Soulless, Without Myth
Rising from the evening’s rest I was in a surly frame of mind. I felt haunted by the spectre of college football. You know that fall season of televised spectacle where many millions of dollars are marshaled to fill magnificent stadiums with students, alumni arrayed in team apparel, some with painted faces, immersed in a pageant by which television advertising revenue flows to academic departments within respective universities.
Football programs of “higher education” nationwide are going full-bore. Late in the evening, all that comes with such events, – the incessant commentary, the parade of commercials, hawking new vehicles, vacation destinations, etc., left me with a sour taste, a revulsion at the insipid, unending self-promotion, and frivolous, empty affluence being shilled.
We communicate incessantly…
We post, share and like.
The ritual contemplation that blesses
the content of collective consciousness
gives way to the intoxication of
communication and information.
The noise of communication silences the song
in which all villagers join,
the one great story that unites them.
Community without communication
gives way to communication without community.
The neo-liberal narrative of performance turns every individual
into an entrepreneur of his own self.
Everyone competes with everyone else.
…When everyone worships the self,
is a priest of themselves,
when everyone plays to the gallery,
gives a performance of themselves,
no stable community can form.
Myths are ritually staged shared narratives.
The crisis of narration by Byung-chul Han, page 62
