Once More, with Weirdness

{I do want to respond to nadezhda in greater depth at some point. I also understand that this is a bit impressionistic-like most discussions of culture. For now, however, let me say that I think our differences are explained less by gender than generation- the older I get, the more I sound like a character in a bad “gen x” movie.}

What I fear most about the future is that it will be intensely uninspired and uninspiring. J.G. Ballard was similarly fond of saying that he feared the future would be defined by boredom, a vast “suburbanization of the soul”, punctuated only by random acts of psychopathology. Living in the suburbs, this seems a real possibility. My wife once summed up the major problem with the bourgeois culture as such, “How can I be expected to live a life with no adventure?” A culture that abolishes adventure will make an adventure out of abolishing that culture. As for the future, it’s striking that even discussing the “future” now feels a bit retro.

Therefore, it’s hard to side with those who would like the culture wars to end. Culture matters. I disagree with the culture warriors on a number of issues, but not with the sense that, when we struggle over cultural issues in the public sphere, we’re struggling publicly over private terms of existence. Unless we take part in that struggle, internally or externally, existence is something given to us, instead of made by us. When we discussed The Republic, it was hard for me to fully condemn the censoriousness of Plato. Isn’t it better to tremble at the power of poetry than to see all cultural expressions as consumer items, no more threatening than deodorant?

I agree that many of the current battles of the culture wars are insipid, but beneath them I sense a deep yearning for cultural meaning- for questions that one simply cannot remain neutral on. I suspect that this yearning fueled many neoconservative dreams about a new crusade, and it’s interesting that plenty of those neoconservatives were once left-wing radicals. The cultural projects of the “new left” were once bracing. I disagree with many of them, but respect the sheer impossibility of remaining neutral on communal living, “returning to the land”, dropping out of society, “political lesbianism”,  open marriage, free love, mystical religion, drug-induced enlightenment, black power, the search for one’s “true self”, or any number of long-abandoned projects that tried to imagine that a different world (or at least a different self-hood) was possible. Now, one senses a deep fear of change on the left and somewhat futile reaction on the right. Opposing reaction means defending the status quo?

Much of the left thinks behaviors and mores should be a matter of private choice, and so they tend to espouse a neutral “menu of options” with each one being held as equally valid. I think nadezhda is right that the bourgeois virtues undergird a society in which people are free to choose for themselves without interference. Nevertheless, the right still holds up a specific cultural vision of life as superior to the others, while the left increasingly opts out of the discussion. The problem is that this gives one, increasingly unattainable, way of life an aura of “realism” and “seriousness” and makes the others into isolated and esoteric subcultures. Conformity does not only result from legislation. Again, it can result when the large questions of life are taken as answered and inappropriate to discuss; to my mind, the right sees them as answered and the left hardly discusses them.

A bigger problem comes if you find those bourgeois virtues to be singularly uninspiring. I’ve said that the criticisms of bourgeois life have not changed for 200 years: that it is creatively, sexually, spiritually, and intellectually stifling; that it is empty and devoid of meaning; that it requires full commitment to “values” that amount to decorum. Ultimately, I fear that we live in unheroic times. Again, the cultural left once had a critique of this life, while the right defended it. Now the left defends it and the right yearns to “return” to a purer version of essentially this life. It’s hard to enlist in that struggle.

I’m no wild-eyed bohemian. My wife and I have bought in the lifestyle completely. At 32, she runs a therapeutic practice that is personally and financially fulfilling. I’m finishing a PhD. We pay a mortgage in the suburbs. We’re here; now what? Do we shop, read, and follow television programs until we die? Frankly, we’re both about ready to cash in our chips and leave the continent. My sister did that, moving to Morocco five years ago. All of our friends are overworked, underpaid, stressed out, guilty about the environment and the wars, not particularly enthused about their jobs, and tired of a culture they find vapid and empty. It’s hard to be told by people my parents’ age that they fought all the exciting struggles so we wouldn’t have to. But, every time I suggest to someone my age that they live in a different way than we do (and our parents did, honestly), I hear the same thing- “that sounds so 70s“- I find the comment very revealing.

On the whole, I really am glad that my parents’ generation went through these struggles to provide the opportunities we have for a better life. And I’m not arguing for reversing those gains or leaving them undefended. But there are two problems I have with the way of life of us and everyone we know: 1. It’s just not enough to buy into for the next five decades or so I have on earth, and 2. Given the slow-motion collapse of the economy, the natural environment, the American dream, a sane government and meaningful politics, defending the status quo seems, in itself, a tad reactionary and unrealistic.