I've noticed more social commentary in music and books lately, and I'm wondering if anyone else has examples of songs or books they've read that are run through with a bleak outlook on the future, and maybe especially works that acknowledge that, but then disregard it again, like there's nothing to be done.
I first started thinking on this a month or more ago, when I noticed that a dance track by an old favourite has a sort of R-rated bubblegum chorus but in between was some serious unhappiness about a meaning-stripped society. Then I just finished reading The Echo Maker by Richard Powers, which is stuffed with (dis)illusioned, desperate characters. Pardon my analysis, because it's no doubt way off the mark, but I'll try to give a rundown anyway.
Throughout the story is the backdrop of the sandhill crane migration, particularly the part of it that takes place on the Platte River in Nebraska, where the characters live. A young man is in a mysterious car accident and ends up brain damaged. He exhibits the symptoms of more than one condition, but the most prominent is Capgras delusion. Specifically, he believes his sister has been replaced by a nearly identical impostor. Over time, his condition deteriorates and he believes that his whole environment is a fraud. Other characters include a neuroscientist who is suffering from his own breakdown and uncertainty about himself and his past, an extreme "environmentalist" (although I'm personally unhappy to use a word that's become so tainted, this is what the mainstream would label him), a nurse's aid who seems too saintly to be true and has already passed through her own disillusionment, a soldier on his way to war and a developer who may or may not be fooling himself about his good intentions for the local ecosystem. The parting idea seems to be that we're all, as a society, suffering from something like Capgras. I'm not sure what that really means, except to say simply that society has gone astray, that we can't recognize reality, that as a group we're less intelligent than we would be on our own. I believe the phrase "mass hypnosis" is used at one point.
I find it interesting that I happened to read this book at this time. I thought it would have some "nature" overtones, but nothing quite like this blatant societal commentary. I was recently commenting to a friend that sometimes I feel like some mad conspiracy theorist, just like the brain damaged character in the book, because even though many people share my world view, and scientific evidence supports it - and here I'm talking about not just climate change, but also resource depletion and the perfect storm of problems that seems just around the corner - not a lot of people come out and say just how bad it is, and others seem to know, but they just keep doing the same thing day after day, as if it doesn't matter. Then this morning I opened my email and found a link to a new post from Climate Change Denial. The post talks about how organizations variously concerned about alleviating human suffering don't seem to be on board about climate change. That in itself relates to the mass hypnosis in its own way, but in the body of the post I noted this paragraph:
In doing this they are reflecting a wider social denial strategy, noted in several academic studies. The large majority of people, whilst noting that climate change is a serious issue, will admit to never talking about it in their daily life. They are managing the problem by actively excluding it from what sociologists call their ‘norms of attention’. Ironically this strategy mimics a common social response to human rights abuses: when asked, people admit that they heard the screams in the night or they noticed that people had disappeared, but, through a socially negotiated compact, they never discussed what they know to be happening with each other.
I don't think this "large majority" really gets it yet. It is true that thinking on all the horrific
things going on in the world, wrong with our civilization, can be overwhelming. I think about climate change and those other "perfect storm" issues everyday, what it means, what can be done, how to prepare, is it possible to prepare? Unlike human rights abuses, there is no doubt in my mind that eventually, inevitably, these things will be impossible for me and mine to ignore, and then maybe too, it will be just as impossible to ignore human rights abuses.On a happier note, it's spring. I love this time of year because everyday the landscape looks different. How fast the snow melts really brings home how powerful the sun really is. It's amazing when you can stand outside in dark coloured clothing and the temperature is below freezing, but with the sun shining on you it feels warm as summer. Sphere: Related Content
