lurking underneath our very own surfaces but the emphasis put on the expression of this exploration tends to come full circle to a fascist output. 
Ultimately it doesn’t matter — we are more than our self, we have a duty to go beyond the individual and to save each other. There’s simply no other option. 

We are at the end of culture. Almost nothing of worth is being produced. I can’t watch a new movie or tv show without feeling psychically terrorized. Everything produced is a remake or some kind of wink/nod to an ironic joke and the end result is disingenuous and vulgar. I would even venture to say that this neverending mill of remaking xyz — of constructing the replacement of a stripped reference point with a degree of removal, creates something that is not much more than an aesthetic — if even that. 
An aesthetic without substance is anti-matter. It is non-art. It is vacuous. 
It’s hard to feel anything when what is being offered as entertainment is a product to be consumed and is made on a digital conveyor belt and then spat out algorithmically. 
There is no artistic labor. There is no skill. 
All it does is promote some kind of gluttonous disposition that erodes the spirit. 
Of course, this isn’t limited to television or visual media. This is everywhere. It is cultural war and terrorism. It is serving a specific agenda and is evidence of the pervasive nature of fascist ideology — we are flooded with stimuli that is incoherent and self-serving, self-referential and meaningless. 
 
In the wake of people openly and shamelessly admitting to crying over a Super Bowl halftime show, I feel compelled to understand what it is that is so particularly American: simulating emotional responses to things that are so obviously prompted by a manufactured script. 
“Let people enjoy things” is the pacifier of this generation. The mind numbing need to avert your gaze is exactly why we are all so fractured and atomized. It doesn’t matter who we are individually if we are not moved to connect to one another on a macroscopic level. If we are required to free each other, it won’t happen when most of the population is so throughly plugged into spectacle that they can’t bear to be ripped away from it. 

I can’t place us because we’re in some post-hell at the end of various world events and it’s frightening. But it’s the truth. The truth is always better to know even if it is dark and ugly and terrifying. Building an illusory existence on a false foundation is more terrifying to me, and ultimately unforgivable. Look.