âSoren Kierkegaard argued that it was the separation of intellect from emotion, from empathy, that doomed Western civilization. The âsoulâ has no role in a technocratic society.The communal has been shattered. The concept of the common good has been obliterated. Greed is celebrated. The individual is a god. The celluloid image is reality. The artistic and intellectual forces that make transcendence and the communal possible are belittled or ignored.The basest lusts are celebrated as forms of indentity and self-expression. Progress is defined exclusively by technological and material advancement. All that is human is obliterated. This creates a collective despair and anxiety that is fed by glitter, noise, and false promises of consumer-culture idols.The despair grows ever-worse, but we never acknowledge our existential dread. As Kierkegaard understood, âthe specific character of despair is precisely this : it is unaware of being despair.â
Those who resist are relentlessly self-critical. They ask the hard questions that mass culture, which promises an unachievable eternal youth, fame and financial success, deflects us from asking. What does it mean to be born ? What does it mean to live ? What does it mean to die ? How do we live a life of meaning ? What is justice ? What is truth ? What is beauty ? What does our past say about our present ? How do we defy radical evil ?
We are in the grip of what Kierkegaard called âsickness unto deathâ - the numbing of the soul by despair that leads to moral and physical debasement. Those who are ruled by rational abstractions and an aloof intellectualism, Kierkegaard argued, are as depraved as those who succumb to hedonism, cravings for power, violence, and predatory sexuality. We achieve salvation when we accept the impediments of the body and the soul, the limitations of being human, yet despite these limitations seek to do good. This burning honesty, which means we always exist on the cusp of despair, leaves us, in Kierkegaardâs words, in âfear and tremblingâ. We struggle not to be brutes while acknowledging we can never be angels. We must be able to see our own face in the face of the oppressor.
The theologian Paul Tillich did not use the word âsinâ to mean an act of immorality. He, like Kierkegaard, defined sin as estrangement. For Tillich, it was our deepest existential dilemma. Sin was our separation from the forces that give us ultimate meaning and purpose in life. This separation fosters the alienation, anxiety, meaninglessness, and despair that are preyed upon by mass culture. As long as we fold inward and embrace a hyper-individualism that is defined by selfishness and narcissism, we will never overcome this estrangement. We will be separated from ourselves , from others and from the sacred.
Resistance is not only about battling the forces of darkness.It is about becoming a complete human being. It is about overcoming estrangement. It is about our neighbour. It is about honoring the sacred. It is about dignity. It is about sacrifice. It is about courage. It is about freedom. It is about the capacity to love. Resistance must become our vocation.â
(Chris Hedges in "America, The Farewell Tourâ)
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