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Saturday, March 05, 2011

The Death of the Real

As the Entertainment Media become more powerful and refined, the Virtual Reality that they show us will become more more and more emotionally satisfying to the point where they will be preferable to real engagement with the world.
Especially after the Great Impoverishment through which we all are going, the Virtual, the Scripted, the Fantastic will be the major source of pleasure and joy.

Example: we have always derived pleasure from the stories of the saints, the sidis, the monks and holy men. We have always marveled at miracles and divine intervention. We ourselves do not strive for spiritual perfection: we stand on the side and look at icons or holy cards or listen to stories.
This came about as we allowed churches to establish themselves as middle-men between ourselves and the Holy. In this example, the established churches take on the role of the Spiritual Media companies and dispense their version of what is real; we no longer quest for God; we have no vision quests anymore.

Thus, the history of the Modern is the collapse of  the Vision of Nikos Kazantzakis: a Zorba who embraces and lives in the world. If you read Report To Greco by Kazantzakis - even just one page! - you will taste an exotic view which threatens your safe dowdiness.
Right now, the only thing which jolts us is cable TV violence, for it is in our front room and more "real" than the real violence. Nothing is news unless the News says it is.

Just as the Holy has fallen away from us, so will the rest of Reality.

My daughter, revolt against this Insipid World! 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Amen to all of this, my friend.