What's Wrong with Western Culture?

What’s wrong with Western culture? We try to systematize and explain too much. We use too many words to express our ideas and feelings, and we have lost what the Chinese American writer Lin Yutang calls “humanized thinking.” We spend too much effort trying to categorize and classify ideas, and we have lost sight of the integrated wholeness of life. We have lost the spirit of being reasonable, and those who spend time arguing a point, which is what most of our news and social commentators do in the media, are wasting their efforts trying to prove who is right and who is wrong. To hell with trying to prove rightness and wrongness. Better to have compassion for human suffering then try to explain why suffering happens with pure logic. Pure logic is devoid of compassion, and those who are logicians have forgotten how to be generous of spirit. Descartes declared “I think therefore I am,” and Walt Whitman said, “I am sufficient as I am.” I prefer Whitman’s belief because it is more human. And like Whitman, our culture needs to be less concerned with correctness – political or otherwise – and more willing to accept human diversity and to look with humility at the mystery and grandeur of life.

America's Cultural Golden Age Is Over

American culture has had its fifty-year Golden Age (1920-1970) and now it is in a rapid decline. Market values have opened the sluice to a flood of mediocrity that  gushes forth with a reckless ferocity. Beauty and truth are being shoved aside by the banal, the freakish and the vulgar. This is nothing less than cultural bullying in the name of progress. There are no longer any criteria for judging what is worthwhile and what isn’t. All that matters is what sells. There are no values for separating good art from trash art, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down.

Each artist creates to his/her own taste, of course, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm all for freedom of expression, and the more people who make art for their own enjoyment, the better. The problem is the spirit in which most mainstream art has been made since the 1970s. It's no longer being done in the spirit of play, purely for spontaneous pleasure, or for serious artistic reasons that satisfy and uplift the soul in its search for truth, but rather Hollywood movies, bestselling books and pop music are churned out in staggering numbers in order to make a buck. Commercialism is the dominant spirit of the art world today. Market values rule. And that's very bad for the culture.

The Last Great American Playwright

The last of America’s truly great playwrights has died. Edward Albee, author of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and A Delicate Balance, among other plays, showed us American society’s false   values and gave us characters who were emotionally damaged by their own inability to face the truth.  Who is writing with such depth and putting such complex ideas on the stage today? No one that I can think of. American theater no produces playwrights of the caliber of Albee, Miller, Williams, and O’Neill. Why? I think the blame lies in the culture, which has lost its hunger for the truth and rewards authors for works of escapism and entertainment. Audiences today no longer want to search for the truth. Contemporary culture has lost its soul and its humanity and younger playwrights of the post-internet age are unwilling to hold a mirror to society and show people how shallow and deluded they truly are.

Absolute Culture

Culture is the gateway to the kingdom of the psyche. It is the delicate but dynamic interplay between past and present, between perceptions and imagination, resulting in a mysterious and mystical concoction we call art. By means of both language and images, by means of storytelling, mythology springs from the cavern of the past into the field of the immediate present, from the unconscious into the conscious mind. Mythology remains dormant in our subconscious minds. Mythology is the very fabric and foundation of our cultural consciousness. And mythology must tell its stories over and over again in various forms. This is vital for our psychological and emotional health. 

Much of the violence in our society today is the result of the psychic blockage that prevents these stories from being told. By psychic blockage I mean that our contemporary culture is not serving its function in a healthy way. Instead of allowing for the flow of this energy from ancient mythology into the present culture, our social conditioning has strangled it at the root and replaced it with sensationalism.

Our so-called contemporary literature, for example, is governed by the spirit of the times rather than by the laws that have historically made these forms immutable. They have been given shape and substance long ago, in the traditions of storytelling which were forged like swords and plowshares that became the tools of our understanding and our means of passing on knowledge from one generation to another. 

Words, images, and sounds are the means by which all artists everywhere and in every era must tell the stories that have taken possession of them. This process is fixed and unchangeable, and, for convenience, we might describe it with the term Absolute Culture.

So much of our culture today is not Absolute Culture. It is temporary. Remove the “con” from the word “contemporary” and what you have left is “temporary.” Absolute Culture is anything but temporary. It is timeless.

Killings by Crazed Fans

The killing of pop singer Christina Grimmie by a crazed fan outside a concert venue in Orlando, Florida in June 2016 is eerily and disturbingly similar to the tragic death of the young woman in my new novel, ELORA, a Goddess. It reminded me of the murder of John Lennon. Why does this type of homicide continue to happen with such frequency in American society? What is it about the culture that pushes the unbalanced to commit such horrific acts of violence? I don't have any answers, but I have a hunch that it has something to do with the overhyped media attention given to these stars. Some of their fans who are on the borderline of sanity become obsessed. Consider the number of movie stars who are stalked. What happens in the mind of a stalker that turns him into a hunter and then a killer? I've tried to address this mental condition in the novel with the portrayal of Willie Switzer.

What Celebrity Culture Has Wrought

That an individual as shallow as Donald Trump could run for president and get so much media attention is the inevitable result of America's obsession with celebrities and the culture of celebrity worship. Trump is the product of that culture. He has been called a "false prophet" by Mexico's past and current presidents. I think that is a very fitting epithet -- his public babble is extremely dangerous, and if taken seriously by the moronic masses it will only lead to destruction on a "huge" scale.

A Few English-American Pop Culture Satires

DOWNTOWN CABBY, the newest import by PBS from the BBC

The shocking drama of a London cab driver's family caught up in the conflicts brought upon them by their sudden and unexpected wealth. When a rider dies of a heart attack in the back of  Bob Crowley's cab, he discovers a lottery ticket in the pocket of the man's suit. He keeps it and the next day learns that he has the winning ticket to a jackpot of ten million pounds. He now becomes one of the most affluent of London's upper crust and buys a mansion in the country. His crabby aging mother and both his wife's annoying parents move in with him and his wife and three daughters. A few years later, when he is diagnosed with a fatal disease and given a few months to live, he must decide how to divide his wealth among his three daughters and tells them that whoever proves she loves him the most will get the largest share of the family fortune. Set in merry old England at the turn of the century.

MISS MARBLES MOVES IN by Aghasta Christie

In this latest BBC production of an Aghasta Christie novel, Miss Jane Marbles is feeling bored in London. There haven’t been any murders in days and she is at loose ends, so she decides to visit her cousin Emily in the country.

She arrives in Manchester on a Friday evening and the next morning the local pastor is found dead in the rectory. Her cousin tells her to leave at once because every time she comes to visit someone is murdered. Offended and frustrated that she won’t be able to stay long enough to solve the crime, Miss Marbles boards the Flying Scotsman for Edinburgh. She arrives at her great nephew’s castle, the Wee Dreadful, and later that day the gardener is found dead in the greenhouse. Her great nephew insists she take the Flying Scotsman home, saying, “I’m so sorry, Auntie Jane, but every time you come to visit someone is found dead on the property. The neighbors are beginning to talk. Have some tea while old Donnie packs your bags.”

On an impulse Miss Marbles decides to disembark from the Flying Scotsman at Sheffield so she can drop in on her old friend, Lizzie. As she is walking up the path to Lizzie’s cottage, she hears someone scream. She rushes to the door and knocks loudly. A woman’s voice from inside the cottage cries out, “Go away, Jane!” Crestfallen, Miss Marbles trudges back to the station and waits overnight for the morning train.

As the train pulls into the station Miss Marbles picks up her suitcase and waits to board, feeling rather downcast at not having solved any of the murders. She gets on and finds a seat. A moment later she thinks she hears the sound of a gunshot, but she can’t be sure. She asks the conductor who is taking tickets if he heard a gunshot. “You must be Jane Marbles,” he replies. “Take your suitcase and come along with me.” Miss Marbles happily follows the conductor thinking, “At last. I have a crime to solve. And this time no one will tell me to leave.” As she is passing between the train cars she is suddenly shoved out the door, making a hard landing on top of her suitcase beside the tracks. Flummoxed, she stands up and brushes herself off. Fortunately she is unharmed, but her pride is terribly wounded. But she is a plucky woman. She grabs her suitcase and begins walking to the nearest police station where she hopes she can be of use, or at least find a ride back to London. 

Charles Dickens on Oprah

NEW YORK TIMES: Mr. Dickens, how do you feel about having two of your books, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, chosen by Oprah for her book club?

CHARLES DICKENS: Who’s Oprah?

NYT: An African American woman with a nationally broadcast television show.

CD: Ah, I see. And this means . . . ?

NYT: That more people will buy and read your books. They will give them as Christmas gifts to people they think will enjoy them. You see, it’s all about marketing and publicity. There are too many books being published today and readers are overwhelmed.

CD: Really? But they should already know about my books because they are classics, shouldn‘t they?

NYT: True, but as Mark Twain said, classics are books everybody talks about but nobody reads.

NYT: Yes, Mark did have a great sense of humor, different from mine but still as great. Well, here’s what I have to say about all this marketing hype . . . Bah humbug! If Americans are in need of some television personality to tell them what’s worth reading then you’re a nation of very silly people! And I wish you good day, sir.  

THE ROYAL BALLYHOO, a dialogue with the Cynic

CYNIC: Why hasn’t humanity had enough of monarchs, royal bloodlines, aristocracy, and ogliarchs? Why aren’t we heartily sick of of throne-sitters and other such parasites?

REPORTER: I wonder too, but I don’t have an answer. I was hoping you might enlighten me.

CYNIC: Bah, humbug!

REPORTER: Okay. Well, what do you think of the “Royal Baby” phenomenon?

CYNIC: Why all this fuss over a child born into the House of Windsor? Do we really believe that this baby is somehow superior to all others because of his paternal bloodline? After all, only one of his parents is “royal,” and that parent is himself only a half-royal given that his mother, Diana “the Princess” Spencer, was herself from a family of non-royals. Similarly, President Obama is called black or African American despite the fact that he is bi-racial.

REPORTER: Good point. I guess a lot of people have a hang-up about the Queen and her family. And not just in England.

CYNIC: What foolishness. Their lives are very empty, and they need some kind of a thrill. They want to believe in the myth of an elite eschelon of superior beings. It gives them a sense of security, but at the same time they hate them for being rich and privileged.

REPORTER: Exactly.

CYNIC: So why all the media frenzy and public ballyhoo? Thousands of children are born everyday to loving parents, and if each child, healthy or not, wealthy or not, is indeed a miracle then why aren’t the news media crowding around a few other hospital entrances with their cameras thrust forward like the hungry maws of so many sharks? What a royal farce!

REPORTER: May I quote you on that?

CYNIC: Absolutely.

THE OVER-THERE STORY

Feeling overwhelmed, I went into my local pub and sat down in my overcoat for over and hour. I thought, “I wish this episode was over.”  It all started over lunch, when he told me it was over, and I started feeling over the hill, thrown over for a younger lover. Damn it! I fell into a funk and thought seriously about taking an overdose of my over-the-counter drugs, just to get it over with. But I heard it takes over five hours for them to take effect. Huh! Is it worth it? I guess I’m just over-reacting. I’m starting to feel I’m over it already. Time to turn over a new leaf, I guess. I’ll call my closest friend and ask her to come over. Better yet, I’ll invite her out to a restaurant and we can talk about it over dinner.