In this new age of individualism, it seems no longer possible (or desirable) to give up self to a greater cause. Is this because greater cause IS now self?
Initially I’d agree that the rise in awareness of the individual has done much good in our society. It has given us human rights and protection for the vulnerable for example. But when driven solely by individualism, it is also easy to retreat into our own private worlds, becoming the centre of our own universe, often thoughtlessly, carelessly at the expense of others.
Eliza, the psychotherapist computer built in the 80’s (before A.I.) can shed some light on this for us. Eliza, as a preprogrammed, non thinking machine didn’t understand a single word that was being typed into her by the “patient” but everyone who tried Eliza became engrossed. Eliza demonstrated that, in an age of individualism, what made people feel secure was having themselves reflected back to them, just like a mirror.
Powerful algorithms today, collecting vast amounts of our personal online behavioural data now organise the world that is centred around that person, the individual. And in an age of anxious individualism, this is reassuring. Just like the scenario with Eliza this can become, among other things, a safe bubble that protects us, isolates us even, from the complexities of the world outside.
When we’re anxious, we have a need to proactively seek out information as an explanation of what’s going on. But at the same time research shows when we are anxious we also experience a paradoxical inability to process any form of complexity, which means that we are even more susceptible to bad information. Found in abundance in both news and social media, this frequently takes the form of simplified solutions at best to misleading or false information and outright conspiracy theories at it’s most damaging worst.
In his documentary “Bitter Lake”, Adam Curtiss points out that over the last seventy or eighty years human society has developed a tendency to over simplify our increasingly complex and confusing world in order for us to cope with it, emotionally and mentally. The result is that social reality is now becoming more and more untethered from physical reality. The adoption of “alternative facts” (and I quote that phrase from a former US presidential adviser to Donald Trump) to govern our actions is yet another step removed from the real world.
Since I wrote this blog just under a fortnight ago, Vladimir Putin has almost unilaterally engaged in a war on Ukraine and threatens anyone who intervenes with a potentially nuclear retaliation. Two weeks ago he said “there is no plan to invade Ukraine”. Two days ago he said “the war is going to plan”. Vladimir Putin is the absolute centre of his own universe and therefore not answerable to anyone else. Rather than being the winner, it may yet transpire that the loser in his case may well be…self.
A bit about the new works.
“Peace, Perfect Peace” (above image) harks back to what I have said in the past about peace being not just an absence of conflict, but a complete physical, mental and emotional well-being. But it is a fragile state of being. Written into this image are the words “…forever balanced on the brink…” somewhat prophetic given the current war in Europe.
“Between now and the next” (left) relates very much to what I’ve been writing about. It’s the need to find solutions coupled with the compulsion to simplify everything in order to cope. Hence the rise of antagonistic conspiracy theories and fake news.
“A Blinding Rush of Wings” (left) continues with these concerns. Graffitied on the back wall are the words order and chaos.
