Sunday, February 28, 2010
trash and triviality
"If we have only trash and trivialities to sell, we must produce trashy and trivial personalities to serve as consumers."
Lewis Mumford, 1944
This is one of my greatest fears: as we trivialize life around us, we trivialize ourselves. I worry that my experience of the world has been reduced to the emotions engendered by a tv sit com. Apparently sit coms evoke mild depression. But essentially, the emotions are trivial and trashy. If we have a constant diet of the trivial and trashy, can we ever feel or think deeply? If we spend our time shopping for clothes, are we able to recognize or connect with great ideas? Are we experiencing life in a mediocre fashion?
Lewis Mumford, 1944
This is one of my greatest fears: as we trivialize life around us, we trivialize ourselves. I worry that my experience of the world has been reduced to the emotions engendered by a tv sit com. Apparently sit coms evoke mild depression. But essentially, the emotions are trivial and trashy. If we have a constant diet of the trivial and trashy, can we ever feel or think deeply? If we spend our time shopping for clothes, are we able to recognize or connect with great ideas? Are we experiencing life in a mediocre fashion?
Labels:
mediocrity,
Mumford,
Simplicity
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