Filed under: Investigations into cognition
There’s a moment in 2002’s Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla when a police officer, a few miles away from the ominously approaching atomic beast, watches in stunned wonder as the monster reduces buildings to smoking rubble with its electric blue plasma breath.
He’s simultaneously frightened and riveted by the spectacle.
In 2005’s War of the Worlds, as the alien war machines make their first appearance, Tom Cruise’s character pauses – along with others – to look at the towering instruments of the world’s impending destruction with a sort of half smile, like a child enchanted by a new toy.
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as “smart bombs” rained on Baghdad, a group of men and women – middle class American office workers – gathered with their lunches in an empty conference room, tuned into CNN and watched the remote controlled catastrophe on a large, flat screen television.
…
Shortly after 9/11/01, Baudrillard wrote the following about the day and its meaning:
All the speeches and commentaries betray a gigantic abreaction to the event itself and to the fascination that it exerts. Moral condemnation and the sacred union against terrorism are equal to the prodigious jubilation engendered by witnessing this global superpower being destroyed; better, by seeing it more or less self-destroying, even suiciding spectacularly. Though it is (this superpower) that has, through its unbearable power, engendered all that violence brewing around the world, and therefore this terrorist imagination which — unknowingly — inhabits us all.
That we have dreamed of this event, that everybody without exception has dreamt of it, because everybody must dream of the destruction of any power hegemonic to that degree, — this is unacceptable for Western moral conscience, but it is still a fact, and one which is justly measured by the pathetic violence of all those discourses which attempt to erase it.
It is almost they who did it, but we who wanted it. If one does not take that into account, the event lost all symbolic dimension to become a pure accident, an act purely arbitrary, the murderous fantasy of a few fanatics, who would need only to be suppressed. But we know very well that this is not so. Thus all those delirious, counter-phobic exorcisms: because evil is there, everywhere as an obscure object of desire. Without this deep complicity, the event would not have had such repercussions, and without doubt, terrorists know that in their symbolic strategy they can count on this unavowable complicity.
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full here
We entertain ourselves with both imaginary and real images of massive destruction. Even as we cringe, we look on in fascination.
What element of the human psyche is revealed by investigating this element of our behavior?
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Crap! I keep getting my posts cut off lately.
What I said:
>It is almost they who did it, but we who wanted it.
Comment by belledame222 04.14.06 @ 8:07 amShit!! it happened again!!
alright, I’m posting this on my own blog.
Comment by belledame222 04.14.06 @ 8:08 amI often think that the idea of God has a similar resonance with the human psyche. Could it be that we watch on in awe of such destruction because we know that sentience itself is the cause?
The universe is a spectacle in its enormity. Star systems coalesce, asteroids smatter the surface of planets larger than our capacity of scale can comprehend, suns blink out and scatter their debris across depths of space bigger than our perceived realities. This is nature, beautiful beyond all measurable scale. ‘God’s’ playground.
To watch on as enormous acts of destruction unfold before your eyes, to know that consciousness itself (whether an ancient dinosaur; an alien intelligence; a ‘democratic government’; a terrorist organism) can have such effects on the universe – this is where the awe arises.
Destruction is a consciousnesses way of saying ‘Hello universe / Hello God. Look at me!’.
It’s pretty cool being self aware.
Comment by Mr. Danieru 04.16.06 @ 10:17 amDestruction is a consciousnesses way of saying ‘Hello universe / Hello God. Look at me!’.
………..
Undoubtedly, there’s a strong element of that: using destruction as a means of going from invisibility to blazing visibility at a single go.
Putting aside for a moment the moral and political considerations (e.g. destruction as an instrument of dominance as appears to be the case with both the US’ invasion of Iraq and the terrorist/insurgent bombings of real and perceived internal foes) it may be that our fascination with large scale catastrophe – both engineered and “acts of God” – is an extension of that part of our evolutionarily determined reflex to turn our head towards, and gaze attentively at, a source of danger (as even domesticated pets such as cats and dogs will intriguingly do; an alert stillness that’s fascinating to watch).
Instead of a predator on some broad savanna it’s a thermobaric explosive liquefying a building.
Comment by Dwayne M. 04.16.06 @ 1:37 pmThat doesn’t explain why we slow down to peer at the car crash. The obvious evolutionary response would be to see the danger and get the hell out of there pronto.
Humans thrive on other people’s misery. The basis of humour can also be explained this way (I believe).
If the universe were sucked into a transdimensional black hole tomorrow the human race would be the ones arguing over front row seats
Comment by Mr. Danieru 04.16.06 @ 8:13 pmIf the universe were sucked into a transdimensional black hole tomorrow the human race would be the ones arguing over front row seats
………..
Brings to mind Douglas Adams’ description – in ‘Hitchikers Guide” – of an interstellar restaurant temporally positioned at about a half hour before the universe’s death.
The pan-galactic elite of our era pay astounding fees for time phasing transportation to the restaurant.
There they witness the final cataclysm from behind the safety of a force shield while enjoying theme drinks and gourmet food.
Of course, there’s a long waiting list.
Comment by Dwayne M. 04.16.06 @ 8:26 pmLeave a comment
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