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Conceits in Pop Culture
Jan. 20th, 2010 10:56 amMost of the time, we as humans think that we are the shit. We think our government is ideal (in theory if not in practice), we think our society is cool, we think our history was laid out just for us.
This is conceit. And it is what so many pop culture stories are built on. "The DaVinci Code", "National Treasure", The Indiana Jones movies, The Librarian movies, and many more that I am forgetting. And with the exception of the DaVinci Code (which I haven't read/seen), I enjoy these. However, the whole concept is so conceited it totally makes me laugh.
The idea that hundreds/thousands of years ago people set out to hide something, with the addendum that they want someone to be able to find it, that they put clues in hidden places. It's stupid, in the first place, because they can't know what is going to stay and what is going to disappear in the intervening years (and yet the clues are still conveniently there!). They don't know what's going to happen with culture, language, communication, or anything.
And yet we persist in this conceit that we are so special that generations ago people put these events/clues/whatever in place just for us because they actually gave a shit what was going to happen hundreds of years from when they turned to dust.
I'm sorry, but no one cares about the future that far. Really. We may talk a good game, but at most we are concerned with the way our children and grandchildren, and if we have an eye toward longevity, great-grandchildren, are going to live. Beyond that, it is so not something we actually concern ourselves with.
EDIT: Oh! I forgot the other conceit: the alien abduction/invasion thing. Like the earth is so awesome (and we haven't stripped it 70% bare already) and human society in general is so worth the notice of space-faring peoples that they have to come and try to help/invade/whatever. We are but dust specks in the universe, and most likely so not worth the notice of aliens that probably have better technology than we do anyway.
I'm not saying these conceits are bad, because if nothing else it does produce some fun, suspend-disbelief types of stories. But really, it's utterly ridiculous and I enjoy both watching/reading those types of things and laughing at them at the same time.
This is conceit. And it is what so many pop culture stories are built on. "The DaVinci Code", "National Treasure", The Indiana Jones movies, The Librarian movies, and many more that I am forgetting. And with the exception of the DaVinci Code (which I haven't read/seen), I enjoy these. However, the whole concept is so conceited it totally makes me laugh.
The idea that hundreds/thousands of years ago people set out to hide something, with the addendum that they want someone to be able to find it, that they put clues in hidden places. It's stupid, in the first place, because they can't know what is going to stay and what is going to disappear in the intervening years (and yet the clues are still conveniently there!). They don't know what's going to happen with culture, language, communication, or anything.
And yet we persist in this conceit that we are so special that generations ago people put these events/clues/whatever in place just for us because they actually gave a shit what was going to happen hundreds of years from when they turned to dust.
I'm sorry, but no one cares about the future that far. Really. We may talk a good game, but at most we are concerned with the way our children and grandchildren, and if we have an eye toward longevity, great-grandchildren, are going to live. Beyond that, it is so not something we actually concern ourselves with.
EDIT: Oh! I forgot the other conceit: the alien abduction/invasion thing. Like the earth is so awesome (and we haven't stripped it 70% bare already) and human society in general is so worth the notice of space-faring peoples that they have to come and try to help/invade/whatever. We are but dust specks in the universe, and most likely so not worth the notice of aliens that probably have better technology than we do anyway.
I'm not saying these conceits are bad, because if nothing else it does produce some fun, suspend-disbelief types of stories. But really, it's utterly ridiculous and I enjoy both watching/reading those types of things and laughing at them at the same time.
