If we do not enact an ecological critique of the technologies and industries of the spirit, if we do not show that the unlimited exploitation of spirits as markets leads to a ruin comparable to that which the Soviet Union and the great capitalist countries have been able to create by exploiting territories or natural resources without any care to preserve their habitability to come - the future - then we move ineluctably toward a global social explosion, that is, toward absolute war.
Bernard Stiegler, Technics & Time
War. That is the current state of play in the world. War of comfort and consumption, war of waste, war of the frivolous and the trivial, war of the non-essential. This of course is the Great War: the battle for the soul. But we are losing, because we are fighting the unseen 'enemy' of our Self without knowing it is our Self.
Take the film 1917 for example. It's up for eleven Oscars, has had more hype than the launch of a new smartphone, and is your typical pyrotechnics, CGI, and gimmicky shock-fest. War has never been so exciting, and yet... At any rate, when they were making it, they came up here to Govan, just beside my humble little cave by the river. They filmed a scene at the dilapidated Princes docks on the River Clyde. I remember seeing the looming yellow cranes from Partick on the other side of the river (presumably to hold up some green screens to blot Glasgow out) and thinking that there was some grand palace being constructed. When I got closer, the whole area, which had already been fenced off by the council some years previously, had had black lining put up against the fence to prevent anyone from seeing what was going on. I, however, with my rat-like sensibilities and local knowledge, managed to slip by the security detail (staring into phones), and see the actual palaver required to make this one, short (three minutes), and relatively uneventful scene. I counted 19 HGVs, 5 cranes, several hundred people (crew, actors, extras, caterers, flunkies, security, drivers et al.), countless shiny SUVs, and just a general mess of carbon and pollution. I wondered how far they had travelled, how much carbon they had released into the air thus far, and how they did all this for a scene that, after I had seen it, was convinced I could have shot on my small digital camera for less than a fiver and with none of the pollution.
And I thought, no wonder your world is fucked. If only you could see what I see...
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