Friday 5 December 2008

The too bearable lightness of being

God is dead and with him is our salvation for eternity. Eternity died, and the present is constantly in our life. Which hollywood star got drunk last night is more worth knowing about rather than what happened in Venezuela in 2002. With the disappearance of this quest for truth in the past, the use of the irrelevant truth today, a vision for the future is now considered the dreams of the fool. Yet, people like Huxley and Orwell did manage to present dystopia which are closer to reality than ever before. But isn't the dream of the future the essence of mankind, or are we running for the sake of running ?

With the industrial revolution came the idea that economic growth is the answer to our problems. The use constant calculation of the cost and profit of our actions is acting without purpose. It destroys slowly values defended by the great thinkers of our past. All the economy works on a negation of the past: forget that Nike used child labour to sell low cost shoes but be reminded they sponsor big sport teams and videogames, forget that McDonalds was just a practical fast-food, be reminded that it is now a family entertainment place.

We are asked to forget our past, how near it is, so we can't learn from our mistake, therefor not asking for a better future. This behaviour we get from the economic sphere influences the economic sphere too. If a government can't solve every problems society have in 6 month, we consider it unworthy of governance, though it is true it's never the best. But who cares about long-terms political programs ?

This negation of the mistakes of our past has also got some twisted logic which is dangerous for society. The news show today's human drama, humanity is denounced for its evil deeds. The result is that we forget where society is coming from. Social trust is in decline because we look at the state of society today, but because we don't consider how it was a century ago. If we consider that society is bad today, how can we hope it could be better tomorrow ? We get strangely give ourselve the salvation of our minds. Stating or knowing the horror like we see on t.v., we all consider that we are better human beings. We are good, the others are horrible, therefor why care about the others. In a way I appreciate the mission of the missionaries on a deontological point of view. i don't support the fact that they thought that their religion was the best, but their was a real interest in helping people you didn't know.

Our individualist society, the overvalued present and the fact that we all play along, and so is the economic and political orders, without making any critic, destroyed the possibility of presenting great designs for a harmonious society.