Totalitarian worlds or the inhuman collectivism of ant-like societies are often depicted as two of the more unpleasant reckonings that lie in store for mankind. Yet sense tells us that a variant of such fiction has already descended upon us through growing homogeneity of the physical and mental worlds. What our forefathers may have thought unacceptable we admit as part and parcel of everyday life.
Observers have remarked on the similarity of outlook in all parts of the United States. The Industrial Revolution crowned man master of his physical environment and industry makes for man-made worlds. Uniformity in the realm of thought is even more striking. Tocqueville, an aristocrat, envisaged in 1840 the kind of despotism that democracies might give birth to. He considered it as an absolute, mild, and tutelary power whose essential function would be to procure man the petty pleasures with which he gluts his life while softening, bending, and guiding his will. There would remain a flock of timid and industrious animals that the government would shepherd.
But there is more to come. The instruments of mass communication act incessantly towards standardization within and across national boundaries: the similarity of television-fed conversation, Hollywood's cultural hegemony, and the exactitude with which newspapers reproduce the news they receive from press agencies show increasing uniformity. People hope for and fear the same objects.
Still, homogeneity will not be classified as good or bad. It produces people capable of cooperation even as it alienates the individual (at least in the short run). Yet it increases the average man's happiness and allows him to express himself and to be understood. At the highest level, the rise of a world economy means that differences between nations will diminish. Though pessimists forecast immobility analogous to that of the Roman Empire or artistic and intellectual sterility akin to that of Ancient Egypt, others believe that the powerful forces of science, boosted by the entrepreneurial spirit that democracies are said to foster, will offset such risks.
The network of complicated rules that frame modern society is despotism of a sort. The lives of the Japanese 'salary-man' and his Western counterpart provide the base for the erection of human hives. These are the very evils against which past writers have warned us. But modern man continues unabashed. Perceptions and values change with time. If standardization numbs you with ennui, you can turn to fiction for relief. One day, perhaps you will take to the streets. (January 1986)
Copyright ©2002 Olivier Serrat |
