ALIENATED AND IN DOUBT

Any astute observer of our doctrinaire social and political environment will agree that to be right and to belong are the twin scourges of individuality. Nothing is more comforting to the intellectually timid than a club of like-minded provincials. We see it in the intolerance of the Ayatollahs, we see it in the intransigence of the ideologically entrenched and we see it in the hundreds of thousands of well-meaning lost souls who cling to cults like driftwood in a storm.

“Confirmation Bias” is a nice way of putting it and I thank our responsible scholars for giving it such a sweet name. I call it brain-wash and if you’ve mastered the delicate art of emptying the befuddled brain of a sensitive and wounded waif it takes nothing at all to fill it up with nonsense.

An artist friend of mine recently told me a story about his cousin Ruthie. She was going through a painful divorce and her supposed support system was of little use. She was on terrible terms with her family and her confidantes and friends were powerless to console her. She flirted with suicide and like most flirtations, it was never really serious. She tried therapy but that apparently required too much honesty. She was too afraid to find out that her husband left her because she’s a whiny narcissistic bitch.

She finally found help in a cockamamie self-help racket called GroundSign Technologies. There she found just the right amount of slogans and superficial palliatives to make her feel good about herself again. 

My friend tells me that she’s always in a big rush to get to her various classes and workshops which typically begin in the early evening and drone on till after midnight. He complains that he can’t talk to her anymore because an important part of the program are the enrollment quotas she’s expected to fulfill and she’s constantly badgering him to come for a free introductory class.

I tell my friend to relax. It seems like his cousin has finally she found a place to belong.

She’s at peace now because she finally found a place to be right.

Sad to say, but to belong and to be right are the irresistible Bobbsey Twins of the emotionally untethered and the spiritually bereft.

But it’s really a terrible shame, he tells me, and there’s real emotion behind his grief.

My friend must be nursing some serious grudges because the next thing he says is that Ruthie could have used “that very same fearful myopia, that same priceless affinity for tedious repetition and that same desperate craving for acceptance and validation and used it to become an independent curator. At least then I might have gotten invited to be in some Dystopic-Gender -Neutral-Post-Structuralist-Pre-Robotic-Ur-Lacanian type exhibition or two.”

Ouch!

Okay, okay. Maybe I’ve curated a few less than stellar shows and yes, perhaps I used a bit of trendy artsy argot here and there to get some traction and yes, maybe I neglected to include my friend in any of these shows but is that any reason to compare what I do to these merchants of feel-good and fluff? 

Have I ever asked anyone to attend a Leadership and Communication Seminar, a Creativity and Relationship Retreat or an Awareness Training Home Introduction?

I suppose the moral of the story is that none of us are blameless. 

Or as Bob Dylan put it, "You may serve the Devil/Or you may serve the Lord/But you gotta serve somebody"