/lit/ - Literature

>Underneath my discussion of the symbol and the tool, of the development of the machine arts and the dangers of the reproductive process when uncontrolled, likewise underneath my discussion of the symbol and function in architecture, was an effort to arrive at some understanding of a crucial question for our time: Why has our inner life become so impoverished and empty, and why has our outer life become so exorbitant, and in its subjective satisfactions even more empty? Why have we become technological gods and moral devils, scientific supermen and esthetic idiots—idiots, that is, primarily in the Greek sense of being wholly private persons, incapable of communicating with each other or understanding each other? I put these questions in the most extreme form possible, for the sake of clarity, trusting that you will supply the shadings that would turn these diagrammatic contrasts into workable truths, giving due weight to all the symptoms of health, integrity, vitality, creativeness that are still visible in our society.

>The conditions I have been trying to fathom in our own time are, you must note, just the reverse of the conditions in which art and technics originally took form in human society. For in the beginning, men worshiped the symbol as a magical power; whether as word or as image it was the very core of their humanness, the condition for their emergence beyond a purely instinctual animal intelligence. For a long period, the symbol made men arrogant, and they undervalued the tool and the process it furthered. But today just the opposite condition prevails. We are full of humble misgivings or withering cynicism about the symbol. Thanks to the gorging abundance of our reproductive devices, we deface the symbol and debase it, treating it contemptuously, negligently, only half-believing that its employment makes any difference. By contrast, we overvalue the technical instrument: the machine has become our main source of magic, and it has given us a false sense of possessing godlike powers. An age that has devaluated all its symbols has turned the machine itself into a universal symbol: a god to be worshiped. Under these conditions, neither art nor technics is in a healthy state.

-- LM/AaT

confucius talks about 'the rectification of names.' i think that's what's going to happen, in a sense. the long effect of debasing all symbolic currencies will lead to a kind of correction - and it's either a machine society of automation (BTC) or one in which states forcibly re-standardize the weights and measures (social credit). either way tho, it happens.

also mumford > rand. maybe i can see rand's point here: well, the problem is, The Herd! we need more rugged supermen, not fewer! fuck you guys! but it's such reaction. it's blaming the symptom. it's blaming the sufferers for the disease, and doubling down on contempt for lack of inability to see how far deep the problem goes.

maybe all utopia is, at some point, bailout and a loss of faith.

INTJ Commander reporting