I’m a romantic. Not in the dozen roses for Valentine’s day sense. In the other sense. And my sense is that there are far fewer romantics out there these days than there used to be. At least in my neck of the woods.
As a result, I feel like I’m getting lonelier and lonelier. Not in a serious way; it’s just that there are fewer and fewer people I meet with whom it feels even remotely possible to form a serious connection. All anyone seems to care about any more is utility, with perhaps a splash of spiffyness.
I hope nobody misunderstands this post as a call for help or anything. Please don’t PM me to try to help me through my sense of alienation. The topic isn’t me, it’s this: what ever happened to the romantic sensibility? Why do people go on cruises rather than explore foreign cultures? Why do people prefer central heat in the suburbs to a little cabin in the woods? I’m not talking about just living with something that isn’t perfect (I don’t live in a little cabin in the woods because the commute would ruin it) - I’m saying, why do people actually prefer central heat in the suburbs? For example. But don’t get too caught up in the example. The topic is romanticism in general. What ever happened to it? I miss it.
There was a battle in the 19th century over what would fill the void now that the religious edifice that loomed over European society had toppled. Would it be the new science, or the new spirituality? Was this rebellion against traditional religion to make way for a new one or to end religion once and for all. The romantics certainly made up a large part of the former (featuring the likes of Hegel, Goethe, etc.) but in the end science–cold passionless science–won. In fact, it swung the pendulum far in the opposite direction–thus you get, in the early twentieth century, logical positivism, behaviorism, materialism, and the like–cold indeed.
But as all movements go, not every candle that lights the flame goes out. Though the fire is all but extinguished, a few candles can be seen to flicker here and there.
People would rather watch TV then read Byron or Wordsworth, they rather go shop at Wal-Mart than at a country store, the 60’s is gone, there is a great loss over the slowness of life, people feel guilty and useless staying home and listening as their heartbeat rhymes to the clock on the wall, they can’t smell the passage of time iN their linens, they can’t observe the flicker of sunlight on the flowery designs of the wallpaper, they don’t drink tea in the afternoon, they don’t take lonely walks on the trails they used to hang, they don’t savor the sunset, they feel poor for not having money, they are restless and they have always to go somewhere, and they don’t count the ways, they are lost, and forgotten, and mostly the have forgotten how to really love, they listen to too much rock, and not enough charlie parker.
Consumerism. It’s easier to market and sell comfort products than romance products.
Follow the money:
A cruise has a fixed set of merchants and products … an exploratory foreign trip has an unpredictable set of merchants and uncertain spending levels. It is therefore in a company’s interest to market cruises and packaged holidays rather than explorations.
The marketer sends out messages playing on human fear and laziness:
The cruise is safe, quick and convenient. Low risk, high pleasure.
Exploration is dangerous and full of unexpected problems which are difficult to solve. High risk, low pleasure or uncertain pleasure.
Consumerism/materialism - either sense of the latter term.
Marketing of surfaces - you are surfaces and your identity is determined by what is that surface or on it or what you own.
Scientism - where only reductionism has explanatory reality - note, scientism is not a synonym for ‘science’.
Pragmatism/utilitarianism
Modularism - all actions actions as the result of replacable modules. There is only action, no being. No essense.
These overlap with each other and have become the dominant worldview even amongst religious people in Western Culture. Sure, they contradict themselves with forays to churches and mosques and occasional outbursts of beliefs that do not fit with these, but the rest of the time their minds are dominated by Coke commerical reality and technocratic reductionism.
Right, Moreno, there are areas of overlap that afford the possibility to retain trancendental pockets among imminent fields. Almost impossble, and perhaps not even noticable. And ironically, these are filled with the glue that holds it together.
I think immanence can be romantic, though I agree withwhat you say here - if I understand it, that is.
I mean, the immanent facets of a forest or a loved one can be the primary part of romantic feelings about them.
I realized that I did not say why these things have taken over. Whatever the correct answer is, it would be extremely complicated, but here are a few causes.
A strong negative reaction to the the Abrahamic religions. We are still in a very strong anti (reaction) period.
The rise of the corporations and the media that allow them to say what is real and important and what is not real and not important.’
The really quite slow filtering down from science of metaphysical ideas. For example, despite the fact that there have been strong trends away from unbalanced reductionism in science, this has not filtered down into society.
If you mean the kind of heightened politicization of things that takes people away from the basics of living then I agree. But people can engage in politics without losing touch. Consumerism? I mostly agree. Though these days you sometimes have to buy the kinds of things that used to be free.
Corporations have been extremely successful. I wonder if this is because of the rise in the technologies that they partner with and control?
Also, would you say the Abrahamic religions are more romantic than, say, the new atheism? I tend to think of them as pretty similar, though there is plenty of room to have a more romantic sensibility relative to either. In other words, neither necessarily precludes a more romantic outlook.
