Fear of The Dark Night
[i]In an obscure night
Fevered with love's anxiety
(O hapless, happy plight!)
I went, none seeing me
Forth from my house, where all things quiet be[/i]
~ St. John of the Cross
Just read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and it got me thinking about the current state of society, specifically, how much we're inclined to seek pleasure, distraction, and avoid pain. It seems to me that our culture is more into short-term feeling-good than long-term well-being, and there's a price to be paid for that preference.
For those unfamiliar with the book, Fahrenheit 451 is about a dystopian future where a fireman who, through no fault of his own, experiences a dark night of the soul, and practically everyone else in his society avoids the dark night at all costs. The avoidance eventually leads to war and the destruction of this society.
The book burning was not forced on society by some tyrannical government. It occurred naturally, according to the story. Quality thought challenged and disturbed people, and taking the time to think about things made people depressed, so these things were abandoned and eventually banned.
Yesterday I was waiting in a checkout line and noticed the four people in front of me all had their heads down locked into their phones.
Fevered with love's anxiety
(O hapless, happy plight!)
I went, none seeing me
Forth from my house, where all things quiet be[/i]
~ St. John of the Cross
Just read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and it got me thinking about the current state of society, specifically, how much we're inclined to seek pleasure, distraction, and avoid pain. It seems to me that our culture is more into short-term feeling-good than long-term well-being, and there's a price to be paid for that preference.
For those unfamiliar with the book, Fahrenheit 451 is about a dystopian future where a fireman who, through no fault of his own, experiences a dark night of the soul, and practically everyone else in his society avoids the dark night at all costs. The avoidance eventually leads to war and the destruction of this society.
The book burning was not forced on society by some tyrannical government. It occurred naturally, according to the story. Quality thought challenged and disturbed people, and taking the time to think about things made people depressed, so these things were abandoned and eventually banned.
Yesterday I was waiting in a checkout line and noticed the four people in front of me all had their heads down locked into their phones.
Comments (7)
That's called materialism. Material Girl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p-lDYPR2P8
Edit: An exaggerated version of media/illusion as powerful distraction/anesthetic comes from the film/poem of Aniara. There is an AI on the ship whose special function is to comfort the passengers by projecting the features/illusions of earth that have disappeared due to ecological disaster. The film has a great dramatic event of losing the Mima because of the burden of its empathy with the traumatized crowd.
[quote=Excerpt of translation of Aniara, original poem by Harry Martinson]For frequentlv the world that Mima shows us
blots out the world remembered and abandoned.
If not, the mima never would have drawn us
and not been worshipped as a holv being,
and no ecstatic women would have stroked
in trembling bliss the dais of the deity.[/quote]
[quote=Robert Sapolsky]An emptiness comes from this combination of over-the-top nonnatural resources of reward and the inevitability of habituation; this is because unnaturally strong explosions of the synthetic experience and sensation and pleasure evoke unnaturally strong degrees of habituation. This has two consequences. First, soon we barely notice the fleeting whispers of pleasure caused by the leaves in autumn, or by the lingering glance of the right person, or by the promise of reward following a difficult, worthy task. And the other consequence is that we eventually habituate to even those artificial deluges of intensity. If we were designed by engineers, as we consumed more, we'd desire less. But our frequent human tragedy is that the more we consume, the hungrier we get. More and faster and stronger. What was an unexpected pleasure yesterday is what we feel entitled to today, and what won't be enough tomorrow.[/quote]
Compare a passage from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality.
[quote=Rousseau]Since these conveniences by becoming habitual had almost entirely ceased to be enjoyable, and at the same time degenerated into true needs, it became much more cruel to be deprived of them than to possess them was sweet, and men were unhappy to lose them without being happy to possess them.[/quote]