In what we call our civilization (from the Latin civilis meaning 'city-state'; in essence a congregation of large numbers of people living together in a localized, selfgoverned conurbation independent of other similar global enclaves, therefore the word as we now use it—etymological evolution notwithstanding—is something of a misnomer since with 'civilization' we in fact refer to the totality of all political entities whose citizens live relatively—and often remarkably, but let’s chalk that down to the universality of human nature—similar lives, culturally and technologically, and whose territorial concerns are generally broken into increasingly smaller administrative demesnes and overseen by increasingly smaller fractal forms of local government; in essence a holistic term for the conglomeration of post-colonial city- and nation-states, a sort of latinate synecdoche; basically, what’s known as The Western World, though it could be more accurately described as The World of the USA’s Exported Synthesis of European Culture and Homegrown Entertainment Which Other Nations Seem to Like Because of the Previously Chalked-Down-To Universality of Human Nature) schadenfreude reigns. We are lustful creatures: violent and sexual animals, but now (and for thousands of years past) able to control, regulate and disseminate these base hormonal urges into entertainment as an outlet for our evolutionary-holdover instinctual survivalist behavior patterns. I hate to fill up on tired old analogues, but Roman gladiatorial combat is still the perfect example to illustrate the human thirst for spectacular bloodshed. We repackage sadism as amusement, death as entertainment. We always have, and we always will.
In that age-old dichotomy between the so-called 'low arts' (i.e. mainstream culture; instant-gratification escapism) and 'high arts' (philosophical fiction; reflections of the human condition) there is one element, one undercurrent that runs through everything human culture produces: pain. Everything we do, everything we write or stage or play deals with negative emotions and detrimental circumstances, and more often than not are concerned with overcoming these. We are fascinated by pain and by loss and by grief and despair and death. Even those works—both high and low—which purport to be happy or uplifting are usually descriptive of the aftermath of the banishment of negative emotion or the surmounting of apparently-insurmountable obstacles. We can only be happy after we have suffered.
What are almost unanimously described as the best works of art are those which can bridge this cultural divide and speak to something deep within the human psyche while still superficially entertaining and amusing; those works which can be enjoyed on an emotional and intellectual level. Something an opera-snob won’t turn his nose up at and a popcorn-muncher won’t dismiss as wank. I can think of very few examples from any sphere of culture, which goes to show how damn hard it is to pull something like this off. Shakespeare comes to mind. He wrote his plays pretty much for the money, to appeal to a broad audience and to fill as many houses as he could; it just so happened that he was also a literary genius who could get right into the soul. Nowadays, of course and perhaps unfortunately, Shakespeare is considered high-culture and somewhat elitist, not to be understood by the Great Unwashed. He still resonates down into low-culture, though. Ever see The Lion King? That’s pretty much Hamlet. Thor? Partially King Lear. West Side Story? Almost entirely Romeo & Juliet.
I can’t stop here, though, without mentioning Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet adaptation. I reckon that was the most faithful modern adaptation of any of Shakespeare’s works, for the simple fact that it got it. Luhrmann’s movie was basically what Shakespeare’s play was, way back when. A spectacle. Big and bold and entertaining and meant to be enjoyed rather than studied. A lot of people get so caught up in what something means that they often forget to just go along for the ride. Not that analysis and critical theories aren’t important to a text, they can add a lot of insight and increase enjoyment by increasing understanding, but sometimes they can override the text, and then the interpretation of art becomes more important than the art itself, and that’s definitely a bad thing. That’s why so many people groan at the mention of Shakespeare, because it conjures up images of stuffy old professors made of tweed pipecleaners telling you what you should think about The Merchant of Venice. (Protip: it’s about revenge. That’s all you need to know. About most of Shakepeare’s plays, actually.)
So but I’ve digressed here. I was saying that Shakespeare had been elevated from low-cultural to high-cultural status, then started to trickle back down again into popcornland. That’s probably because the people who make the really great low culture are almost always familiar with and inspired by high culture. The only problem with taking your cue from Shakespeare is that it’s not his plots that made him brilliant (he stole most of them anyway); it was his characters. You see, in good literature, great things happen. In great literature, it doesn’t matter much what happens: what matters is who it happens to. The reason that Great Literature is in fact great literature is empathy. Empathy and sadism. We want to see characters suffer, really suffer, and then come through at the end. We like seeing our heroes beaten and tortured and broken down, only to rebuild stronger and smarter and finally triumph. Because of empathy. And sadism. We like knowing that other people—fictional though they may be—have bigger problems than we (the audience, that is) do, and more than that we love knowing that they can get their shit together and come out kicking ass, because if this one guy that somebody made up can do it, then maybe I can too. And it’s hard—really fucking hard—to write proper great characters. Macbeth would have been useless if Lady Macbeth wasn’t such a psycho, and Macduff wasn’t so stubborn. It would’ve been some bland pseudohistorical medieval-Scottish powerstruggle rather than the psychological thriller it is. Because people can’t empathize with things that happen, people can only empathize with other people. And adorable talking animals.
So empathy is at the core of art, but what’s at the core of spectacle? That’s where the sadism really kicks in. We love to see our heroes triumph, but moreso we love seeing our villains fall. But what if we’re indifferent? What if the people we’re watching aren’t characters, but are real people? Worse, what if they’re celebrities? It seems (according to a study published in Scientific American) that gossip is an important part of being human. It’s a callback to our days of living in tribes, when it was to the benefit of everyone to know everyone else’s business because that way the tribe could function more efficiently as a unit, as one consciousness. As we started congregating in larger and larger groups and as cities became the new tribes, so personal concern for one’s neighbours evolved into the more anonymous Gossip. We feel like we need to know the minute details of a complete stranger’s life for the good of the tribe, only the tribe doesn’t exist anymore so we don’t really know why we’re compelled to pry and this manifests itself in morbid curiosity. Just like we’re fascinated by death because we don’t really understand it, so are we fascinated by this nosey impulse because we don’t know why it’s so important to us to know what underwear Paris Hilton has on.
From the beginnings of the city-state in ancient Babylon and Sumer, through its perfection in Greece and Rome, then its resurgence during the Renaissance and on to its evolution into the nation-state in modern times, people have become more and more anonymous to one another, because so many live in such a small area. Once you surpass Dunbar’s number, concern becomes curiosity and further, curiosity becomes obsession. What once was familiar is now impersonal, and the more people who live in one place, the more difficult it is to get oneself noticed. Hence, fame—as a phenomenon—has exploded, and certain people become public figures—celebrities if you will (from the Latin celebritas meaning 'fame', so that’s pretty straightforward)—as a result of their achievements, but now achievement seems to be a minor criterion for fame, with even the fifteen minutes decaying into fifteen seconds, with culture getting faster and fame’s half-life getting disproportionately shorter. People are now famous for being famous, because people love being talked about and people love to talk. I won’t do anything so gauche as use an Oscar Wilde quote, but you know the one I mean. Because of the impersonal nature of celebrity gossip, sadism has taken over from empathy. Famous people (perhaps because of envy, perhaps simply because of our violent, jealous nature) are not the heroes of our stories, but the villains. Like the Roman gladiators, who fought to the death for the amusement of the crowd, modern celebrities now simply live for the amusement of the crowd. And instead of pitting gladiators against one another in the coliseum, we pit our celebrities against one another in a much more dangerous venue: reality television.
We claim to be an enlightened people, we Westerners, with a strong moral compass. Certain things are Wrong. Killing is Wrong. Gladiatorial combat seems barbaric to us, because Killing Is Wrong. What used to be bloodshed and death is now the controlled spectacle of Reality Television. Jersey Shore, The Hills, Big Brother: all this stems from that bizarre pleasure we get from watching things going wrong for people. Whereas back then, 'going wrong' meant serious injury or death, now it means losing your job, breaking up with your boyfriend, not having the right shoes, not being able to lose 50 pounds in a week. We have convinced ourselves that we’ve evolved intellectually since Roman times, simply for the fact that we don’t kill indiscriminately anymore (let’s not go there, though); murder is illegal and all that, and yet all we have done is diluted the Roman Spectacle and in so doing denied our baser instincts, which are inherently a part of us. The Romans understood and embraced the human animal, accepted their instincts. They could live with the darker aspects of humanity. Maybe then they were more enlightened than we are. 'Gnothi sauton', the Greeks said. Know thyself. The Romans certainly knew themselves. They had no illusions or pretensions about the fact that people are murderous and violent, and no matter how many vague analogues or simulacra we modern civilizations produce for our bloodlust, it’s still there and always will be, however we dress it up.
That universality of human nature I talked about? That’s what makes this possible. That’s why Big Brother has been franchised to no less than thirteen different countries. That’s why Perez Hilton is in the top 500 most trafficked sites on the web (which may not seem like much, but keep in mind there are over 182 million sites in existence). That’s why no matter where you go, people will talk. No matter where you are, people will talk and people will want to watch each other go down in flames, and the further removed from someone you are, the more enjoyment you get from it. So maybe 'civilization' isn’t so much of a misnomer after all. Maybe it’s the perfect word for what we are, only instead of referring to our political structure it refers to our cultural cohesion. The human race is one global city-state of gossip. People talk about breaking down borders, about the Global Village, about Utopia. Well, Utopia’s here. Not in any one place, not physically or geographically, but culturally. Our civilization is a conglomeration of post-colonial city- and nation-states, but spectacle? Chalk that down to the universality of human nature.
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