What an Uninspiring Time to Be Alive
America is an incredibly uninspiring place. We have no heroes that are worthy of admiration or emulation. We have no mythos that hasn’t been tarnished or slandered. We have no legends that have not been torn down and ridiculed. Further, the replacements have proven to be woefully inadequate and, more often than not, embarrassing.
This can partially explain why Marvel movies and other entertainment about made-up superheroes and other works of popular fiction have become like a religion to so many, mostly young, people. We hear all the time about how comic books are our modern mythology, the powers and the mighty deeds and so forth. But equating Captain America or Superman to Hercules or whomever is just ridiculous, especially considering those in charge of making our entertainment hate the very characters they are in charge of and work to undermine everything that historically made people identify with them in the first place.
Modern entertainment is a means to make money and push a particular set of morals and values. There’s nothing wrong with making money or using the arts to inculcate certain values. That’s what the arts are for. They always have been and they always will be. But the merciless commodification of what we consider our rather pathetic “modern myths” means that they will always pander to the whims of the marketplace as much as they pander to the whims of those in charge of their creation.
This wouldn’t be so bad if we actually had a common culture with a common set of myths and legends and a common set of values, like the ancient Greeks did, or the Egyptians, or the Norse, or the Anglos, or the Chinese, or the Zulu, or the Inca. But we don’t. Therefore, what is pushed on us as “inspiring” is actually utterly demoralizing to some. This is sometimes unintentional, but far more often than not this demoralization is deliberate and mean. It’s intended to rub one group’s face in the fact that they are hated and must be brought low while some other group can literally do no wrong and is to be exalted above all else. It’s modern fetishism with modern blasphemy laws that are mostly pushed by private enterprises which have outgrown the power of government to rein them in. This is mostly because the American government is as owned by giant multinationals as much as it is by foreign nations. Given the fact that this feels like more of a foreign country than actual foreign countries, it’s no wonder our myths and legends are so muddled and actively demoralizing.
Imagine living in a time of heroes and legends! A time of great art and monumental public works! A time of confidence and some sort of unity! A time when stories informed us and inspired us to be great and to overcome our challenges!
Aside from entertainment, what public figures are there to look up to? There are none. No examples to be emulated. No virtues to be inspired by. Nothing but hypocrisy, graft, corruption, and vice. Maybe it’s always been like this and people didn’t know. Maybe, but I have my doubts.
For some of us, there are still the stories of the Saints who embraced martyrdom over renouncing their Lord and Savior. Others of different faiths with their own inspiring tales. But again, in a poly-religious and actively anti-religious culture like we have now, these do not bind the greater polis together. Because there is no greater polis–we are a series of diasporas held together by the threat of force. What binds this together then? Harry Potter, I guess. Or maybe Star Wars. Perhaps it’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Or Game of Thrones or The Handmaid’s Tale.
I don’t even need to elaborate on how sad this is.
You might be wondering why I lament this, being a writer of fiction. That’s a really good questions because I struggle with this as well. Yes, I hope people are inspired by what I write. No, I don’t think what I write is anywhere near as important as actual myth and legend. It’s a strange place to be in, but it is what it is.
Sword and planet to inspire, not demoralize.
