TEN UNDESIRABLES
One of the greatest ironies that has come out of our contemporary existence is how we have managed to make an infinitely interconnected, globalised world filled with unimaginably closeminded individuals and communities.While it is clear that desire should more frequently reoccur as a topic in both our introspections and public discourses, perhaps desire itself is not the place to begin. Often the best way to figure out what it is a person, a community, or an organisation wants is to ask what it is that they most fear. So, while synthesising our greatest desires may feel the best nightcap to this issue, what might be more fruitful is a foray into the undesired.
1. Erasure
Erasure has become the undesirable zeitgeist of our time. We are determined to erase everything – from flora and fauna, to artic ice, to cultures and languages, as well as communities and societies. Countless languages, cultures, and peoples with their own history stand before the razor’s edge. Modernity took a hammer to tradition. The Postmodern condition was never about knowledge – as suggested by French philosophers – but amnesia and erasure of grand narratives, including history and tradition.The latest erasure, proceeding in front of our eyes, is that of Palestine and its people. In ten years, Palestine and its people may no longer exist, erased by western imperialism like indigenous Americans and so many peoples before. But we must not abide the most undesirable loss of a people, their culture, their history, their light. Evidently, the United Nations, the Declaration of Human Rights, the International Courts are all for naught. The whole world is on one side and the West on the other. The only argument that seems to matter is might is right. The only hope for Palestine is that our capacity for memory does not go the way of our attention spans. The bare minimum is ending the present brutality in Palestine. Systematic extermination is intolerable, but beyond that it might be worth aiming to find a deeper compacity to appreciate the differences between us and balance traditions so that as we enter a deepening in the complex fabric of humanity; and we do not forget where we came from.
2. Some Being More Equal Than Others
Once we managed to outwit the last apex predator above us on the food chain, to maintain our place on the top, our desire to remain so targeted the only one who could threaten that position – ourselves. Although George Orwell might have thought it a clever way to depict the road from revolution to totalitarianism in 1945’s Animal Farm, the penning of ‘some pigs are more equal than others’ also represents one of our greatest undesirables – especially from those who already hold themselves as more equal than others.Yet, perhaps Orwell’s words are merely a statement of reality. Nothing can really be equal, right. But even if we accept this, then there is a whole other discourse to be had on equity. If we cannot be equal, as things stand at the present, because of our history or the institutions that maintain this society of ours, then perhaps through exploring that history in order to understand what happened and seeking reforms in our institutions, we can – maybe – make certain things better. And over time, as long as we do not allow the affirmative actions taken to become new chains of dependence, we might find ourselves more and more equal with each passing generation, equipped with an awareness that prevents the repetition of history.We could begin by trying to respect what differences exist in our world and at least attempting to treat each other with equal respect and dignity. And let us not forget, Animal Farm ended with the pigs losing their pig-manity as they slowly became that which they had originally rose upon against – humans.
3. Loss of Our Humanity
When we are not trying to kill and eradicate one another, we seem rather set on trying to perfect ourselves. In an ultimate twist of fate, in our attempts to perfect ourselves we have fallen for a trick where we unintentionally are abandoning our humanity. Efficiency began quietly but grew as it launched the Industrial Revolution.Asking what the easiest way is to make money quickly became how do I put the least possible money into making more money and the forging of wealth. It seemed harmless and maybe a bit clever to use cheaper products, even when manufactured obsolescence was introduced. If the thing broke or stopped working, then they would have to buy a new one, look at how we cheated the market saturation problem. But then automation rolled along, hitting hard as people started losing jobs. Efficiency reached the heights of its cruelty when it was imbibed by society.Why go through the trouble of writing and mailing a letter when I can just type out a quick email or send a quick text? What’s the point of math when I have a calculator? There’s no time for anything in our fast-paced lives. Isn’t there an app for that? Why interact with the real world when everything is online and seems easier.When we started letting AI do our thinking for us, that was the point of no return. The Post-humanists will disagree that this is an undesirable, they say full steam ahead! But do we desire those images of automatons, creepy hive- minds, and boring homogenous post-human apes pushing buttons? To be human is to be imperfect, to fear death, and ultimately to die.You might learn this from those who came before us if you picked up a book. But the most creative output we see in the post-human future is prompting AI to generate the next image you need (so you don’t have to pay an artist) but it never does quite get past the uncanny valley, does it? If that isn’t the final nail in the coffin of hope for the future in which we have completely shed our humanity, we don’t know what is.
4. Abandonment of Creativity and the Liberal Arts
Education has pivoted from forming well rounded, learned humans towards making efficient, job-ready and employable people – even when there is no guarantee that the careers they prepared for would be around by the time they finished their degree. The challenges we face in postnormal times are unprecedented and require serious creativity and imagination in order for us to navigate them. Meanwhile, universities close departments in the liberal arts and we wonder why people are incapable of thinking. Beyond being able to think, heaven forbid it be in a critical way, we need to be able to work with very little to find new solutions. Who would desire a world where children are not read to, do not read, and do not continue reading into adulthood? Young people should learn multiple languages, explore new cultures, experiment, and wonder. How desirable is a world where the first, and perhaps only, problem solving technique is to check the internet, consult social media, google it, or ask ChatGPT. Creativity is wasted on disgruntled artists who are ignored for AI generated art which requires no intellectual property negotiations and no royalties. And the cherry on top for this is that all along we are being colonised. In fact, it is the ultimate colonisation as we willingly submit with open, yet ignorant hearts, to the bias of others who care nothing for our own true desires, but see to their desires through the AI and the algorithms they have created.They control wants, they hold all the power, they control knowledge.They even control what is truth.
5. The Death of Truth
‘Truth isn’t truth’ gaffed the former Mayor of New York turned lawyer for Donald Trump, Rudolph Guiliani, summing up the espiritu del tiempo of the Post-Truth Age. Our hypersensitive age of political correctness took on the relativism of postmodernism like millennials to ketamine. Relativism makes for some thought provoking ‘films’ and does well for everyone’s sentiments, but it is the death of morality. When everyone becomes their own moral agent, lawless anarchy is the logical conclusion. What those beholden to such misinterpreted philosophies fail to see is that a robust notion of morality is a requisite, to be instilled as a child or in the formation of a society’s adults. But if all is relative, where do we even begin? Maybe in some utopian, drug-induced comma, a world could exist where we do not need rights and wrongs, but the reality is that we are faced with a great many wrongs and even more disagreements on what is right that needs greater discussion and polylogue to sort out. Our contemporary world is too complex, too chaotic, and filled beyond the brim with contradictions. Cop-outs to true thought, like relativism, undermine the great intellectual human project of finding a way to know and live with one another.Those who knowingly feed the machines of fake news and deception, commit a dastardly crime in order to hide from the fact that something truly wrong, and often horrible, has taken place. Extreme cultural relativism is not just dangerous ignorance, it is contra to any desire towards a better human future. Add to this the miscarriages of truth created and promulgated by the AI we allow to infect our modes of communication and information gathering.We need to speak power to truth. This begins with resisting the tempting alure of the post-truth malaise and instead challenging ourselves to contribute towards the larger discourse aimed at seeking truth and ultimately justice.
6. Rule by the Extreme
Lost and aimless in a post-truth world, we have little to desire beyond the comfort of an extreme position to clear up the messiness of relativity and opinions. For many of our deepest desires to be realised a certain level of openness to other ideas and opinions as well as insights and frames of reference is not just helpful, it is essential. As ideologies become more extreme and fundamentalist, choice and freedom become the first victim. Perhaps it is a worthy sacrifice to be living the ‘truth’, but little by little you are suddenly living by the interpretation of others, that by this point if you attempt to criticise, you will become that which is against them, since you are not blindly, strictly for them. Before you know it, you are living in someone else’s interpretation and seeing out the desires of others. And in order to lose out on the protection and purpose given by the extremist rulers, you carry out the increasingly singular, simple, and ad hoc orders, that are progressively more violent, of those who desire to be right and potentially to wield godlike powers. Moderation increasingly marginalised, democracies radically jump from one extreme to the next with each election cycle as more authoritarian regimes double down on whatever oppression is necessary to keep their will supreme. Extremist tendencies to further the extreme creates greater instability as truth evaporates under the heat of suspicion and paranoia. These violent delights indeed, have violent ends.
7. Peace Falling to Pieces
Many argue that we are living in the most peaceful times in history. But the indicators being used to make such claims, when critically evaluated, do not amount to much. It is hard to say there isn’t a country on earth right now that doesn’t have its own civil strife, and quite regularly journeys to the brink of civil war. Additionally, since the pandemic, whenever a conflict does break out, careful steps are taken to appease both sides so as not to create dramatic economics consequences. Other wars are merely forgotten about or contained.We seem to have developed a thick tolerance for conflict and war in our contemporary world that is incredibly worrying. States are allowed to operate anywhere, anytime with impunity and due to the complexity of global trade networks, everyone is too afraid to speak out for fear of backlash in the form of sanctions or international isolation. Human rights violations are no longer deal-breakers. In relation to the breaking of international law, everyone is living in glass houses and why would you want to start throwing rocks about. A weird neo-nationalist survivalism has taken over, where governments and denizens are happy when their currencies are going up, regardless of the costs to their souls or morality.The United Nations, along with various other intergovernmental organisations have failed to establish an order or to demonstrate any agency as wars spring up left, right, and centre without anyone batting an eye. The desire of diplomacy seems no longer to be peace, but to be whatever makes the markets happy, the people, their lives, and their dignity be damned if it must come to that.
8. Harm Coming to the Children (Or Other Loved Ones)
As creatures who desire, long, and hope for something better, if this desire for the better cannot be in sync with those of our children and loved ones and extended for them into the future, then the whole exercise is rather futile. But we cannot forget that hubris can be rather intoxicating.While it is natural to project our hopes and desires onto others, we must not assume that the next generation will desire and hope for the same things we hoped. Things change, so too does context, and if they didn’t our desires and hopes would hold no weight.What we think is important, they may find fickle and rather silly, as we often find the concerns of our parents and grandparents. And what we waste little time and energy on may, in fact, be crucial for them. And for those things that really matter, like traditions and cultures, that we want to carry on beyond us, it is essential that we respect and dignify the next generation so that they will carry on the important stuff. Often the future is held in this contradictory dichotomy: at one moment, we coddle our children and wall them off from the world, and at the next moment we use our children as a human body shield to deflect that which we are afraid of, do not understand, or do not wish to get into. Neither extreme does any good for that future or for those we love.At the heart of desire is choice and choice must be made free.With efforts focussed on educating and leaving behind a world not on the brink of utter collapse, we can have confidence that the choices they make will arc towards the good, the true, and the just.
9. Ugliness
Beauty may indeed only be skin deep, but ugly, that goes right to the soul! And a general state of ugliness is a pretty undesirable thing indeed.While beauty may not always be attained, it is rarely not the aim. And there is no fault in trying. The whole aim of art, from the visual to music to performance and film, is for beauty, the good, to win out over ugly, the evil. Billions are readily spent on the cosmetic and fashion industries alone in order to avoid the most undesirable end that is ugliness. Curated skin- care routines, exploitatively marked up fabrics, and ‘corrective’ measures, ranging from over-the-counter hair colouring to surgical skin bleaching, see us on the road towards aesthetic, age-defying, life-defying idealism. But do our inward thoughts, motivations, actions, and pursuits look as beautiful as the coordinated patterns on the runways at the next major fashion week? Is a pig in lipstick as transcendent as we think? We are pattern recognising creatures and certain things go together to create an aesthetic pleasure, of course we are all different and the spectrum may flow one way or another, but how could great art museums and exhibitions exist if we didn’t agree on at least the ground level. And of course, ugliness has its utility and can easily be weaponised (and for good cause too) but it is never the aim for ugliness, but instead to challenge notions of beauty that might have overspent their time in the zone of fame or that have found themselves otherwise problematic. For beauty to live and shine in our contemporary, like all good things, it must change with the times. Context matters and need not be a linear path. Indeed, it may all be in the eye of the beholder as we may agree or disagree on what is more or less beautiful, but it is essential that the aim for beauty remains a worthwhile pursuit in all facets of life, the vein and the noble. The weeds of this just becomes a matter of taste.
10. The Numbing of Taste
A great battle rages on for the futures of taste. On one side is a nigh futile attempt to undo the results of our last century’s attempts to make what we consume last forever, and more deviously, get us addicted to the consumables that give us the greatest access to inexhaustible capital. On another front, there is a major push to make food organic again (at no spared expense!) while also experimenting with taste enhancing techniques that prevent the act of ‘having lunch’ from seeming an act of self-flagellation. And those trials of taste have played no small role in the first side of the battle, flavour enhancers themselves doing far worse things to the human body than destroying our ability to regulate blood sugar! A third front has also called its banners to war through looking for more sustainable futures approaches to mealtime. One way this front has fought is to find food production methods that work with and even counter climate change. Another way, should climate change make the old way completely untenable, is to find new things to eat, but what disbalances will this create in the further future? Lab-grown meat or insects, anyone? Meanwhile, floating around the periphery of this culinary battle is fad culture, from fad diets to food as fashion. Likewise, a more socially informed and concerned consumption lurks. Is the food we eat actively promoting genocide? Quite likely!Yet, when push comes to shove, it’s the burden on the wallet that cast the winning ballot for what taste good to many – an entirely different, yet not unrelated, problem in much need of address! How much longer will this debate remain palatable! In ten years, many of our favourite meals may no longer be available on the menu.
The point of framing this list on the undesirables was not so that we can place a quick, yet unsustainable plaster on the problem, but so that we can illuminate our true, deeper desires. And desire should be something we take a lifetime of reflection and critical thought to craft, not to fall from one desire to the next and then ask how it all went wrong. Desires can and should take us towards something better, but that only happens in the light of day. Do not fear your desires. Desire more and let us pursue those desires together for a better future.