From Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being":
Franz shook his head. "When a society is rich, its people don't need to work with their hands; they can devote themselves to activities of the spirit. We have more and more universities and more and more students. If students are going to earn degrees, they've got to come up with dissertation topics. And since dissertations can be written about anything under the sun, the number of topics is infinite. Sheets of paper covered with words pile up in archives sadder than cemeteries, because no one ever visits them, not even on All Souls' Day. Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity. That's why one banned book in your former country means infinitely more than the billions of words spewed out by universities."
Where is relevance? Culture countered by counter culture...but in a decade or two, the counter culture becomes mainstream. Hippies are a harmless, amusing relic of the past, and Rent is now a major motion picture. How do we know what is new, what is cutting edge, what is 'not allowed'? Why, of course, because it dresses in certain clothes, listens to certain music, and follows the pre-prescribed 'lifestyle'. To survive outside the box, you must find another box or suffocate in the emptiness of space. Where is the anti-box of the 2008? Freedom of speech, college campuses, youtube, and the anti-box grows so wide that it's hard to tell the two apart. Artistically, intellectually-when nothing shocks, when nothing is banned, what can be new? And, more importantly, what can be relevant?
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6 comments:
Now this is worth reading! I have always been struck by just how much the "Left" is defined by the "Right" - how "Cool" is just arrogance turned inside out - how the "freedom" of any one individual - when taken to an extreme - can end up oppressing everyone else. I've often thought that one of the definitions of psychosis is just a total lack of boundries - another .... is total inhibition...(somehow this is all related to the passage!)
Let me clarify, Brian, lest I give the wrong impression. Your blog is ALWAYS "worth reading". I was just refering to the passage!
One of the things your father said to me after you left this week was how nice it was to see you challenging your intellect with the courses you are taking, the books you are reading and all the other things you are doing. I have to say I agree. Although I resent being considered a harmless, amusing relic of the past!
My first reaction was that I should post the Kundera quote on the web site for our public health doctoral students... then reconsidered since we want to encourage them ;-) Maybe the attractiveness of religious fundamentalism is the new "counter" culture, since when everything is acceptable the only rejection of the culture is in the more restrictive direction.
Hmmmh.....what a depressing thought. I think it sounds plausible thought.....
brydawg,
too bad kundera is not an eastern mystic... he has all the right words, and even the flavors, but his text does not lend his readers the experience of wisdom. I think he comes awfully close though..
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