THE OVERVIEW EFFECT

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening- everything must be said again.” Andre Gide (1869-1951)

The philosopher, writer/critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) wrote about the passage of time in his essay- On the Concept of History (1942). The past reveals itself to “the angel of history” as a series of catastrophes- “wreckage upon wreckage- hurled at the angel's feet.” The angel would like to stay and awaken the dead to make whole all that has been smashed. However- “A storm is blowing that propels the angel into the future- and the angel cannot stop to repair the damage. This storm is what we call progress.”

Those of us who choose to remain engaged with the world (What is “progress”? What is “time”?) welcome Benjamin’s enlightened impressions. They lay dormant in most and bristle in the few as American culture traverses its bumpy relationship with time/progress. 2024 sees the U.S. of A. “overcorrecting” as it censors the past and present reaching for some unknowable perfection- a sort of perverse obsession with an infallibility that never has- never will exist- brushing aside reason, logic and science in favor of conspiracies and other morbid, paradoxical inaccuracies. Our fantastic wishful thinking breeds confusion, revulsion, panic and dread. I recently saw a movie with these bits/pieces swarming around its narrative; Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis (2024)- a story about navigating human error while dreaming of utopia. Coppola’s movie opened recently to empty theatres and dismissive criticism.

In my life (I turned 50 a few months ago)- I've watched advertising (specifically- commercials) go from mildly nerve-jostling departures from reality/soliciting mindless consumption- to ferociously manipulative, astutely produced, weapons of propaganda demanding your attention. The idea that time/progress could be hapless phantoms (or an abused “Angel of History”)- crazed and hungry- spinning forward through the fickle corridors of the “American Experiment”- shoving us nearer and nearer to some kind of unknown territory- well- yes and certainly. What person would deny that the majority of what we see and hear is contradictory and devoid of recognizable heroics? Well- people are scared. The collective sub-conscious is cloaked in alarm. Many reasons for this. 1st- there are more people on Earth than ever before- thus- more to experience fear. 2nd- we’re facing existential demands (not threats- demands) that are not without precedent (planets transform era after era)- but entirely foreign to us. Which is to say- this current grouping of multi-generational, multi-ethnic planetary inhabitants have no handbook for the doom/gloom wrapped in this particular 21st century bow. 3rd- technology checks boxes that are sheer mysteries. We neglect to ask the correct questions before deploying every tech innovation we stumble upon. And there has never been a time (to my knowledge) in human history where climate dangers (Earth's natural process- ridding itself of toxins) is advertised, ingested, interpreted, misinterpreted and mostly ignored- with such proficiency and neglect.

Being at odds with current events- less than thrilled about the state of things- it has forever been up to the common citizen to interrupt these “storms” of progress by reaching full consciousness in the present (giving full/proper meaning to the past- as T.S. Eliot said- “We shall not cease from exploration- and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started- and know the place for the first time.”). Karl Marx said revolts are the locomotives of world history. So revolutions are the wild-eyed passengers on the train attempting to deploy an emergency brake. The fury and fragmentation assaulting our country's central nervous system is a call for an awakening that far surpasses the childishness of being “woke.” It seeks a tranquility that can only be gleaned from incontestable awareness (like the Buddha said- “The Awakened One”- not “The Woke One”). Americans whoosh along on a bullet train with no functional brake apparatus. We relish speed. We worship wealth and power. We overlook the passing landscape (“wreckage upon wreckage…”). We resent those who decry our refusal to survey progress. After all- life is way more than short. There’s too much to do- so much to think- lots to experience. And we loathe feeling bad. We seek pleasure- not pain.

They say you’ll be free the moment you realize your prison is weak and escapable in its composition of thoughts. But how can one be free of “thoughts” in a world where they’re shoveled down your gullet and plastered across your brain on a merciless 24/7 cycle (tech). There are roughly 800 hundred people in this world who can contribute to the cutting edge of Artificial Intelligence research/development. They alone participate in the work, monetize, commercialize and sloganize the whole bloody Frankenstein. The other 8 billion 150 million humans are merely impacted by these actions/decisions. We watch, wait, wonder, wish- then dutifully purchase, consume and suffer the consequences (inevitably sprinkled with some pleasant perks).

So what the Fuck is happening?

The Middle East pulsates with biblical angst and violence in real time. Russia hammers away at Ukraine. America flirts with dictatorships. Western civilization wheezing again- the far east- taking note from a confident distance. Autocracy on the upswing. Fascism is the ruling class demonstrating its inability to suppress popular disillusionment. America is disillusioned. We have the rumblings of those who believe it's simply our turn to experience a mangled democracy ripe for loud-mouth leaders with autocratic leanings- and those who think “it could never happen here.” America is the youngest civilization in the history of notable civilizations. Youth lacks wisdom and hindsight.

The leviathan institutions and criminal entities that seek to enforce the fate of mankind utilize whatever progress and time hands them. They wage constant war on our senses. I frequently marvel when I find a fellow citizen reading a book (in public). The individual reading a book has one foot in this world and one foot in the next (is this not mandatory- to effectively survive this world?). Something better must be possible (as Coppola’s new movie insists). But power discourages inquisition. Books- an active way of acquiring information- are now replaced by reading on computers- an activity passive and riddled with pleas for your attention and money. Everyone who is anyone knows people are reading less and less. They prefer to execute inordinate, precious amounts of time feasting on generous portions of misinformation (overwhelmingly- other people's opinions) fed to them by a tiny lit screen. This info-tainment invades the brain on a superficial level- gob-smacks the aura like television's virginity did in the late 1940's- early 50's. Holding a book and reading it is to be magically- perfectly grounded. Safe from the storm. Reading on a computer screen is playing host to illusory factoids of digitized, intangible half-truths. Words as bits of dimensional pokes. A sea fog drifting over your famished 3rd eye.

“The Overview Effect.” It’s what astronauts feel when they view Earth from space. They see the vulnerability of their home. The scale and the profundity of which alters their presumptions. In assessing where one is at any given moment in time and space- at any interval of your limited lifetime- a safe bet is to repel velocity in favor of a serene devotion to stillness. As time is ghostly and free of perfect explanation- and progress remains undetermined and untethered- both anticipating another one of humanity’s slick answers.

And in this age- A. I. births bots, “fake news”, social disengagement- and other savage circumcisions of the intellect- prepped and doled out like poison pellets for the new breed of rat. You can literally see people being swallowed by the tech gadgets they’re devoted to (a tenet of the Industrial Revolution- “To replace man with machine.”). The “Breaking News!” washes over us daily (much like Orwell's “2-minutes of hate” gatherings in his cautionary novel; 1984- the point; to antagonize.). These hollow blasts of depressing lies and accidental accuracies serve only the entities that monetize the platforms. The demeaned husks are expected to feast on the cavalcade- and lose the world- just a little- in bits and pieces- slowly and surely- every time we gaze into our unexamined creations- alone- all of us- proving our mediocrity with every meticulously administered dopamine hit.

What harm is there in recognizing fragility? Or- slowness. When did this become a flaw in the American character? And how can anyone disagree with the fact that our evolved acceptance of that which we know to be harmful (permanent surveillance comes to mind) threatens to be our only honest claim to the future?

My late father used to say; “I sure don’t know where all this is heading, son.” Neither do I, dad. Neither do I. I mostly manage to convince myself it will be a place I wish to be.

Patriarchal Musings

December 10, 2021. The day my father died.

My father, Jack Beaver, lived with a terribly aggressive colon cancer for the majority of 2020-2021. The rapidity with which the disease progressed (along with some devastating chemo infusions) took dad down like explosives administered to a remote, beloved mountain. After weeks of watching him like a hawk- attempting to comprehend what was actually happening (HE. IS. DYING.)- trying to maneuver him around the house- in and out of chairs and a wheel-chair (no easy task- he was 6 foot 2 inches- weighed a barely diminished 200 pounds)- I finally watched them take the corpse (on a gurney) of the best man I've ever known out of his house. His body left the house. Whatever animated my father- made him who he was- was already somewhere inscrutable to me- with the obvious exceptions of guess-work, myth, legend, abstract belief and hear-say.

My father was (is) the most ridiculously important figure of my life. I say- ridiculous- because it’s truly ridiculous how much he influenced me. There was a psychic influence as well as an organic game afoot. My father loved with his actions. His words were of little consequence. He showed you what he thought of you. You would see it in his very movements while in his vicinity. His moral compass was relatively non-negotiable. His ethical grounds were tailored, windswept and locked-in. The domain was safe. The footing was solid. He was a man you could trust and believe in- just as much as he could trust and believe in you. He was bothered by the injustice he perceived in the world and he'd let you know if you had the moxy to discuss it with him. He was both kind and (unbeknownst to him) a little rough around the edges at times. My mother was as embarrassed by his bluster as she was loyal to his generosity. He took care of my mother for 43 years- right up to her last breath. He watched over his family and was readily at their side when troubles surfaced. And he handled his death with a matter-of-fact'ness that will haunt me to my own departure. It was as if he decided to stop suffering the way one may suddenly decide to not take the freeway home- it's a back-roads day. He said goodbye (“That's it, son. I can't do this anymore. Tell your brother and sister- everyone in the family- I LOVE THEM. I'm going to bed and not getting back out.”) in such a breezy, unpretentious way- that my only interpretation of his actions was that he was showing me how to die; “Here. Watch closely. This is one way you can do this.” He didn't surrender his life- he offered it to the unknown.

Patriarchy; 1. A system of society- government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line.

2. A system of society- government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. A society or community organized on patriarchal lines.

The 1st definition rests easier on a contemporary consciousness. The second accentuates the exclusion of women. The first seems to be primarily concerned with the natural fact that there is very simply one penis at the genesis of a family tree. And we have- a system of society. A system of society- a piece of the puzzle- is very much the family unit. FAMILY; that abyss we spring from and frequently return to where all psychic tremors are sourced and weighed (sometimes brutally so)- where a bevy of actions and thoughts are packaged and exported for the world to distort or compliment. Families have patriarchs. A patriarch can be a very good thing. An invaluable asset. My father was proof. And depending on one's ever-shifting definition of a patriarchy or a patriarchal figure- it sometimes rubs me the wrong way when I see slogans and catch-phrases that espouse- DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY. Of what malice is this phrase allocated to the hordes? How can one aspect of something be the definition of the whole? You can't ask questions about father-figures in a culture without asking questions about what it means to be a man. And this debate around men and what men are in this century is forever being kicked about and re-calibrated. It is not an intrinsically ordered absolute. A government figure- one in power- who abuses his patriarchal standing- is to be condemned. But what of men who are evolving and trying to be good? Is the ultimate goal of this normalization of patriarchal decrying- is the end-game a scattering of testosterone to the wind? Do we desire a culture of unequivocal male shame and guilt? Was this not already the case? What man worth his salt is not aware of his own shortcomings? And who is anyone (man, woman, she, he, they, etc.) if not someone trying to fix what's wrong?

I've been an analyzer since childhood. It's been pesky to navigate. I see layers everywhere. It's hardly something that makes a person special. It makes a person an amusing kind of freak. It doesn't draw adoring crowds. It isolates. My Aunt Josephine was often amused by my analyses of cartoons (Me at age 8 or 9- “That dynamite-toting coyote cannot fall from a cliff and have large rocks crush him and survive for another episode. How absurd!”) I've always leaned toward non-fiction. Non-fiction feels louder and more immediate than fiction. Just look at the world and one quickly sees examples everywhere. Watch the news. Who could write that shit? Truth is stranger than fiction. The manufactured narrative can never hold a candle to what's really going on. The idea that a father figure is something that should be shunned or debased or re-configured into urgent perfection is lunacy. The idea that anything can be forced into perfection may be an apt description of the word- EVIL. A father figure is, by his very nature, flawed. Inherently so. If he wasn't- he wouldn't be properly clocked as a father figure. A matriarch is flawed. A patriarch is flawed. And my father would be the first to admit this much (he often said to me- “Show me a family with no dysfunction and I'll show you a family that never interacts with one another.”)

My first thought the morning he died; “Where is he? Where did he go?” I wasn't alone. Other family members were present. We zig-zagged around each other like pin-balls in a pin-ball machine- dumbstruck and lost in the galaxy. The patriarch of our family was gone. Real gone. And my father was a patriarch in the best sense of the word. Patriarchy is not something that requires demolition. It is something to be properly examined. But what isn't? There is a dangerous whiff rampant in the clumsy stench of knee-jerk response, befuddled modernity- a vast trend that has demanded attention for some time now- this generally accepted decree that there can be little or no debate about what something means. What words mean. What ideas mean. What concepts consist of. What I mean. What you mean. What we are trying to get at.

There are no quick solutions to conundrums that are problematic by design. And human beings are problematic by design. Solutions massage the mind when they are gradual. Evolution demands nuance. And, of course, Wily coyote cannot survive falling rocks in the real world. He wasn't “triggered” by the road runner. He was doing what he does by elemental design (a preoccupation with troublesome birds that may be lunch). The progression of that old cartoon was, in my young mind, that of a fictional narrative.

Non-fiction was something I had to cultivate and helm on my own.

The patriarchal figure I knew and loved considered the evil that men do every day of his life. He read the paper every day- kept current with the news- would have despised some of the Supreme Court's recent adjudications- loathed extremism- actively championed the idea of women in power positions- and spoke with me frequently about how changes need to be made in the USA. Big, hard changes that a lot of citizens are terrified of. Dad wasn't afraid of change in his country. From what I saw- he wasn't even afraid of not existing anymore. Or maybe he knew something we didn't. Maybe he made his peace with the fact that death is not a door that closes- it's one that opens. A door opens and you sail through it.

In a nation badly in need of strong spines and leadership- a person who faces their inevitable death with courage and humility (one time- completely naked- enduring the groping hands of some excellent Hospice nurse professionals- my dad turned to me and said, “The last time I was nude with this many people in the room- I was either showering at work or in the Navy.”)- a man with that kind of character- who wouldn't respect someone who stared down death with such seeming ease and force of will? And what is character if not the circumnavigation of fear without instilling a surplus of fear in others?

Father figures are important. Now, perhaps- more than ever. A society that doesn't recognize this fact is in perilous waters. A culture that shames patriarchal figures into darkness is hungering for its own steady demise- a culture that, unfortunately, looks too much like the one you and I wake up in every day of our tiny, fleeting, imperfect lives.