The Gilead Baptist Church outside Detroit is on a four-lane highway called South Telegraph Road. The drive down South Telegraph Road to the church, a warehouse-like structure surrounded by black asphalt parking lots, is a depressing gauntlet of boxy, cut-rate motels with names like Melody Lane and Best Value Inn. The highway is flanked by a flat-roofed Walgreens, Blockbuster, discount liquor stores, Taco Bell, McDonald's, Bob's Big Boy, Sunoco and Citgo gas stations, a Ford dealership, Nails USA, the Dollar Palace, Pro Quick Luve and U-Haul. The tawdry display of cheap consumer goods, emblazoned with neon, lines both sides of the road, a dirty brown strip in the middle. It is a sad reminder that something has gone terribly wrong withe America, with its inhuman disregard for beauty and balance, it obsession with speed and utilitarianism, its crass commercialism and it oversized SUVs and trucks and greasy junk food. This disdain for nature, balance and harmony is part of the deadly, numbing assault against community.
Chris Hedges, American Fascists, pp 182-183
I read this passage, and could only shake my head. Typical liberal arrogance.
Oh, yes, how shameful that those who are not so well-off have to stay in such tawdry, cut-rate places like Best Value. Such a pity all hotels and inns aren't Marriots or some other where a night's rest would likely cost a week's wages instead of a day's.
And, of course, how unimaginative that stores are in buildings with flat rooves (or is that roofs, I admit I'm not certain). Perhaps Hedges would find them more acceptable if they had...oh, I don't know...domed roofs? Or maybe inverted V-shaped roofs? Steeples? Or like that famous opera house in Australia?
And, oh, that evil junk food. Never mind that the supposed all-natural health food costs a lot, problem doesn't taste all that good, and in likely not even all that much better. It only gives the health-food snobs a source for their feelings of superiority over those who enjoy Big Macs.
So much could be picked out from this excerpt. Wal-Mart, of course, gets mentioned. As do SUVs, those bastions of evil in the liberal mind.
Now, I have a different take on it. You see, I've been to a former Communist country, Russia.
There is a movie, a classic among the Russian people, I think, from the Soviet era. It's a holiday movie, though probably more concerning New Year's than Christmas, that being the Soviet Union and all. It's a comedy movie. The main premise of it is that, after an evening of carousing with his friends, a man unwittingly takes a plane from Moscow to Leningrad (once and now again St. Petersburg). Because buildings in both cities looked essentially the same, he didn't realize he was in a different city, and he even gets to an apartment or flat that is in the same address as his place in Moscow, and his key works and his gets in. The movie is essentially a romantic comedy, so you can guess where things go from there.
Another aspect of the movie is the animation that precedes it. A man, an architect, designs a building of flats. It's a rather basic but a bit ornate design, with balconies and some other bits of decoration. But in order to build it, he must make his way through the Soviet bureaucracy, and in doing so, a bit is taken here and there, and the final building design is about has basic and plain as one could imagine. At the end of the animation, we see lines and lines of these plain buildings, with legs, marching about, even into other, non-Russian places, I suppose to show how that form of housing will eventually be everywhere.
And in Soviet Russia, it pretty much was. I remember seeing city streets lined with these rows and rows of flat buildings. They may have varied a good bit in height or width, but overall there was a dulling sameness to them all, something even the Russian people knew.
So, one must pardon me if I'm not too taken withe Hedges sentiments and logic, if it does not do injustice to the word logic to apply to whatever thinking Hedges was doing. I simply cannot agree with his conclusions, and frankly think that his words display an arrogance and condescension that is rather ugly and unbecoming.
9 comments:
The alternative to crass, cultureless, vapid, consumeristic, antinatural, banal American Modernity is not Communism. Two forms of soulless, nihilistic enslavement to power cannot be opposites. What a pathetic false dichotomy. I suggest remedial coursework in Tolkien and Lewis. And some study of aesthetics and virtue. A visit to a city more than 200 years old would also do you some good.
Hello, Nathan,
A visit to a city more than 200 years old? Would Moscow suffice? Or maybe Bangkok? How about Xian and Beijing? Geneva?
So, you think that American buildings are...well, your list of adjectives. I'll not repeat them.
But the funny thing is, when I have visited other cities, even those of greater years than 200, I have seen much the same sorts of buildings. Oh, sure, there are also the great works of architecture, but you will find those in US cities, too.
If you are one of those who will not soil himself by descending into a Wal-Mart, I do not think that you find the experience of an open-air central market, like I saw in Russia, or the lines of open shops in places like Beijing and Bangkok, with attending yelling to passers-by to enter, to be any more appealing. Not to mention the art students.
Oh, and the taxi drivers are annoying, too. And they will rob you blind, if you're not careful.
Remedial coursework in Tolkien and Lewis? As much as I like Tolkien, it must still be acknowledged that LotR is still a work of fantasy. But maybe you can expound a bit on your point?
And concerning aesthetics and virtue, I find it interesting that the Bible describes Jesus as being a man who was not particularly attractive in appearance. I also find it telling that His commands to the disciples was not to create great works of art or literature or anything else aesthetic, but to preach His Gospel to the world.
I actually quite enjoy open-air markets, and my city has a small one that I like to visit. Nothing like what I saw in China, but really, a fantastic way to shop when temperatures are above freezing. But in China, bargaining is pretty tough for anyone who is obviously a foreigner: it's easy to get ripped off. With taxis, once you learn how they work you're not so likely to get ripped off (unless the meter box has a hidden "foreigner" switch I'm not aware of).
I rarely visit Wal-Mart because I prefer products that last more than 6 months. Plus, I'm fine with buying fewer things and paying a little extra. If people want to shop there, I'm not going to stop them. Neither do I feel the need to praise them for it, nor to treat Wal-Mart as an unqualified force for good in the world. Oh, and art students don't bother me either. Anyway, I thought it was fashionable for art students to bash Wal-Mart.
Every city has ugly buildings, of course. And I was being pretty hypocritical with that statement because the city I live in isn't yet 200 years old. But it is very obvious which parts are newer (mostly post-1950s), and the majority of the newer stuff is rather ugly. That was more my point, which I communicated very poorly.
There are examples of good American architecture, even recent examples, but I wouldn't say it's normal or customary. Utilitarianism has, in my mind, become far too commonplace. We are richer than ever, and yet it seems our wealth has become inversely proportional to the quality of our architecture. Some of our major cities do a decent job, but outside of that, it's rare, in my experience, to find anything built with the notion that it might outlive its builders. I'm too young to be outliving expensive construction projects.
Regarding Tolkien, LoTR isn't simply a work of fiction, it embodies an aesthetic, and, further, some rather anti-modern and anti-industrialization ideas. And I also think it's fair to say that the books would not be what they are if Tolkien had not experienced beauty in nature and architecture in his youth. Both his and Lewis' imagination speak to a world of beauty, not just of the kind occurring in nature, but of the kind constructed of effort and virtue, by those who know they are stewards of whatever resources they find themselves with.
And with the Gospels, I don't think it's methodologically sound to treat them as self-contained and isolated content. Jesus, his disciples, and the early Christians were steeped in the Old Testament, and on this topic the Psalms are particularly relevant. The beauty of the temple, the beauty of worship resonates in the Psalms, and the Psalms were an integral part of early Christian worship. It was commonplace, in fact, to memorize the psalms.
All that to say, it is not from nowhere that art, architecture, poetry, and music are found wherever Christianity has been practiced, from as far back as we have record. As persecutions became less frequent, more and more content has managed to survive. Throughout the New Testament we see that those who are faithful to preach the Gospel are also faithful to live at peace with each other, to rightly order their relationships and their lives. This must inevitably overflow into culture, including industry and art.
One does not come at the expense of the other: both what we say and how we live must be in agreement. Culture, and our participation in it, matters because it is part of God's creation and therefore good, however marred by the fall. All of us live within cultures: we cannot do otherwise. So what we do with our culture matters, because what we do matters, because what we do affects others, and we are called by the Gospel to relationships with others based on love, truth, and justice.
I'm out of time for the moment, but I hope this helps you better understand what I'm thinking.
Hello, Nathan,
I may not have much time right now to respond as best as I can, but I do want to apologize for not posting your comments more quickly. I simply wasn't on-line much over the weekend.
But in looking over your comments, I am grateful that you took the time to respond. It should help clarify things I may not have understood, and I hope my own response will be equal to yours, though it seems you've set a pretty high bar.
With taxis, once you learn how they work you're not so likely to get ripped off (unless the meter box has a hidden "foreigner" switch I'm not aware of).
True, once you know how to manage, one can kind pretty reasonable taxi rates. In Thailand, though, one has to make sure the taxis is on the meter.
Anyway, I thought it was fashionable for art students to bash Wal-Mart.
This was a bit confusing on my part. I meant the Chinese art students. If you haven't been lassoed in by one to see the artwork and have problems getting out without buying something (I mean that mostly humorously), then count yourself lucky.
Every city has ugly buildings, of course. And I was being pretty hypocritical with that statement because the city I live in isn't yet 200 years old. But it is very obvious which parts are newer (mostly post-1950s), and the majority of the newer stuff is rather ugly. That was more my point, which I communicated very poorly.
This is, I guess, getting to the main point of our discussion.
From what I've noticed in the cities I've visited, is that there are often the nice buildings--those of historic interest, or architectural artistry, or the houses of those who are well-off. But I've also found that are places that are more mundane, smaller types of houses or apartments/flats, cheaper stores and restaurants and hotels, the buildings are not as artistically done, or the decorations would be considered 'gawdy'.
In other words, it seems to me that the places where normal people live tend to be more utilitarian, to borrow your own word, simply because that's where people do things.
I can, at least to a small degree, appreciate architecture. But I'm not prepared to say that something of a common make is somehow crass and ugly compared to a more creatively desiger structure.
My problem with Hedges' statement is that I can imagine some Dickens or Hugo self-important royality or aristocrat riding along a similar type or rode, commenting about the ugliness and crudity of the buildings of the common folks. He sits above it all, and disparages the lives of those below him. As someone in that life he is so quick to disparage, I find such arrogance distasteful.
Royality? Yeah, spelling fail. Sorry.
To be fair, my problem is not with particular examples of utilitarian labor/productive output. Exigencies are always present: such is the nature of existence as we know it. The problem is when it becomes an end to itself: utilitarianism.
And your closing sentiment is, interestingly enough, one I think Tolkien could relate to. His time in the trenches in WWI as an officer gave him an appreciation for the lives of ordinary laborers. But it didn't cause him to throw away his education or interests, to adopt an anti-intellectual outlook, or to take the path of least resistance economically or culturally. And that, I think, is admirable.
And again I'm short on time. The dialogue has been interesting so far.
To be fair, my problem is not with particular examples of utilitarian labor/productive output. Exigencies are always present: such is the nature of existence as we know it. The problem is when it becomes an end to itself: utilitarianism.
I can understand that. I suppose my point would be that whether one calls some 'utilitarian' or not is based mostly on perspective.
I live in a fairly rural area. Away from the towns, many of the homes also have a good bit of land, and some of them have barns. A barn, I would say, is a pretty utilitarian construct--it's main function is to house animals and store crops, and by-and-large they weren't originally built for looks.
On the other hand, there is a certain sentimentalism now attached to them--they are one thing that for some represents the so-called 'simpler life', or some such idea. Not withour reason, I guess, but many farmers would likely question how simple or easy their lives really are or were.
And there are, I admit, exceptions. Horse farms often have quite nicely built barns to house the horses, and they are often built and painted to look very nice.
And your closing sentiment is, interestingly enough, one I think Tolkien could relate to. His time in the trenches in WWI as an officer gave him an appreciation for the lives of ordinary laborers. But it didn't cause him to throw away his education or interests, to adopt an anti-intellectual outlook, or to take the path of least resistance economically or culturally. And that, I think, is admirable.
I'm think you know more about Tolkien than I do, but that does seem to be similar to what I've noticed in the Ring books. While he does have places made on a grand scale, like Moriah and Gondor, it seems the place that is most fondly told about, and whose brief defilement at the end was most evil, is The Shire.
I am trying to make people throw away their interests or education, or saying they should.
Concerning following the path of least resistence in economoy and culture, that is interesting, and I'd probably agree with you in a lot of thing. One thing I'm trying to do on the blog is, in an admittedly small way, go contrary to some who are I think taking that kidn of path culturally--those who insist that, since the culture doesn't like X part of Christian beliefs and doctrine, then those things should be discarded.
But I would question if that is what is going on. There are reasons why people who make only $10-15 an hour shop at places like Wal-Mart or stay at places like EconoLodges when they travel.
I'd like to point you to another fantasy author one not necessarily better than Tolkien (I'll not blaspheme :-)), but not a hack, either. If you get a chance, and haven't already done so, you may want to read some of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, particular those centered on Vimes and the Night Watch.
Post a Comment