The zeitgeist today is
overflowing with violence. The mood of the world is kill and destroy.
There is anger in every peace talk and violence in every protest.
The pacifists are talking about
permanently silencing the nationalists and the warmongers are calling
peacemakers terrorists.
We live in a world today where
humans have more luxury and peace than they have ever had and ironically all we
can think about is war. And it’s not just the content. It’s in every walk of
life.
Take marketing for example. The
word ‘campaign’, if you read, has its root in military parlance. And it is used
in that context where your ‘Target’ group has to be ‘hit hard’ with a message.
You may use carpet bombing or sniper strategies. So marketing continues to approach people like
in a war. Only this war is that of narrative. And like any other war, the
people that are actually making it happen are the ones that belong to neither
side. They are simply generating wealth by finding out the most impactful ways
for lords to earn more money.
When in doubt, earn money. That
is the motto. It is very similar to the body’s tendency to accumulate fat for a
rainy day. Blind insecurity making people run like moths to a light. Any light.
Even a flame.
Money is a notional piece that
has been created in the consensual reality so that things can be equated. How
else would you draw a parallel between the value of a one sac of rice and one
pair of shoes? Too many variables would be involved. The need of the receiver,
the quality of the rice and the shoe and zillion other possibilities. Money in
this case serves as a beautiful tool that helps bring it all on one page.
Further years of civilization has made money more and more sophisticated. It
has now reached a point where it is free of physical form. A lot like God.
And in that spirit, it has also become more mysterious and more powerful. So
much so that money in itself is enough.
Art is dead. It is not art until
it makes money and something is art when it makes money. The richer you are, the
more beautiful you are, the more talented you are, the funnier you are. Art is
democratized and as more people like something, more money an artist earns, and
the more money an artist earns, the more he/she is liked by the people. This
gets into a never ending spiral and what it results in is that everything gets
valuated in terms of money.
Oh, he is a brilliant writer! –
How much does he make? Oh, that film is gorgeous! Really? How much did it earn?
With this, opinion becomes measurable and that measure too, is money. And it’s
money because money represents value that people perceive in something. It’s a
token of what people really want. But do people always know what is best for
them as a group? The founding principle of democracy say yes, they do! But
practically, we know, they don’t! This is because those adept at war of the
narrative can easily persuade public opinion. And today, when someone has more
money, by default he/she is seen as more successful and hence more aspirational
and hence more like a role model.
May be this is because the
population of humans has grown so much that those who control money and those
who can afford to see money as a means to an end are an increasingly small
fraction. So small now in comparison to the vast population that they
practically don’t exist.
Art is now gibberish. It is
beyond Kitsch. If it exists, it has drowned in the ocean of content now
floating on the internet like thermocol pieces in the Arabian sea.
