Comments on: Man and Beast

By: robert_piepenbrink

robert_piepenbrink — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:09:50 +0000

There isn’t much left to say. As Jane says, this is a deliberate choosing of the beast in us, beginning about a century ago, and with the volume steadily cranked up. I keep seeing an old “Peanuts” cartoon, with Lucy shouting “If you can’t be right, be wrong at the top of your lungs!”
It is, of course, a matter of some frustration to me how much of this sort of thing is actually tax-supported. But to the extent it’s still a commercial enterprise, I take some pleasure in starving the beast. Since I have no satellite or cable connection, MTV and its accomplices don’t get a penny of revenue from me to support such “entertainment” While A&E and the History Channel do quite nicely selling me DVDs on the assumption that I have a brain as well as genitalia.
When you watch these things, you pay the perpetrators–and you get more of what you pay for. Give them neither money nor attention, and see how many are left.

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:05:02 +0000

I think we are moving away from the idea that humans should aspire to the best they can be or do, and that the sheer nastiness and ugliness of so much of contemporary culture is partly a result of this. It’s all very well to know that sex always had a dark side, but I think a lack of – acceptance, repression, call it what you will – makes the public nastiness both nastier and more common. What’s that phrase about appetite growing by what it feeds on? When you get used to something you really like, you want more, or new, or different versions to get the same degree of satisfaction. That applies to avid collectors as well as people who like raunchy performances that focus specifically on the most painfully destructive aspects of sex. And they not only need more of the stimulant, they need more of the quality of the stimulant. A society in which a glance at an ankle was arousing gives way to one in which ankles aren’t noticed at all, and naked flesh surrounded by bits of S&M gear (or Lady Gaga in that video!!) is only mildly exciting.

I think another aspect of the same idea is the tendency to treat humankind as merely another animal, which comes out of a hyper-rationalist approach (or perhaps reductionist?) views of the last century or two. It can also be seen in the kind of attitude that animals are exactly the same as humans.

It’s really a logical conclusion if you start from the premise that we all evolved from the same batch of chemicals (and of course don’t consider any evidence that humans have evolved in a somewhat different way than any other organism). From that point of view, humans are just animals, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. Combine conclusion that with the need to increase the impact or frequency of a stimulus to try to maintain the same level or pleasure or excitement, you get Lady Gaga and whoever comes after her and tries to top her behaviour.

By: Lymaree

Lymaree — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:49:32 +0000

And here I thought Lady Gaga was just a pathetic little attention-whore with self-esteem issues and an unreasonably large audience. They are thick out there.

It seems to me, though, that (some) artists have been seeing the world as ugly and hopeless at least since the Beatnik movement, and we haven’t slid off the edge of the earth yet. In fact, the art and craft of beauty are alive and well (or so my copies of American Style magazine insist) they just don’t get on MTV much.

Sex, as it always has, sells, and every new generation thinks they’ve discovered the raw, nasty side of things. What’s more true, I think, is that we tolerate a wider range of sexual expression in public than anyone over 50 is used to. It’s not that sex is uglier than it used to be…it’s that the ugly side of sex that always existed is emerging from the shadows. I’m not sure that’s entirely a bad thing, as something cannot be remediated unless it can be discussed. Repressing this sort of behavior doesn’t reduce it, necessarily.

Don’t ask why Lady Gaga does it, because the answer is “the money.” She may or may not be that way in her actual life. No telling. Many times a public persona is diametrically opposed to the private person. Ask instead why people spend money to watch her do it.