Jed Edgar

3-1-21

Dr. Schuchardt

Visual Symbolism

Apathetic Malaise: The Emptiness of Secular Fulfillment

“I won’t settle for less than perfect. We want perfect children, perfect life,

the perfect husband or the perfect wife” (Lower Your Expectations Bo Burnam). In a

world full of expectations of idealized perfection, we’ve become stagnated in the

malaise of mediocrity. Progress has achieved a sacred stature within secular society,

the true ideal in modern culture is progression. But if progress has become the new

sacred, then that implies that progress must be perfect; if our progression is not

impeccable then we can never reach the sublime of manmade salvation and it is all

considered superfluous. This implication has shaped a humanity that is terrified of

what I call imperfect progression. Fueled by the American dream, the value

proposition of life has shifted, growth and progression is neglected in favor of

maintaining our mediocre status in hope for the quintessential hypothetical: can we

obtain more, can we obtain better, can we obtain perfection? This striving for an

extravagant pipedream has created a stagnation, a stagnation that has become a

national ideal. “Our civilization has achieved a distinction of sorts. It will be

remembered not for its technology nor even its wars but for its novel ethos. Ours is

the only civilization in history which has enshrined mediocrity as it’s national ideal”

(Moviegoer, Walker Percy). The allure of this national ideal is potent because

Mediocrity is non committal, mediocrity allows one to keep their options open,
mediocrity offers the potential of a better life without having to seek it, mediocrity is

the reality of the American dream. Mediocrity has become enshrined by a culture of

ignorance through the insatiable glut of infinite possibilities and the inception of

symbols, which has created a cultural malaise fueled by desire fulfilled by nothing.

Now to understand how the visual symbols of hollywood have enshrined a

culture of mediocrity we must first get a better understanding of what this mediocrity

looks like and how it affects one’s life. The musical Hamilton is phenomenal in many

ways, but perhaps my favorite element from the play is the dichotomy between

Alexander hamilton and Aaron Burr. We see exactly what kind of character Hamilton is

in the song My Shot, Hamilton is relentless, he creates his own opportunities and

unfortunately to his detriment his own “deliverance.” Burr is the complete antithesis

of that, we see this in his song Wait For It. Burr is waiting, waiting for a reason to be

with a girl, waiting for a reason for success, waiting for a reason to be alive. He is

constantly sitting on the fence, “I’ll wait here and see which way the wind will blow.”

Burr wants what Hamilton has, political success, but he never gets it because he waits

for an opportunity rather than creating it. In the same way, we have cultivated a

cultural environment that waits for a hypothetical ideal scenario. I think of my own

life, rather than approaching a girl I find attractive, I wait for an ideal moment, a

moment that never comes and a girl that I never see again. Or to take it even deeper,

we as a culture are waiting for a reason to live, just like Burr we don’t seek out our

own purpose we wait for a purpose to find us. While this waiting creates an

exponential amount of potential, that potential is squandered if it’s never developed.

We become number one pick Raiders quarterback Jamarcus Russell with potential to
change the game of football forever and go on to live a career of mediocrity and

disappointment.

But why is this mediocrity of waiting so alluring? Why has potential become a

commodity we so desperately cling to at the detriment of our development? Because

if our progress is imperfect then we ourselves are forced to resonate with our own

imperfect nature. For it is better to live in the ignorance of the possibilities

stagnation offers than to come to grips with our own defects and ultimately morality.

The character of Jerry Seinfeld in the show Seinfeld demonstrates this fear of

imperfect progression. Jerry has an affinity for breaking up with women once the

slightest flaw is shown. Jerry hooks up with a plethora of women during the nine

season course of the show but none are able to satisfy his expectations. Oh she has

man hands, oh she looks gorgeous in the light but hideous in the dark, she has a weird

laugh, she's pretty great but her roommate is better. To know is to love and to love is

to commit. But that commitment must be enacted often despite that knowledge. To

love, we must accept the flaws of each other and commit to each other regardless of

those flaws. With the allure of endless options at our fingertips the idea of

commitment is terrifying, what if we pick the wrong one?

This indecision is the consequence of symbols that have incepted us since our

childhood. “Am I ready for love? Maybe I’m stuck with what I’ve seen on TV, I grew up

on disney, this don’t feel like disney” (Turning out AJR). Disney raised entire

generations of kids on expectations of romantic love. We never see the after of

happily ever after. For many Disney films the prince saves the girl or they save each

other; they overcome obstacles, fall in love and then happily ever after. The influence
these types of stories have had on kids as they grow up is detrimental to almost any

relational development. We place this naive God-like dependency in our potential

loved one in hopes that they’ll save us from whatever evil witch or dragon that

deprives us. Just Like Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, we view any potential loved

one as the embodiment of completion, completion of our expectations for a perfect

life. Therein lies the problem, resentment is the byproduct of expectations left

unfulfilled. Resentment sows doubt and when doubt is met with the infinite array of

possibilities in contemporary society we are tempted and encouraged to explore

them.

The exploration of these options becomes embodied in a secular culture by

dating apps like Tinder or any other dating site for that matter. This new medium of

of online dating has revolutionized how we meet and interact with members of the

opposite sex. Online dating enhances the chance encounter. It creates more

opportunities to interact and banter with a potential mate, which in turn allows one

to select the best candidate among a plethora of potential mates. This creates an

obsolescence of that awkward first date, where you can’t think of any potential

talking points because you have theoretically already been communicating via the app

for a few days and ideally have at least some type of notion of what kind of person

your date is. It eliminates the need to approach potential candidates in person.

Because the dating app has enhanced the chance encounter there is no longer a need

for a forced tangible meeting, which always has the potential for secular society's

worst fear: awkwardness. Online dating retrieves a courting process. You are matched

together--outside yourself--by some divine algorithm and given the chance to interact
with each other without pressure before dating. This courting process is what we call

in modern times the talking stage. The talking stage makes or breaks a relationship, it

gives both parties the chance to inquire about the potential fit and dynamic of a

relationship without the pressure of it. The talking stage allows one to court another

with the presuposed option of opting out no strings attached, which is a process that

has been coined as ghosting. However--and here's the ironic twist--online dating

reverses the actual purpose of dating. If the purpose of dating is marriage, the

purpose of online dating is stagnation. With the copious amount of the

aforementioned possibilities there is more indecision to commit then ever. What if we

choose wrong? We become Jerry Seinfeld and ghost our potential mate when the

slightest flaw is shown. This is what actor and comedian Aziz Ansari talks about in his

book Modern Romance, “The world is available to us, but that may be the problem.”

The idea of endless potential is overwhelming, so much so that that potential never

blossoms. A culture of undeveloped potential creates a nature of stagnation, which in

turn evolves to apathy. If value is the function of scarcity, then the idea of infinite

opportunities makes a commitment to any single outcome futile.

This loops us back to the idea of visual symbols incepting us. The nonchalant

apathetic character has become cool. The naive hero type of Luke Skywalker is

alright, but that Han Solo character that's who I want to be that guy is cool. Apathy

has become synonymous with this idea of what cool is. Being cool has become a

commodity, the ability to play aloof has become an attractive trait. Because our

visual culture has established characters like Jerry Seinfeld, like Han Solo or even

Aaron Burr as grizzled veterans of life, who look at the meaninglessness of it all and
don’t even blink an eye, are perceived as role models. In an existential secular reality

to meet the meaninglessness of life with an apathetic glare is a commodity devoutly

to be wished. But our apathy never plays out like Jerry or Han, no, our apathy often

results in a life of nihilistic depression. Our expectations for a perfect life turn to

apathy which in turns results in malaise and “nothing remains but desire” (Walker

Percy).