Striving for Cultural Mediocrity.
Jan. 17th, 2010 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serynAs an aside to another conversation--- largely irrelevant so not cited-- I think one of the largest problems with our current culture is the mismatch between what people believe is a unique experience.
Think of the phrase, "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone." Except it's not true. Humor isn't very universal. Even among peoples who share a language... there's a line in the movie Bottle Shock where Alan Rickman's character says, "You don't like me because you think I'm an arsehole, but I'm not. I'm British." Most Americans don't think the British have humor because they see Stephen Fry as a dramatic actor.
Now remember how it felt to be a teenager. No one else had ever had a bad breakup like yours. No one else had ever lost a pet like yours. No one else has ever been misunderstood like you are. Everything bad that happens to you hurts so much that it must be unique. And yet... when someone dies we send sympathy cards because we're all expected to have personal experience from which to sympathize. I don't think there are people who haven't had a bad breakup or lost someone special... and I seriously suspect that everyone is still misunderstood, it's just that once you get to be an adult you're not expected to be a clone of everyone else and differences are tolerated.
We act like tragedy is unique, but it's not. That's why so much literature has its basis in tragedy. It's universal. Everyone gets it. It's easy to make an emotional connection with a remote reader if you kill off a beloved character. A durable emotional connection over time is what makes something "literature".
No one even tries to have a sustainable emotional connection via joy. So the height of our literary culture settles for mediocrity.
Think of the phrase, "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone." Except it's not true. Humor isn't very universal. Even among peoples who share a language... there's a line in the movie Bottle Shock where Alan Rickman's character says, "You don't like me because you think I'm an arsehole, but I'm not. I'm British." Most Americans don't think the British have humor because they see Stephen Fry as a dramatic actor.
Now remember how it felt to be a teenager. No one else had ever had a bad breakup like yours. No one else had ever lost a pet like yours. No one else has ever been misunderstood like you are. Everything bad that happens to you hurts so much that it must be unique. And yet... when someone dies we send sympathy cards because we're all expected to have personal experience from which to sympathize. I don't think there are people who haven't had a bad breakup or lost someone special... and I seriously suspect that everyone is still misunderstood, it's just that once you get to be an adult you're not expected to be a clone of everyone else and differences are tolerated.
We act like tragedy is unique, but it's not. That's why so much literature has its basis in tragedy. It's universal. Everyone gets it. It's easy to make an emotional connection with a remote reader if you kill off a beloved character. A durable emotional connection over time is what makes something "literature".
No one even tries to have a sustainable emotional connection via joy. So the height of our literary culture settles for mediocrity.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 08:08 am (UTC)And grownups kept telling me that when I was a grownup, it wouldn't be so terrible. It turns out that when you're a grownup, it's not so terrible because you still have everyday things you have to do. No matter how bad your heart hurts, you have to get up, shower, feed yourself, do the things that only you can do. Those things don't make whatever it is any less awful, they just provide times when you don't have to think about it.
Being a grownup doesn't make the awful things any less awful, or make you any less miserable for experiencing them. It just means you know how to go on through the misery.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 09:43 am (UTC)I don't think just because something hurts that it's actually unique. I get the perspective that it sucks so much as to be unbelievable that other people have the same problems.
The other aspect of this that bothers me is the expectation that joys will be common/shared. I have a hard time being happy for someone who is having a baby. It's not like they're planning to kill an older relative to make room for the newcomer, so it's just one more person who will subdivide the remaining resources... so their baby means I'll have less clean air, clean water, food, space, love, happiness... Why shouldn't I be angry at the people having the baby? It's hard to be happy for people getting married too... but I'm just old and cynical now. I'm not happy for people who have new jobs. It inevitably means they move or commute more. I don't have a job, so what makes them so special that they're more deserving than me? (maybe because they've been actively looking, yes yes I know no one is going to find me when I'm at home on the sofa by myself.)
But we have this societal expectation that everyone will share joys and cannot understand grief. It's really bizarre. Almost everyone has lost someone. And almost no one is ever happy for anyone else. Maybe it's that schadenfreude humor Americans have.....