Thomas de Zengoitta has spinned a great essay, full of examples and sweeping generalisations to show that we are increasingly becoming numb and our culture is to blame. He attacks a wide variety of aspects of culture and fast pace of life is one of them. There is no question that our lives are speeding up but it does not cause us to become numb. Rather, our fast paced lives are a reflection of how people are increasingly emotionally, intellectually and socially connected to the community at large.
Whether finitude has become a reality in our culture and cause of our 'numbness' is another matter but one thing in our lives is finite. Time. We want to maximize our time and spend it to create happiness. The need to learn more, earn more, help more and do more is not a result of numbing minds but of active minds, wanting to contribute to the betterhood of themselves and others. However, it seems Mr.Zengoitta prefers to keep his parochial view that all of us are stressed humans living an inanimate life, in robotic fashion.
Stress. Stress never was absent from human lives but its manifestations have changed over the years. Cavemen were stressed by the need to find food and survive while today, we can just step into a restaurant or cafeteria to satisfy our hunger pangs. Today, we worry about employment, education in order to pay for our bills. Cavemen never had to worry about securing jobs and earning salaries. But, would we prefer to be under the stress of finding food or finding jobs ? Upon closer inspection, Mr. Zengoitta's claim that stress has increased and resulted in numbing modern culture seems suspect. Modernity is a liberator not a suppressor of our minds.
Improvements in technology have enabled man to create machines which has increased productivity throughout our lives. No longer do we need to queue up at the local grocer's shop to pick up our supplies, we can get them online and delivered to our doorstep. It means we have more time to pursue our interests, rather than spend them inefficiently on routines. With more time on their hands, people are taking holidays and working in international missions to help the needy. Without the power of new media, we will be left unable to communicate, organize and react to events that surround us. For example, when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and Louisiana, millions of dollars and aid poured in from throughout the world as people watched the gruesome tragedy in their television sets. If we are all numbed by the new media and culture, shouldn't there have been no response to this crisis ?
In conclusion, Mr.Zengoitta's 'numbing theory' makes a convincing read on the surface level. It shows that we can blame our culture for our shortcomings because culture is the one that made us numb. He even goes on to say that this is a diagnosis and there is no solution. Better still, we all can continue to wallow in the myth that culture numbed us and we are powerless to cure of our numbness. The truth cannot be further away. Our modern culture provides many avenues to keep us active and its every individual choice in this free and open society whether he/she wants to live a life of insulation or active engagement ?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
These are very smart points, and I think you are right on target when you suggest that the article seems to enable a sort of smug pessimism and lack of responsibility on the part of people who would like to criticize this society and ignore what has gone RIGHT here. However, the notion of a "community at large" that modern American society is connected to seems rather vague and nebulous. Certainly there is a global network that allows for the consumption of goods across vast distances, and this also allows for communication, and philanthropy. And many people are now free to pursue there own "interests" whether those are playing video games or doing charity work. But I wonder, if these things are rendered equivalent, if that does not suggest that the impulse to "do good" has now become another recreational urge, and that it no longer resides in us as a fundamental human quality. In other words, does this society de-humanize us even as if expands the capacity to do good deeds?
Post a Comment