Welcome to issue 13...
If
we were to rely solely upon main-stream mass media to come to grips with world
issues today, its focus on (a) politics, (b) material gain, (c) power, (d)
terrorism - apparently its favourite topic - and finally, upon whatever
dysphoria appears fashionable, we could conclude that these are topics that
human beings are most interested in. The words culture and art
appear to be ancient history, as mass media prefer to take sides in a
rumpus-room like scenario of adult irrationality and hypocrisy; the net effect
is that what was "culture" has come to be confused with the "art" that
is a successful grab for power, while what was "art" has come to be confused
with the "culture" that is nationalist expansionism by any means.
But is the media to blame, or are we a little too interested in the
images favoured by the media which reveal a beastly feast; one of
glorifying the survival of the psyche of selfish individualism.
Furthermore do our present masters, drawing new lines between good
and evil, distort real values in favour of mediocre gains? Has the
moral integrity of the average world citizen been unveiled by the
popularity of the media's version of what is progress?
How much hard-earned human knowledge and sage experience are we to
sacrifice in the name of evolution and the survival of human
greed?
We seem to be in a period of global transition between the still
undefined past and the unknowable future, unknowable because we
devote far too little of our time upon understanding humanity's
self-destructive weaknesses and universally advantageous talents
through the study of our past. At this uncertain stage how
important is and what role does culture play in the midst of all
this vicious drive for advancement; a role so charmless and
downright boring that it compromises itself. Has a "greed is
good" culture of the '80s apparently passed the test of time?
Apparently
"greed is good" is no longer a new phenomenon subject to
scrutiny, but a new meaningless way of being, one whose basic
value is no values at all. For those few able to recognize the new
cultural trend as vicious - even if they cannot specifically
foretell its bad effects upon our future, and even if, as the few,
they cannot stabilize this massive drive to the unknown - hope
can still be derived from trying to fathom the profundity and
relevance of Socrates' bemusement as the spendthrift habits of
the popular:
"Oh
how many things are there that I do not need",
said he when observing the buying up profusion of useless luxury, "των πολλών", and
other gimmicky must-have products at the fair. If Socrates had
cause to say this, all the way back-when, and to hope for change,
and back-then survived until now, then the probability is that the
now will also survive, and many of us along with it, and perhaps
also the hope of the few for a cosmopolitan change to the common
good.
Iakovos Garivaldis
